VARIETIES.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 272, 1 June 1866, Page 3

VARIETIES.

— * — A Telegraph Incident.— The Paris correspondent of the Irish Times tells the following story:—" The electric telegraph is an official and government establishment in Prance, and those employed in its working are not very intelligent, as my story will show. I know the story would be a better one if it was invented, as half the telegraphic stories are, but this unfortunately true, therefore it will be dull : — A commissionaire brought a message already written to the office in the Eve Lafayette in Paris. The clerk began quietly to count the words, when suddenly he gave a start, and widely opening his eyes at the messenger, asked him, "Are you sending this despatch yourself, or has it been confided to you by another ?'/ " I only bring it, sir, for a gentleman in the Eve Fontaine." " Oh ! I see ; his address is at the bottom. In any case, however, wait here a moment." A person is cautiously sent round by another door and a policeman is called in, and the words of the despatch are anxiously communicated to him. They were as follows : "I have thought of a better and more expeditious means of killing Eaure. (Signed) Mery." A policeman's instinct is to believe crime to be probable because it is possible; so the gentleman in the blue coat and tight waist went to the house of M. Mery, placing some of his brethren of the force in various surrounding attitudes to observe the premises and to see that no one escaped, and yet the denouement was extremely simple ;M. Mery and M. Duloche have been for some time dramatising the poem of Don Carlos for the music of a beautiful opera to which the sweet-souled composer Verdi is just now giving the finishing touches. ' You will recollect that Schiller, the author of this beautiful work, kills the Marquis de Eosa (the part in the opera destined for Eaure, the singer) by a musket shot. Mery was thinking of some other mode of death mio-ht be more agreeable to the audience, and so he sent this telegram to his friend. The clerk suspected it to be something serious, and the policeman, of course, smelt in it the last arrangement ofa horrible plot to assassinate. The affair has caused much laughter in Paris. The Amebican Civil Wab. — The printing of . the official reports of the battles of the late American war, with such correspondence and documents as the Secretary of War can with propriety furnish for publication, is now to be commenced forthwith. The superintendent of the public printing of the United States estimates roughly that these papers will fill 20 volumes. Eleven thousand five hundred copies are ordered to be printed. The aggregate cost will approximate 350,000 dols. The roster, or roll of all field, line, and staff officers of \ volunteers, also ordered to be printed, ' with a statement of casualties and other explanations, will make four volumes of 700 or 800 pages, also costing not less than 1 dol 50c for the printing and i binding of each volume. . He that never w&s acquainted with ad , versity has seen the world but on one side, and is ignorant of half the scenes of nature. ' If men would follow the advice which 1 they bestow gratiously on others, what a 1 reformation would be affected in their characters. ii One reason why the world is not reL formed is, because every man is bent on U-refarmina Othera-whilebiit-JGawL ihinkj(\f