GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 93, 12 July 1879, Page 3

GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

When the British ships, under Lord Nelson, were bearing down to attack the combined fleet off Trafalgar, the first lieutenant of the revenge, on going round to see that all hands were at tho side of his gun. So very unusual an attitude iu a British sailor exciting his surprise and curiosity, he went and asked the man if ho was afraid. '• Afraid P" answered the honest tar; '" No! I was only praying that the enemy's shot may be distributed in the same proportion as prize money—tho greatest part among the olticers." By the last mail (says tho Bendigo Advertiser) a lady residing in Sandhurt, who is a relative by marriage of Captain Melvill, the gallant young officer who sacrificed his life whilst protecting the colours of his regiment in the disastrous engagement which reference is made to the death of tit" hero of the occasion. We have been furnished with the following extract : •'I am dreadfully grieved about poor young .Melvill, ' the adjutant of the 24th regiment, lie married just three years ago at the Cape E.'s favourite: sister, and came home last year to tho Staff College at Aldershott, with his wife and a little boy a year old. lie had not been in England a week when he was ordered to rejoin his regiment at the Cape, as this dreadful Zulu war broke out ; so he left his wife and child at home with his family iu Cornwall, where she has been ever since, and now poor girl, she is left a widow and has another little son only two mouths old; she is not ycl 21. Uno consolation to her will be the noble way in which he died, as he was fortunate enough to escapo the battle oflsandala, but was last seen cutting his way through over 100 natives, he was de"teimined to save the colours of the regiment, which had fallen into tic hands of the enemy. After being mortally wounded in seven places, lie rescued the colours, whih he had tied around him, ami swam the river in time to lie down and die, knowing, as the papers say, that, he had saved the ho mur of his country and regiment. A more noble or glorious death, of course, i.o saldier eeuld Jp issthly die. lie iquite the hero ot the 'lay; the papers are full of his wonderful bravery, and he was mentioned in Parliamcn'. Tbe Queen is to present his two little hoys with the Victoria Cross in admiration of their father's singular bravery in saving her colours at the cost of his own life, and is also going to give them a commission in the army when they grow up."

Says a Southern exchange: The Marquis of Normanby has been rather astonishing the natives over tlio water by the severe simplicity of his style of living. Accustomed to tlio somewhat pompus manner of a certain worthy knight, they are hardly able to realise that a live marquis can be so homely. The following illustrative story comes from an Australian paper: His Excellency, who drives in a buggy as an ordinary farmer, and not in appearance very unlike one, had occasion to drive into town one day last week, and left his orderly, who had not hud time enough for his toilet, behind him. This might have escaped notice'had not his servant he n ol,served coming exasperated and perspiring on. i hi;;;U stepping horse at a.great speed, after jhis Excel leney as lie caine along a-dci'ig, " L>id youseo the Governor t" The question was put to one of the. police on Prince's Bridge and the answer was, " No, by gorar, but I seed and uld man dhriviu by who had just come f.iom Government House." " That's him,' said the ordeily, and increased his speed.

Blackwood's Magazine thus speaks of the aristocracy of the United States :—ln all the larger cities of the United Stattß there is a class which openly calls itself, and is openly called by others, the wistoiracy;and the more modern members of it are endeavouring as miieh as possible to adpot the manners and customs of aristocratic* in other countries, to .contract matrimonial alliauoos wit* ttew anil to bow down before them. TfflOy put their servants in livery, emblazon the panels of their carriages with heraldic devices in which coronets and insignia of nobility, and even royalty are visible. Some have purchased property abroad, and call themselves by its well sounding forei.m name ; others have adopted the names of noble families, and some Have .even gone so far as to assume foreign titles, which they use when abroad, and with the crest and armorial bearing W which oven at home they stamp their uu te paper and decorate their dinner menus The demand lias become N•» tended io this direction that two heralds office, have actually been opened in • fashionable part of New \ork to not, whore coast-of-arms. ores s, and mottoes may be obtained to suit the name, taste, and pedigree of the purchaser.

i'n.lor the banting of - Truth strainer than Action," the Hanavatu Time* baa the following:—" Daring the hearing of an application for a protection order, and custody of children, heard betoru .Mr. Ward, Police Uigiatrato at Poxt in, at a late iitting, sunn- facta were elicited which, were they not substantiated upon oath, would certainly be worthy of but small credence. A woman" named Rotanna Bond, living at Hulls, applied fur a protection order and to have the custody of her two children—one a baby

id 22 years, the second being 10. lii support of .so singular an application, and in explanation of the- somewhat paradoxical appellation of ' baby ' bestowed upon an adult of 22, it waa sworn ovidenee that the ' child' had never, from the time of birth, increased one iota in maturity. Notwithstanding the number of years which had passed over the head of tin: sough-forward, it appeared that it had to he carried about in the arms, can neither speak nor recognise anybody, and required to he spoon-fed like a newly-born baby. During the healing of the case if transpired that while neither bodily nor mental developement had ocurred, the usual facial, change in conformity with the number of years had taken place, so that to the beholder there appeared a woman's head < n an infant's body. The father and mother hail lived very unhappily, and, being separated, the latter wished to have the custody of the charge of whom she seemed particularly fond. Under the circumstances, the Court made an order that she should have custody during the lifetime of the child, which it considered, would also probably embrace its infancy."

Underthe heading " Kerosene Dangers," the English Mechanic of February 7 says: —"A correspondent mentions a source of danger in using kerosene lamps, which seems to have been generally overlooked —namely, the habit of allowing lamps to stand near hot stoves, on mantelpieces, and in other places where they become heated sufficiently to convert the oil into gas. N it. uufrequcutly persons engaged in cooking or other work about the stove will stand the lamp on an adjacent mantelpiece, or even on the top of a raised oven; or, when ironing, will set the lamp near the stand on which the heated iron rests. It is u lless to enlarge upon the risky character of such practices."

