MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

Southland Times, Issue 1559, 2 April 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

♦ It has cost London £3,984,000 for public improvements within five years . Air as a motive power has been successfully employed at Brunswick, Maine. The air is compressed by a water-wheel, and connected through a two-and-a-hajf inch pipe under ground three-quarters of a | mile, and furnishes the motive agent for an engine at the railway station, used for sawing wood. i Bishop Temple, says the " Examiner," from his experience of boys in the middle and upper classes, calculates that about 3 boys out of a 1000 should at all hazards get a superior education ; he thinks the 997 may very well be left to such education as their parents can give them. Shakspeare is to have a statue in Parklane, London. ! The women of Eome are getting up a subscription for the statue of G-aribaldi, , to be erected before his death. Washington Irving once said of a pompous American diplomatist : " Ah, he is a great man, and in his own estimation, a very great man, a man of great weight. When he goes to the west, the east tips up." " Eainbow colored eyes superinduced by external unfriendly influences,." is the Cockney for " a black eye." " Which, my dear lady, do you think the merriest place in the world ? " " That immediately above the atmosphere that surrounds the earth, I should think." " And why so ? " " Because I am told that there all bodies lose their gravity." A Thbilling Spectacle. — A Pennsylvanian correspondent of the New York World describes how an individual named Donaldson — a tight-rope walker and magician, as he styles himself—had on the previous Wednesday made a balloon ascension, with no basket attached to his balloon ; nothing whatever, in fact, but a common trapeze. Upon this he seated himself with the greatest coolness and composure, and went floating away into space, to the astonishment of the large crowd who had gathered to see him. At the height of 300 feet he commenced balancing himself on his back on the bar of the trapeze, and going through other fearful evolutions. He then deliberately slid down from the bar head downwards, and catching himself by the feet remained suspended for several minutes in that awful position. The appalling sight was one never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. A thrill and a low murmur of horror passed through the multitude who were looking on with intense interest, and many hurried away from the sight, giddy and faint. The daring aeronaut, however, went through his evolutions successfully, and, regaining bis seat, went I soaring rapidly and steadily upward. When at the height of three-quarters of a mile he had the astounding nerve to repeat his performance, which, at so great a distance, could only be seen by the aid of glasses. When descending, the balloon struck the roof of Henry Connard's residence, when Mr Donaldson made a skilful leap from the trapeze, and prevented a collision. The balloon then ascended and came down again on the other side of the road in a field, and was about striking the top of a tree, when Mr Donaldson turned a somersault on the trapeze rope and prevented the bar from catching in the tree.