EXTRACTS.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 226, 22 April 1868, Page 3

EXTRACTS.

Mr Joseph Jefferson the well-known representative of Rip Van Winkle, was married on the 20th of December, at Chicago, to Miss Mary A. Warren, the daughter of the late treasurer of M Vmkors's Theatre, and niece of the Mayor of Chicago, Johnß. Rice.—The Orchestra.

Loss of an Equestrian Troupk by Shipwreck—The of the 24th ultimo, says :—" We are informed that Mr Bftfton, who is well known here as the proprietor of an equestrian troupe, and Mr Win. Barlow who was in connection with him, and exhibited performing dogs and monkeys, were shipwrecked some time since near I Manilla. From a letter received by Mrs Barlow from her husband we extract the following :—' Walter Burton and I started very comfortably, and were doing very well among the islands, unril we met with the great misfortune to be shipwrecked. We have lost everything —horses, dogs, monkies, dresses, properties, <&c. Not a single thing saved. By a very narrow chance we saved our own lives. We were six weeks before we could get back from the island where we were wrecked to Manilla. ... I

am now in a very bad fix, no money and no clothes.' "We understand that a subscription has been started in order to enable Mr Barlow, who is entirely destitute, to return to the colony." Litebariana.—Mr. Chas. Dickens's favorite time for composition is said to be in the morning, when he writes till about one or two o'clock, then he has his luncheon, and walks out for two hours, returns to dinner, and either goes out Or spends the evening at his own fireside. Sometimes his method of labor is much more intent and unremitting. Of his delightful Christmas book, " The Chimes," the author says in a letter to a friend, that he shut himself up for a month, close and tight over it. " All my affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I "became as haggard as a murderer long before I wrote 'The End.' When I had done that, like ' The Man of Thessaly,' who scratched his eyes out in a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramblebush to scratch them in again, I fled to Venice to recover the composure I had disturbed." When his imagination begins to outline a new novel, with vague thoughts rife within hiin he goes " wandering about at night in the strange-t places," he says, "seeking rest and finding none." Lord Lytton (Bulwcr) accomplished his voluminous productions in about three hours a day, usually from ten until one, and seldom later, writing all with his own hand. Composition was at first very laborious to him, but he gave himself sedulously to mastering its difficulties; and is said to have re-written some of his briefer productions eight or nine times before publication. He writes very rapidly, averaging it is

said twenty octavo pages a day. He says of himself, in a letter to a friend : " I literatise away the morning, ride at three, go to baths at five, dine at six, and get through the evening as I best may, sometimes by correcting a proof." The following account of the late Douglas Jerrold's " method in writing," was sketched during Ms lifetime by a friend who knew him well: —"At eight o'clock he breakfasts, and then reads the papers, cutting out bits of news. The study is a snug room, filled with books and pictures ; its furniture is of solid oak. There work begins. If it be a comedy he will now and then walk rapidly up and down the room, talking wildly to himself, and laughing as he hits upon a good point. Suddenly the pen will be put down, and through a little conservatory, without seeing anybody, he will pass out into the garden for a little while, talking to the gardeners, walking, &c. In again, and vehemently to work. The thought has come; and in letters smaller than the type in which it shall be set, it is unrolled along the little blue slips of paper. A crust of bread and glass of wine are brought in, but no word is spoken. The work goes rapidly forward, and halts at last suddenly. The pen is dashed aside, a few letters, seldom more than three lines in each, are written and despatched to the post, and then again into the garden, visits to the horse, cow, and fowls, then another long turn around the lawn, and at last a seat with a quaint old volume in the tent under the mulberry tree. Friends come—walks and conversation. A very simple dinner at four. Then a short nap—forty winks—upon the great sofa in the study j another long stroll over the lawn while tea is prepared. Over the tea-table are jokes of all kinds, as at dinner. In the latter years of his' life Jerrold seldom wrote after dinner; and his evenings were usually spent alone in his study." An Old Soldier.—A lady in the first society was recently obliged to dismiss her nurse on account of an excess of firemen and private soldiers too often repeated. After choosing as a successor to this criminal a very pretty girl, the lady, explaining why the first was sent away, enjoined on the second not to do likewise. She admitted that she should'nt. " I can endure a great deal," said the lady, " but soldiers about the kitchen I can't endure." After a week or eight days the lady came one morning into the

kitchen, opened a cupboard, and discovered a youthful military character. " Ob, ma'am," cried the girl, frightened, " I g've you my word I never saw that soldier before in my life j he must have been one of the old ones left over by the other girl!" New Explosive Mixture.—Anew and cheap gunpowder, in which the use of charcoal is entirely dispense d I with, has been invented by Mr Pauwel, of Paris. He proposes to soak glue or gelatine in cold water, and then to heat it in dilute nitric acid until dissolved It is then evaporated to dryness, and re-dissolved in hot water, when the acid is neutralised with carbonate of baryta. The solution is

again evaporated, one part of sulphur and six parts of nitrate of potash for every two parts of glue being incorporated as the evaporation proceeds. A quicker powder may be made by substituting chlorate of potash for nitrate of potash. Kerosene fob Bubns and Scalds. —ln testimony of the efficacy of kerosene in cases of burns and scalds, we subjoin the following from the St. Arnaud Journal: — "On Tuesday three children, the family of Mr. and Mrs. Paulin, of East Carlton, were playing about the fireplace, when the kettle of boiling water fell over, severely scalding all of them about the abdomen

I and legs. Kerosine was immediately applied, and after half-an hour's pain had been endured there was not a trace of a scald left, with the exception of two small blisters on one of their feet which had been unobserved." Effect of Absence of Sound.— Br H. Ealla Smith, of Louisville, Kentucky, by certain investigations, claims to have established the ttuth' of the theory that animals living permanently in the Mammoth cave of Kentucky are not only without a trace of the optic nerve, but are also destitute of the sens of hearing. At one time, writes the New York Tribune, he penetrated about four miles into the interior of the cave, and some four hundred feet below the surface of the earth, the solitude and total absence of sound produced a very distressing and almost insupportable effect upon him, resulting in a very perceptible, although temporary defctiou of hearing and aberration of mind. This explains the fact why persons lost in the cave for one, two, or three days have always been found when rescued, in a state of temporary insanity. The mind and special senses, deprived of

gradually become weakened, paralysed, atrophied, and finally, as far as external manifestations are concerned, nearly if not quite extinct. This fact may afford some clue to the cause of cretinism in the Alyine valleys. Antidote fob, Poison.—Sweet oil, according to the American Artisan, is an antidote for poison. It says that "a poison of any conceivable description and degree of potency which has been swallowed, intentionally or by accident, may be rendered instantly harmless by swallowing two gills of sweet oil. An individual with a strong constitution should take twice the quantity. This oil will neutralize every form of vegetable or mineral poison with which physicians and chemists are acquainted.