MISCELLANEOUS.

Waikato Times, Volume VI, Issue 315, 21 May 1874, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

Many on this Coast says the West Coast Times, have heard of the singular experiences of colonial life which cam» under the observation of Mr Charles Broad, now warden at Beefton. when acting aa emigration officer at Wilhamstown in the earliest days of the Victorian diggings, but an indident which came under that gentleman's immediate knowledge within the past few weeks at Keefton. will cope, wo think, with any of the most ludicrous tales of the early golden times. When iitting one day in his office adjoining the Court, he was politely waited on by an applicant for a marriage license, who was prepared, pound note in hand, to pay the required demand imposed by law, to becoming a happy benedict. The warden, being likewise registrar, proceeded to record the necessary particulars before granting the certificate, when something like the following conversation ensued :— ' What's your name ?' ' Tim O'Brien.' ' And the girl's name ?' I don't know her name, sir, but my matesays he knows her, and believes she would just suit me.' To To this the registrar replied that he could not, under the circumstances, think of writing out the document. ' Well !' continued Tim y if I telegraph through to Charleston, and get to know her nam« from my mate, will you grant it ?' To this the registrar assented, and tke document was subsequently prepared and handed over. But hero the strange story only commenced, and the latter portion 'was subsequently narrated by Tim himself on his return from Charleston, minus any better half. Arriving at Charleston, hecalled on his mate and interviewed ' tho faimale,' who had turned the prime of life, by a considerable distance. 'Are you the girl I'm going to marry ?' said he. 'I believe so,' was the gentle response. * Well ! but you are older thnn I thought,' said Tim, after eying her carefully, ' and I dou't think I'll havo you after all.' ' Right you are,' replied the fair one, nnd the ardent suitor returned to seek further advice at the hands of his mate, who paTe his opinion that ho would look a darned fool going back without a wife, seeing that he has got the certificate. 'Very well,' says Tim, 'l'll have" her,' nnd to the fair one's abode he again departed. Keaching the house, he accosted the ancient and adored one with the intelligence that he meant to ' get, spliced' to her after all. By this time the hand sought became uplifted, and the following was the parting salutation to Tim. ' Old indeed, did you say ! Get spliced indeed, marry you! Never. Get out, see you blowed first.' SoTim returned and remains to this day a disconsolate bachelor of Reefton , desirous of being refunded the cost of his certificate. Four •wais have cost the English Government within the last fifteen years, upwards of £16,000,0(10 sterling. The Persian expedition coat £900,000. The outlayon the Chinese war amounted to £6,115,000. Then the New Zealand war, which did not extend beyond the year ISC6. was covered by £765,000 ; nnd the Abysayninn war entailed the expenditure of £8,C00,000 or £9,000,000. Now it is estimated that the Ashantee war will cost about £4,000,00. " How much arc these tearful bulbs by the quart?" a*ked i* maiden of a grocer. He staied at her for a monvnt, recovired himself, aud said, " Oh, the injuns—eightj uns— eight ccuts."

Tlie cheapest material of which to make brandy, whisky, And alcohol is at present sawdust. We mentioned before that sugor is now made of it, and a direct consequence of this is that this sugar, by proper fermentation and distillation, can be /nado into alcohol, and this again by retification and flavouring, into any of the mixtures known as gin, whisky, rum, arrack, cognac, brandy, &c. This manufacture of alcohol from sawdust is now carried on in Sweden very economically and on an extensive scale. Wo rejoice, because if the great staples, such as corn, wheat, rye, barley, &c , are used for this purpose, there is a destruction of material valuable for food ; a breaking down of more complex valuable organic compounds into simpler ones, and if these same simpler compounds can as well be obtained from sawdust, which neither animal nor man can eat, there is a great saving in valuable material. The only objection thus far, is that in this operation a portion of the product is not the ordinary ethylic alcohol, but methylio alcohol, or wood spirits, which is less palatable and more unwholesome than ordinary alcohol ; but that there is no doubt that improvements in this respect will soon be made, if tins 13 not already the case, and that, as people must hare alcohol, it will in the future not be produced at the cost of the destruction of a great portion of the staples of food otherwise adapted for the nourishment of millions, and which now are continually being destroyed by distillers over all the world. — Manufacturer and Builder. It may (says the London correspondent of the Scotsman) interest your readers to know, now that the use and abuse of tramways are a^ood deal under discussion, that there is every probability of a new motive power being introduced other than steam, which will do away with the necessity for horses. I have just seen the working models and drawings of an invention by which tram-cars can be propelled by simple mechanical means alone, without horses at all. The motive power used it an arrangement of pjwerful springs, encased in cylinders like watch-springs on a very lnrge scale, the application of Twhich to the existing train-cars is extremely simple and easy. These springs are wound up by small