MISCELLANEOUS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 995, 13 August 1872, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The following strange incident is recorded by the ' Sydney Morning Herald':- " The craving for food by the helpless young has in many cases been known to prompt kittens and whelps to take milk from very different geueraofthe mammalia; but one of the most extraordinary incidents of this nature is related to have occurred lately in Sydney. The circumstance has no such features as would render publicity objectionable, and the authenticity of the subjoined statement is vouched by the husband of the woman referred to. Mrs Byrne is a married woman, residing in Devonshire street, Sydney—her husband a native of the Colony, being well known in the metropolis. Some months ago she bore twins, one of which died, and the surviving infant, now about seven months old, became ailing. This the mother attributed to an insufficiency of milk. For several days she observed peculiar scratches about her bosom, unlike those that would be produced by the ehild. However, she ascribed them to the efforts of the child, when hungry at night, to get at the breast, and took the precaution to pare the child's nails. Still fresh scratches were noticed. No rats had been seen about the room until the cat started one, which had found a hiding place behind a small cask. Immediately the rat found itself chased, it ran to Mrs Byrne as if for shelter. The scratches on her breast were at once identified as those produced by a rat's claws, and the impression that the creature had robbed her during the night of the milk for which her child was pining, was supported by the fact that when the rat was killed she had a plentiful supply. Great and marvellous is the ingenuity of man, and many and beneficent the uses of his inventions. The last of the great many hundreds of thousands of patents granted at Washing ton was for an improvement in chignons. What new deformity has been given to this hairy monster we are not accurately informed, but we await its appearance on our public promenades with a feeling of dread. Seventeen miners from South Australia have proceeded from Melbourne, to Maryborough (Queensland) coppermine.