MISCELLANEOUS.

Southland Times, Issue 1205, 4 February 1870, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

An Incident in Mb Bbight's Life. — I have recently heard an incident respecting Mr Bright which redounds so much to his credit, and so completely clears up one fact in his career, that I think all your readers who love truth better than political prejudices will like to hear it. They will remember that during the cotton famine Mr Bright was severely censured for not contributing to the relieFfund, and that his niggardliness was contrasted with the munificent gift of £10,000 made by Lord Derby. All that time Mr Bright was keeping on his workmen at three quarter time wages, and was sinking thousands upon thousands, week after week, year after year, until by the time the war came to an end he had paid a total sum compared to which Lord Derby's gift was a mere bagatelle. During all th's time, while he was seeing the savings of a lifetime disappear, he said nothing to all taunts that were uttered against him. At last, Mr Garth, a lawyer, who was then a candidate for Guildford, made a charge against Mr Bright so sweeping and so false that the member for Birmingham was bound to take notice of it, and to correct bis calumniator in no very mild language. Even then he did not refer to what he had done for the men whom he was accused of oppressing. But a friend— unknown, I believe to him — went to Lord Derby, laid a statemeut before him, and asked if, after this, he thought the organs of the Conservative party ought to continue their attacks on Mr Bright. " Good God, and he said nothing?" was Lord Derby's reply. Thenceforth the attacks ceased. — Correspondent of Western Morning News. Ceoss Purposes.—- It was customary with Frederic the Great of Prussia, whenever a new soldier appeared in his guards, to ask him three questions, viz. : " How old are you ? How long have you been in my service ? Are you satisfied with your pay and treatment ?" It happened that a youag soldier, bora in Prance, and who had served in his own country, desired to enlist into the Prussian service, and his figure was such as to cause him immediately to "be accepted. He was totally ignorant of the German language, but his captain gave him notice that the king would question him in that language, the first time he j saw him, and therefore cautioned him to learn by heart the three answers that he was to make the king. The soldier learned them by the next day ; and as soon as he appeared in the ranks, Frederic came up to interrogate him. His majesty, however, happened to begin with the second question first, and asked him, " How long have you been in my service?" "Twenty-one years," answered the soldier. The kiog struck with his youth, which plainly indicated he had not borne a musket near so long as that, said to him, much astonished, " How old are you?" " One year, ant please your majesty." Frederic still more astonished, cried, "You or I must certainly be bereft of our senses." The soldier, who took this for the third question, replied firmly, " Both, ant please your majesty." " This is the first time I was treated as a madman at the head of my army," rejoined Frederic. The soldier, who had exhausted his stock of German, stood silent ; and when the king again addressed him, in order to penetrate the mystery, the soldier told him in French, that he did not understand a word of German. The king laughed heartily, and after exhorting him to perform his duty, left him. • THE AGBICITI.TTTBAL LaBOTTBEB IN" France. — "While in some parts of England men are discussing what to do with the agricultural labourer, in certain districts of France the farmers are occupied with the opposite question of how to get labourers to work their farms. In the central districts of the country around Vendoine, where the Kevolution has left a considerable number of great landowners, and where the grande culture still prevails, men cannot be found to cultivate the land. On some farms where 50 labourers would be required there are not more than 18 or 20 to be obtained. The scarcity of labour is attributed to the conscription, but the difficulty is not confined to labourers. There is even a scarcity of tenants with capital, and wealthy proprietors have on their hands finely-situated farms for which they cannot get occupiers. In these circumstances the proprietors have bad recourse to the co-operative system. M. de Gouvelle, one of the largest, has carried out this principle with success, and according to his own showing, obtains a j greater return than the tenant-farmer I could give him. The Obigin of Confuting Jttbobs fbom Meat and Dbete. — The Gothic nations were famous of old in Europe for the quantity of food and drink which they consumed. The ancient Germans and their Saxon descendants in England were remarkable for their hearty meals. Gluttony and drunkenness were so very common that those vices were not thought disgraceful, and Tacitus represents the former as capable of being as easily overcome with strong drink as by arms. Intemperance was so general and habitual, that no one was thought to be fit for serious business after dinner ; and under this persuasion it was enacted that judges should hear and determine cases fasting, and not after dinner. An Italian j author in bis " Antiquities," plainly affirms that this regulation was framed for the purpose of avoiding the unsound decrees consequent upon intoxication, and Dr Gilbert Stuart very patiently and ingeniously observes, in his " Historical i Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the British Constitution," that from this propensity of the older Britons to indulge excessively in eating and drinking, has proceeded the restriction upon jurors and jurymen to refrain from eating and drinking, and to he «yen held in custody, until thej had agreed upon their verdict.