stationary steam engines at each terminus of the line, and when so wound will propel the cars, evon with stoppages, for a longer distance than any existing tramway line extends. Tha models I have seen were on a sixth scale, and worked perfectly, the action being reversible, and the application of the brake power entirely satisfactory. The springs are now being fitted to full-sized cars, and the new invention, which is patented, will be tried very shortly on a tramway lino at Greenwich. Many competent engineers have expressed themselves sanguine as to the results, and it certainly seems as if a new motive power was likely to be within our reach, who' 1 ,as the springs can be made of almost any strength, will be widelj applicable in many other ways besides the propulsion of tramway cars. ©The Detroit Free Press says : — On Sunday morning, December 14, two farmers and their families who were driving to Maiden to attend church, when about eight miles below, or east of the town, saw a ship's yawl on the lake heading towards the beach about half a mile away. They could plainly make out a man sitting in the stern sheets steering the boat with an oar, and although there was no vessels in sight the morning was so pleasant and the sea so smooth, that it was sup Dosed the man had put out from shore to pick up something, and but little attention was paid to the yawl. P.issing the same spot on their return the men found the yawl hard on the beach, and the man sitting stiff and motionless in her stern, lifeless, and frozen as hard as % rock. He sat bolt upright on the seat, the oar out behind and both hands clasping the handle, and it required hard work to wrench it from his death grip. There was about a foot of water in the boat, but the craft did not show rough usage. The man's legs were almost covered with ice as far up as his knees, and the spray had dashed over his back and shoulders and frozen there. There was no name on the boat, and the person who brought the information to Windsor could not say that anything was found on the person of the man to reveal his identity, nor to show how he had been cast adrift. He must have been dead at least three da.ys or more. There was neither sail nor mast to the boat, and nothing in it but the one oar, showing that the poor fellow had not intended a long trip anywhere, and that he must have been blown off the shore. He had used his oar to keep before the wind, and had frozen to dpath on his seat, where he was so firmly held by the ice that it had to be broken with stone before he could be pulled off. Commenting on Major Warburton's exploration battle in the wilds of West Australia, the Pastoral Times says : — The inference that we can safely draw from wh&t we know of the Australian continent is, that it has enormous areas of poor, sterile, sandy soil, or stony deserts. That although it ha* some of richest and lo^ cliest spots on the face of the globe, and although it possesses all sorts of mineral, yet as a continent it is, taken in gloho, inferior to the other quarters of the world, though it is. capable of extending support to tens of millions of people. That its people are destined to beeotiie, at a future day, one of the most powerful on this globe. In the hands of Britons and the descendants of Britons it is promised a glorious future. There will certainly be here a fusion of races, but the great spirit of colonisation for which our countrymen have* become famous will be the directing, the governing power. Of this there can be no doubt. That the Chinese and Malay element will be necessary to develop the torrid parts of the continent cannot, we think, be questioned. It is too hot there for European labor : the men, more or less, with two livers (all coloured races possess this in a marked degree from their dusky, coarse skins doing duty as a second liver) are the men who must ultimately be used for developing the resources of the far inland and the northern coast settlements. The steady influx of Chinese already points to that people as promising to play an important part in colonising Australasia. On our first becoming possessed of responsible government a dead set was made against the Chinamen migrating to New South Wales. Eren Mr Parkes distinguished himself m creating a prejudice against the Mongolians, for singular enough the loudest talkers in the arena of liberty generally make war on the coloured races. The Land Act of the colony was, in its 93rd clause, chiefly directed against the Chinese, as we showed in a recent issue, where we quoted Mr John Robertsons speech. Time works wonders, and it is probable that Mr Parkes and Mr Robinson have changed their opinions on this matter. ' Man proposes and God disposes,' but there is a destiny that doth shape our ends in spite of all that we may say or do to the contrary. Yet in order to try of ourselves to shape our ends, a correct knowledge of the great islands of Australia is indispensible, and this last contribution of Colonel Warburton's goes a great way to inform us on this important subject. Medical Notes and Queries contains the following remarks in praise of co flee . — "A well-made decoction of coffee is a natural tonic of the first order ; antiseptic, and a preserver against ' wear and tear' by daily labour. By its action on the kidneys it promotes the elimination of noxious matter from the system, and io there may be some truth in the belief that it is good against gout and rheumatism. It is recommended by French physicians for whooping-cough j and, not without good reason, advisable for nervous temperaments, the {sedentary and the studious. M. Payne is of opinion that a