PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume 21, Issue 216, 21 March 1872, Page 7

PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

Dr. Tyndall, in his Fragments of Science for Unscientific People, thus compares the performances of science and those of spiritism :—": — " The wonderful narratives were resumtd ; but I had narratives of my own quite as wonderful. These spirits, indeed, seemed cluaisy creatures-, compared with those with which my own researches had made me familiar. I therefore began to match the wonders related to me by other wonders. A lady present discoursed on spiritual atmospheres, which she could see as beautiful colours when she closed her eyes. 1 professed myself able to see similar colours, and more than that, to be able to see the interior of my own eyes. The medium affirmed that s':e could see actual waves of light coming from the sun. I returned that men of science could tell the exact number of waves emitted in a second, and also their exact leugth. The medium spoke of the performance of the spirits on musical instruments. I said that such performance was gross in comparison with a kind of music which had been discovered sometime previously, by a scientific man. Standing &t_ a distance of 2ft from a jet of gas, he could con mand the flame to emit a melodious note ; it would obey, and continue its song for hours. So loud was the music emitted by the gas-flame, that it might be heard by an assembly of 1000 people. These were acknowledged to be as great marvels as any of those of spiritdom. The spirits were then consulted, and I was pronounced a firstclass medium."

.This is the description of a terrible infant which is said to be in Ferntree county, Tennessee : — " The prodigy is only three years old, and weighs 75 pounds firm flesh, has as much beard as a twenty year older ; his feet are eight inches long, though small for one of his build — of course he is fond of the society of girls, but the boys he detests. His voice is coarse, and his fits of passiorr are terrific. He expects to marry next year and go to Congress the year after, with the Presidency in the near perspective."

Munich is peculiar in its way of caring for the dead. It is requii ci by a law of the city that every corpse, whatever tho cause of death may be, shall be publicly exposed at the cemetery before the burial service can take place. The other day ten bodies were laid out in the Hall of the. Dead, at the entrance to the old. cemetery The rigid features of the dead could be clearly seen through the broad windows of the room. # Ths bodies were elegantly draped with flowers. In t!ie right hand of each one was a small cord that reached upward to a bell. A watchman is always at hand. Burial alive |s supposed to be impossible under this arrangement. The law has been enforced for hundreds' of years, but there is no record of a life saved by it.

The recent debate jn the Wesleyan Conference as to the admission of married ministei-s (says the Melbonrue " Daily Telegraph ") has aroused some curiosity. The Conference is not prepared, it seems, to welcome any number of ministers with wives and families, and the reason has not yet been explicitly stated. It is this. A minister in connection with the Conference is in a yery different position to a Church of England or an Independent clergyman, whose official claim upon t\\& church ceases when. he severs his connection with any congregation. The Conference undertakes to find its ministers with cjbtriots, and married ministers are promised certain house accommodation, and a certain minimum salary. Young and unmarried ministers take junior places and receive junior salaries. The Conference has now several married ministers in excess of the number of iirstelass districts, and it is anxious to I €oits duty to these gentlemen before it enters into new contracts with strangers by admitting them into the connection A number of ministers thought that the Conference would be justified jn

declining to receive new applications fliis year, but it was resolved to consider each case on its merits, inasmuch as there is a prospect of a well-known English clergyman of great pulpit power being induced to settle in the colony, and every exertion, it is felt, should be made to secure his services,

Information received from reliable authority, says the "Mount Ida Chronicle," induces the belief that t! c lock-up at Macraes is .a simple absurdity, the constable in charge being compelled to take the. prisoners, of whatever sort, siae, or' description, • into his house as a part of his famih , This is really too bad, and forcibly r< - minds us of the time when the late Mr. Monson looked upon and treated all prisoners as members of his family, giving them privileges which at the present time (except at Macraes) it would be ridiculous to expect.

The following is what the " "Wellington Independent" thinks about the recent prosecution for a breach of the Sabbath ; — " An innocent carter, who, with his dray loaded with wool, drawn by six horses, happened to complete his journey at Dunedin on a Sunday, has been brought before the local bench for a breaoh of the < Sabbath Observance Ordinance,' one of those measures on which the ' unco quid ' of Otago pride themselves. The case, as one for punishment, was not substantiated, but a perusal of the proceedings gives an idea of the fanatical Sabbat-* arian tendencies of the southern Edinburgh." • - •