Beecher's Advice to Yotma Doctorsv — Henry "Ward Beecher gives young doctors the following advice:— "lt is nature that cures. The less a doctor does the better for, his patient. It .is the doetor'B bu3ines3 to take the credit of what nature does. Cultivate a look of mystery. Every mother of a sick child studies the doctor's face. Come ia softly, but with tbe air of a mild conqueror. Look piercingly at the patient. Then look from one to another of the persons present. Say to the nurse, in a low tone, ' I think you have a right view of the case ;' and before you leave say to the mother, ' I could not have done better for the case myself than you have done ' If the child gets well, as it will, nine times in ten, if you let it alone, you will have the credit in that family of extraordinary skill. If it dies, it, will only bring out the moral view, ' We must all die. When one's time comes no skill can cure,' etc. But if yon really mean to try the medicine dodge, you must choose your school. If you are to be an allopathic you need but three things: opium, calomel, and antimony. Anything that cannot be reached by them ought not to be cured. With these three swords you can slay all diseases or all the patients ; and, in either case, there is an end of suffering. If you select the homoeopathic treatment, you have only to buy a manual and a box — about as large as a cigar box — -of pillules or tinctures. After a little time, you can put pill to system as rapidly as the post-office clerk can distribute the names and boxes. If silence and mystery are not jour forte, you may have equal success by judicious talking. Many people can be talked out of anything. If laudatory words do not abate symptoms, they* may increase reputation. The patient may die, but, if those that still live think that you are the most knowing doctor that ever they met, (and its your fault if they do not), then you are sure of beiag called again. Always have an eye to the future. Whoever dies, see that the living like you. Dead men furnish no practice.'* A Cbitiqite— The New York Nation, gives this clean cut notice of Mr Horace White's translation of one of Bastiat'g best works : — " Mr White's part of the work is exceedingly . well done, and not the least valuable portion of it is his preface, which is a very useful introduction to Bastiat. Of Bastiat* it need only be said that he has never been answered, and that he is unanswerable, and that he has produced one of the clearest and most elling statements in existence of the free trade theory, or, to put it more correctly, of the laws of human nature which regulate the interchange of human services— a statement in the presence of which protectionists are as helpless as savage spearmen opposed to a civilized army bearing breech-loaders. The discussion, as he conducts it, is hardly exciting. It is not a combat, but slaughter ; and anybody who wants to knowwhatfree trade doctrines are, stripped of all excrescences in the shape of figures, and set out in style so sparkling, that; it reads altaostJike a. vaudeville, cannot do better than study the * Sophisms.' Mr White, by the way, expresses in his preface his wonder how the protective system * ever came to be called the * American system.* The explanation is simple enough. The tfew York Tribune has persuaded hundreds of thousands that it was invented by Henry C. Carey, and is now being taught by him to benighted foreigners, and that Henry Clay first emr bodied it in legislation ; so that people have got a kind of patriotic attachment to it as a native product. The fact is* as Mr White points out, that it is a piece of . old European machinery, in use there, in one form or another, for four or five centuries, and nearly as much opposed to every idea which can fairly be called American as the doctrine of the divine right of kings, or the patriaprotesta of the Boman law." A Quebec paper says : — " Since the landing of his Royal Highness Prince Arthur, at Halifax, on the 21st of August last, he has not been idle, as the following record will show : — During his sojourn he has received and replied to 161 addresses in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario ; attended 107 luncheons and dejeuners, and 39 balls. The prince has also danced with 340 partners, received . over 1,700 special bouquets, shaken over 15,000 hands, given 69 presents, and has been elected an Indian chief. He has shot 150 head of game, has travelled 4 ,800 miles, and has heard some 2,000,000 • G-od bless him.' AH this to be accomplished in seven weeks was pretty severe work. The Prince now desires peace and quiet to rest and recruit himself." A hundred and eighteen sparrows have been offered upon the altars of science. As was tbe case with the Pagan sacrifices, their entrails have been carefully inspected, in order to furnish guidance to the inquirers. But it has not been in search of the cabalastic information to be derived from quaint contortion, or the credited, though impossible, absence of the heart, or some other vital organ, that the sacrificial knife has been bared. The contents of the stomachs of the victims have been examined, tabulated, recorded. Three culprits alone, out of this hecatomb of the favourities of Cytherea were proved, by the unsparing search, guilty of having lived for the past four-and-twenty hours upon grain. In fact, there were three thieves out of the 118 ; all the other victims had worked, more or less, for their living. Beetles, and grubs, and flies, and larvae of all obnoxious kinds had been their diet; In 75 of the birds infants of all ages, from the callow fledgling to the little Pecksy and Flapsy - that could just twitter along the ground, hardly any but insect spoglie were detected. What would the starved and industrious pioneers who have reared their wonderful temple and city by the Great Salt Lake have given for the aid of an army of English sparrows against that greater and more formidable host of grasshopers which thrice all but annihJU ated the settlement ?— Builder.