MISCELLANEOUS

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1035, 3 January 1873, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS

The most gallant man ever heard of is one who refrained from kicking a dog that had bitten him, because it was a female dog. "If it wasn't for your sex," said he, "I'd kick your head off." The water in the town well at a village in Mississippi having grown to be too much on the mineral spring order, an investigation was made, and eighteen dead dogs were found resting in peace at the bottom. After using the terms " assassin," " liar," " thief," &c, a California editor winds up by calling a brother editor a " he schoolma'am."

A German poet has lately written a touching poem, in which the hero is represented as devoured by alligators under a palm tree, on the shore of Lake Erie in America. The heroine hears of tho dreadful fate of her lover down in the glades of Florida near the banks of Lake Superior, whero she is living, and rushes down south to Lake Erie, and lays wait for that crocodile, captures him, cuts him open, extracts the bones of hor dead love, purchases a rich coffin, and has him interred in

magnificent style in Greenwood Cemetery in New York, in the State of St. Louis. The poem is too affecting. <f Jimfiscatod" is a new word cropping out in tho American papers. It seems to mean confiscated in a private way, as by a burglar with the aid of his Jemmy—in fact, stolon. Tho Americans have lately been trying a rather daring experiment in tho way been trying a rather daring tho way of pile driving. A pile haying gceu placed in position, a cannon, weighing 1800 pounds, with tho breach dished so as to fit as a cap, is placed on the top of the pile, muzzle upwards. Above is fixed a a rain which can be shot downwards, but prevented from flying upwards by a brake. A cartridge is put iuto the gun, tho ram allowed to descend, the cartridge is exploded, driving up tho ram, which is stopped by the brake, and tho recoil driving the gun forcibly downwards, thus causing tho pile to descend also. Upon trial, it was found that a ten inch pilo was driven down twenty-iive feet with five blows, and with an expenditure of Soz. of gunpowder.