The Dayblod, which, according to the Copenhagen L'oirespoudent of the Pall Mall Gazetto, is usually a well-informed newspaper, makes the .statoment that the purchase of Heligoland by Prussia is believed to be imminent. The amount of the purchase money is now .'the Danish paper says; under deliberation.

A young man at Wandsworth, Kugluml, recently accidently shot and killed his mother while showing her a loaded revolver.

Tile amount of revenue which tie German Government estimates to l> derived from thetnew protective duties i 100,0U0,0UU marks.

An Englisn missionary named Penrose is supposed to liave been murdered, with his entire party, by the natives in the region of Victoria iSyanzo. Marry Anne Tichborne, alias (liton, wito ol lioger Tichborne, alias Ortoit was recently lined five shillings for nut sending her daughter to school.

The French Government is about to appoiut consuls to the city of Metz and the town of Muihouso, which were taken lroui the French in the late war.

There are men employed as legal copyists in Berlin, who a few years since owned their own carriages. The want of work is felt throughout Germany. A Danish sailor, in February last, was in Washington, building a boat lßj feel lung in which he proposes to Bu 1 around the world from Boston next SUtu-

It is whispered amongst well informed persons in London that in selecting Lord Lottos for the post of Governor ol New South Wales, the British Cabinet have in view the I'udoratiuli ol Australia.

At a public, meeting in the country, a farmer while' relating something to the company about two Uuinesj women, said •• I declare they were the ugliest wou.e.i I have seen anywhere." There happenin" to be two maiden ladies present of no remarkable beauty, the fanner, who was a little misty, began to think that he had made a mess of it, and that they wou.d imagine he was alluding to them ; so to put matters straight, as he thought, he iidped " the present company excepted." Boars of laughter ensued, and in a few minutes, both the fanner and ladies had vanished.

At one of his concerts, de Moyer executed a very brilliant composition ou the piano; whioh, however, required a vast display of physical force. After its conclusion the Archduke tune up to thank tho artist, mid said, " I bavo listened to Thalberg " (a bow fio.n He Meyer)," I hare heard Liszt' (another bow); but neither the one nor tho otnei' (another Low) ■« perspired us much as you hare,"

" How old are you ;" u stranger n.-ked n little fellow who wusellingnewspapon at the corner of a l'aris boulevard, corofullv reckoning up his gains, and «mng cbuiigo with a practised hand, " bix, was tho laeonic wplv. " And how long have you bm carrying ou 'bis busiuoss I With a roguish look, uud bendiug down to fold his papers on the pavement, as it bo would she* bow easy it was for him to ntt md to two things at once, hn auHwered, " How long I Oh, eversiuce I was I child:"

Many .if the ills and diseases prevalent among womeuin our day aie (sayt the Popular Scientific Monthly) do doubt traceable to the nJantary mode of life so eoinwon wining thorn. They are freed from much of tho household drudgery to v\ hicli women wore formerly subjected, and thi' result is, in too niutiy oases, want of sufficient occupation for needed bodily exercise. Tho fruits of this state of things are strikingly exhibited in certain observations made by tho lute Mr. Robertson, a Manchester surgeon, who, in his practice as aspeciulist for women's diseases, found that in women who themselves performed all their work thero was no truce of certain complaints; that these complaints begin to make th. ir appear* anoe in. women with one servant, become more pronounced in women who have two servants, or worse still with those who have thrceeervuuts, and so on. Heshowedstatistically that the deaths from child-birth wero four times greater in tho case of women with four servants than those with' none.

In the list of those newly decorated (says the Military Gazette) with the Order of the Indian Empire, we notice two names eminent in Indian journalism, —viz., those of Mr. George W. Allen, of the Pioneer, and Mr. William Digby, of the Madras Times. Wo can call to mind no similar instance of the bestowal of distinctions of this kind on members of the newspupor Press. Jj u t nono who are aware of the influence which these gentlemen have exercised on public att'oiis by worthy labour in their vocation, will either question the propriety of thus distinguishing the profession, or the fitness in selection of the recipients of these honours.

The North American Indians are, it seems, not decreasing in numbers, as is generally believed ; but, on the contrary, are sensibly increasing. This curious tact has come to light from an official investigation of statistics on the subject decided upon last year by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington, and which has since been diligently prosecuted by the medical attache of the Indian Bureau, Dr. Kellogg. The rale of increase has not yet been determined ; but the figures examined by Dr. Kellogg, as furnished from more than seventy agencies under the control of the United States Government, put the fact beyond dispute that the births among the tribes are in excess of tho deaths from normal causes. Allowance is made even for death from dissipation, and, indeed, for every ordinary cause of death among the Indians, except gunshot wounds or injuries in battle. Tho census of the Indians siiews a tofal of about 170.000. Tiie popular notion that the '■ noble savage" is extinct, or nearly so. seems, in fact, to be a delusion. He still exists, as we have lately found to our cost in South Africa; and although, owing to the influence of civilisation, ho is not quite so '■ noble; " as formerly, ho is as much a savage as over, and all the more formidable now that he has dropped his nobilitv.

Some of the American papers have struck out n new lino in journalism. They publish a weekly list of marriage lic.'uees, giving the names in full of the candidates for matrimony. This is how the Ban Francisco Chronicle of the 2nd of -March introduces the aspirants for marital rights:—"Licensed love! Seventy more joyous and light-hearted people 1 Marching to the front of danger with all the impulsiveness of fervent love, come seventy more kindred spirits, who, during the past week, havo obtained marriage licences. Witness the cooing couples." Then follow the names in full.