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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 327, 22 January 1863, Page 3

Aj. innkeeper ot Pont-au-Anes, driven to despair by the fanaticism of his wife and the interference of the priesthood, determined on suicide. Having- -more than once been thwarted in his desire for self-destruction, he hit upon the following expedient to gratify liis wishes :—He provided himself with a ladder, a rope, a pistol, a bottle of poison, and a box of lucifers. He then proceeded to the seashore. For a minute he wavered in his purpose, but, seeing his wife at a distance in conversation with a Jesuit, he muttered, a short sentence and continued his dread course. Mounting a high rock by means of his ladder, he fastened the rope t > a crag jutting over the sea. Spurning the ladder with his foot it fell into the seething deep. Placing his head in a noose, he made assurance quadruply sure by simultaneously applying the different instruments of destruction. He first swallowed the poison, then set file to his clothes, next fired the pistol into his mouth, and threw himself from the rock. Prbvidence, however, which loves to bring good out of evil, interfered-. The bullet, passing through his cheek, cut the rope ; falling into the sea the water extinguished the flames, while the brine, entering his stomach, caused it to yield the potion which in another moment would have pervaded his system. The man recovered his senses by the shock lie underwent, swam to the shore, and returned to his home, where he now lives the laughingstock of his friends and the patient victim of his wife’s devotion and of the Jesuit’s exhortations. Brilliancy v. Usefulness. Sir Astley Cooper, on visiting the French capital, was asked by the surgeon en chef of the Emperor how many times he had performed some wonderful feat of surgery, lie replied that he had performed the operation thirteen times. “ Ah, but monsieur, I have done him one hundred and sixty time !| how many did you save his life ? the curious Frenchmau, after he looked into the blank amazement of Sir Astley’s face. “I,” said the Englishman, “ saved eleven out of thirteen ! How many did you save out of a hundred and sixty?” “Ah, monsieur, lose dem all ; but the operation was very brilliante ! ” In the famous “ Essays and Reviews ” case, the articles have been amended in accordance with Dr. Lushington’s judgment, and it is expected to come before the Court again in the beginning of November. There have been rumours for some time that another work, even more heretical than the Essays and Reviews, of which a Bishop of the English Clnm-h is the author, was about to be published ; it now appears that the Bishop of Natal, Dr. Colenso, is the prelate alluded to, and an extract, in which the historic value of the Pentateuch is denied, has been published in the Record.