MISCELLANEOUS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 915, 18 January 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

Count Benedetti's apology, called Ma Mission en Prusse," so far vincates hia character as a diplomatist at it shows him to have been quite ive to the policy of Prince Bismarck, id to have anticipated with some nphasis in 1869 the course Bismarck as likely to take in reference to a ohenzollen candidature for the irone of Spain. Our readers may member that when the idea was '3t started the French Ambassador reived from Von Thile, Prince Bistarck's subordinate, an assurance on a honour that there was nothing in »e scheme, and that Prussia would

discountenance it if there were. The Count, however, did not think that Herr Von Thile knew much about his superior's designs, and questioned Bismarck himself, who carefully avoided repeating in any way his subordinate's pledge, limiting himself to descanting ou the inconveniouces of such an offer to the Prinze of Hohenzollern, and the extreme improbability that it would suit him in any way to accept it. The French Ambassador wrote to ask whether he should then (iu 1869) press Prince Bismarck to pledge the Prussian Government against sanctioning such a candidature, but he found the French Foreign Office too nervous for so critical a demand, and was praised for his reticence in permitting the Chancellor to evade, without refusing, the pledge. The weak point of Count Benedetti's story is, of course, tha point which concerns the Secret Treaty concerning Belgium. But he has, we think, in general succeeded in pushing back the charge of incompetence and hesitation from himself to his superiors, especially the Emperor himself.—" Spectator." Queen Victoria lias always been noted for affably bowing, without a moment's cessation, in her state progress through the city. A London correspondent of the St Louis " Eepublican" says this bowing is all deceit. " There is a curious contrivance attached to the seat of the royal carriage, by whose means the royal body is gonwy swayet-i as in cue acu Oi uOvving, while in reality the said body lolls comfortably and makes no exertion whatever." Some Yankee should invent a handshaking machine. A correspondent of a New York paper relates a touching instance of insect i»stinct, as follows : —" I found a cockroach struggling in a bowl of water. I took half a peanut shell for a boat; I put him into it, gave him two wooden toothpicks for oars and left him. The next morning I visited him and he had put a piece of white cotton thread on one of the toothpicks and sot the toothpick up on end as a signal of distress. He had a hair on the other toothpick, and there that cockroach sat a-fishing. The cockroach, exhausted, had fallen asleep. The sight had meited me to tears. I never had to chew leather to get a soul. I was born with one. I took that cockroach out, gave him a spoonful of gruel, and left. That animal never forgot that act of kindness, and now my house is chock full of cockroaches."

In the obituary notice of a lady, the editor wrote:—" It is feared that her husband will not be able to bear her demise " —which the careless compositor, with but a change of two letters, transformed to, "it is feared that her husband will not be able to wear her chemise." The horror of the bereaved husband, and of the editor, and of the mourning relatives may be imagined.