MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 361, 26 September 1868, Page 6

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

Fkexch Countbt Seat op John Sttjakt Mill.—lt is not generally known that John Stuart Mill passes a considerable portion of the year in the old town of Avignon, in France. A correspondent of the Ghiga Tribune has recently visited the place, and thus speaks of what he saw and heard. On his way to the house of Mr. Mill, he was attracted by the picturesque beauty of the cemetery, and he turned aside for a short stroll. Sheltered by a grove of evergreens was a square space, bordered by beds of flowers. In the centre of it, enclosed by a low iron railing, rose a large sarcophagus of pure white marble, resting on a base of the same beautiful material. At the head of the monument stood a single eamelia with exquisite white flowers. Between the flower-beds and the railing a small walk extended around. In one of the corners of the lot rose a simple stone bench, serving as a resting-place to the mourners. On the flat top of the sarcophagus were the following words • —" To the beloved memory of Harriet Hill, the dearly loved and deeply regretted wife of John Stuart Mill. Her great and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect, made her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom and the example in goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight of those who had the happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been found in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like hers, this earth would already become the hopedfor Heaven. She died, to the irreparable loss of those who survive her, at Avignon—3rd November, 1858." The moving words of this epitaph, so full of tender eloquence, tell no* - only what the noble woman whose ashes repose here has been to John Stuart Mill and to the cause of human progress and reform but also the motive of the frequent and protracted sojourns at Avignon of the companion of her life. That he might be as near as possible to her grave, he purchased years ago, a country house within a few hundred yards of the cemetery, where he devotes himself, not to fruitless lamentations over his great, irreparable loss, but those noble and elevated principles for the growth of which in his mind he is so mnch indebted to her genius. His devoted attachment to the beloved dead and faithful prosecution of the work in which she was his constant helpmate and inspiration, is certainly one of the noblest illus trations of his character.

The following dialogue is stated to have taken place between a visiting magistrate at one of the city gaols and a juvenile offender serving out his three months : —" How old are you ? Please, sir,l 'm 13.—How often have you been in goal ? Please, sir.eight times. —Have you ever been in Reading gaol ? Please, sir, once.—Have you ever been in Westminster gaol ? Please, sir, once.—How often have you been here ? Please, sir, six times. —Why do you come here so often ? Please, sir, becos at Westminister the turnkeys knocks yer about with their keys.—How do you contrive to get sent here ? Please, sir, I alius prigs in Holborn now. The Post office authorities of South Australia have recently commenced the issue of a new kind of twopenny stamp, struck off from electrotype instead of steel plate, of which the following additional particulars are furnished by the Express : —" The new stamp is more distinct and crnate than the old, and is more secure from imitation. The ink is fugitive, so that the postal marks cannot be removed without removing the color of the stamp itself; and another safeguard against fraud is provided in the water mark, consisting of a crown, with S. A. underneath, at the "back of the stamp." EOMAKCE OP THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION. —Nothing which has occurred of late years on a scale of any magnitude has had about it so much of the air of ancient romance as the Abyssinian expedition. For a time, the thing seemed paltry, ridiculous,

Quixotic. A few adventurous people —some of them English, some of them German, not a few of them Eastern by birth and descent, but all of them, for the sake of personal convenience, claiming English protection—got into, trouble with Theodoras, a man who claimed to be a descendant of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and who was the acknowledged Emperor of Abyssinia, the far-away and little known Ethiopia of the ancients. Was it worth while, many asked, to waste millions of money, and to imperil, if not to sacrifice, the lives of many thousands of men in what might prove the vain attempt to deliver a few adventurers who were imprisoned in a strong fortress on the summit of an inaccessible height somewhere in the neighbourhood of the mountains of the moon ? It was pronounced by many a perilous, by most a hopeless, undertaking. It was undertaken, nevertheless, carried on, and in an incredibly short space of time, and at a small cost of life—which has no parallel in the history of war—brought to a triumphant conclusion. Now that the thing is over, and that the wonderful and romrntic character of the expedition, and the still more wonderful character of theresultsare made known to the wocld, Europeans generally, even the British themselves, open their eyes in amazement. A fact of to-day, it begins slowly to be seen, is grander wilder, more daring, more romantic, that the grandest, wildest, most daring, most romantic tales of all past times. The siege of Troy was a protracted bungle and failure in comparison.— lf. Y H

A Diver Drowned.—On Wednesday one of three divers taken to ascertain the position of the sunken steamer Taranaki was drowned. He descended with the intention of inspecting the vessels position and bottom. For a quarter of an hour after he had been down signals had been exchanged satisfactorily, after which they ceased and nothing more was observed until the red cap was seen floating on the surface. On being got up after some time, life was quite extinct. It was discovered that the»helmet had unscrewed itself from the breastplate of the dress, which was the cause of the unfortunate accident. The man's name was Burton, well-knowu as a practical diver. About eleven o,clock on Sunday night a male child, about six weeks old, was found on the door-step of St. Mark's parsonage, Nicholson-street, Carlton, by the servant of the Eev. Robert Barlow. The infant was rolled in a piece of flannel and a strip of white calico, had on a white calico shirt, with lace on sleeves, a variegated white muslin dress, and over all a piece of an old napped counterpane, which seemed to have been recently torn for the purpose. The following wordswere written on a piece of paper attached to the child:—" The mother has done all that love and affection could suggest for her offspring till poverty has driven her to resort to this means of placing it in the hands of the Ladies' Benevolent Society. She promises to contribute monthly, through the post, her mite towards its care and support."— Melbourne Paper The Hokitita Evening Star says ; —"The cutting of the new channel is progressing favorably, although the time of its completion will not meet the views of the most sanguine of the committee. Great hopes were entertained that the river water would flow through the ebb tide this afternoon. This, however, could not be accomplished. There is every probability that sufficient depth will be arrived at to give the water sufficient fall to flow through the morning's ebb. The channel is being cut about 500 yards to the northward of the old flagstaff, and is almost in the same place as where the old South Channel was situated. The enterance on the river side is about 30 feet wide, and the river water has already penetrated about half the distance to the sea. The gap is, of course much narrower on the sea side, but once the water commences to flow through from the river, this end will, through the scouring process of the stream, rapidly widen. It, is not however, likely to be in working order until Monday, as consiberable difficulty will have to be surmouuted in keeping the waves from silting up the sea side on the flood tide. Once, however, that the river water commences to make pIa T , there can be no doubt of the channel becoming navigable. The contractor for filling up the north one is keeping pace with the works at the new channel, and his work is in such a state of forwardness that when the stream commences to flow at the sonth end, he will be able effectually and at once to close the north channel up.