cup of cafe au lait represents about six times more of solid substance and three time* more of nitrogenous matter than broth. Considering the meagre tenuity of broth in general, wo should fix the excess at ten times more in favor of the coffee. Dr. Chabrand has remarked that during the last quarter of a century, cretinism has lost ground in tho arrondissement of Briancon, and among the causes of this amelioration he places the use of coffee, which has spread to the most distant hamlets and the most indigent poor. The women especially, he adds, have recourse to coffee in all their delicate ailments ; they find it a sort of panacea. Thus it appears that coffee possesses very precious properties for the alleviation of such physical and mental ailments as are apparent in persons predisposed to cretinism. Hot or cold coffee is a most refreshing drink in summer, when diluted to a great extent alter having been made very •tronp — for wo do not mean weak coffee, made with a small quantity of the powder- This is the ordinary drink of the French soldiers in Africa. The mazagean, as they call it, preserves thorn from the influence of the great heat of the climate ; it slakes their thirst, and refreshes and stimulates their drooping spirits. Unquestionably, it is the best means of combating that overwhelming lethargy which is induced by a very hot summer. For our part we prefer coffeo not only strong (a dessert-spoonful of powder to the cup), but ■without milk ; convinced with modern French authorities, that the addition ot milk to it destroys all or most ofits beneficial properties. In a village of Bohemia, coffee worked wonders It was a village of weavers, compelled to live almost exclusively on potatoes. They pined away almost to skeletons. The doctors hit upon the idea of giving them coffee, iind from that time the wretched population became transformed, and enjoy at the present time the most vigorous and robust health, to the admiration of all who visit them. The Austrian Government suppressed the duty on cofleo in their favor. Like tobacco, coffee has been very much abused in both senses of the word, but its triumph alter the conflict is more fortunate for humanity than that of the former. To the practice of drinking coffee alter dinner the French ascribe the cessation of inebriety in France, and they attribute the continued prevalence of drunkenness among us in England to the fact that we hay« not sufficiently ' taken to coffee drinking.' " Cremation societies are the order of the day in Switzerland. Several have been organized in Geneva, Berne, and Zurich, and are doing their best, by means of public lectures and the distribution of pamphlets on the subject, to familiarise the public with the notion of burning the dead. Ever so many methods are being devised for reducing tho body in the cheapest way to the least possible quautity of ashes, leaving the rest to escape in the form of imoke and gas. In Italy and England the agitation is also spreading. fcJimilar steps have been taken in New York City, and a few days ago tho World published a list of members of one of the societies. The signers mutually agree to permit their bodies to be burned to ashes by their surviving associates, who also agi cc to superintend the procesr. A larger number of Welsh miners are leaving Ballarat (Victoria) for Wales, to resume work in the coal and iron mines there, the wages they receive there being better than they can earn m Victoria.

Most people have tried their hands at what is called secret writing which is effected by various vegetable juices, which is brought to light by fire or water (lieio the use of sal ammoniac and juice of onions, of solution of galls, and of copperas is well known.' From Ihe time of Ovid, who advises a young lady in his Art of Love — as if forsooth, young ladies require instruction, at least on that subject — to deceive all prying eyes by a letter written with raw milk, till the present day receipts have been prescribed of various values to this end One of the most curious is that which recommends an ink to be used made under certain conditions with the ichor of glowworms. The writing, says the author, may be well read in light of moon or star. This is a mro recipo. It was by the use of such strange terms as memilus, cala, raphoca, lapolce, and others which Tritheinius used when treating on this branch of his subject, that he introduced his book to the flames, and yet the said uncouth terms were but distortions of the Latin expressions for alum, milk, camphor, and onions. A certain surgeon, wishing to disclose a matter of great importance to a brother of his craft, sent him a live bulldog to be dissected, to which he had previously administered a bolus containing the letter he wished kept secret. So his friend was guided by that dumb, dead, dissected beast, as the wise men were guided by a star. Another applied a MS. to a sore leg instead of under the bandage. The sowing of a letter in a shoe is recommended by Orid, and rolling thin leaves of metal containing the secret into ear-rings by another ancient author ; a third directs the communication to be «rritten on a blown bladder, the bladder to be afterwards placed in a flask and filled with wine. Letters may be also written on the inside of the sheath of a sword, on an arrow, on a bullet, in an egg, or rolled up in a hollow stick ; which last proceeding calls to mind the story of that unfaithful depository who hid the trust money in this manner, and when called before the judge for breach of trust by the depositor, asking the plaintiff to hold his stick while he kissed the Bible with fervent devotion, swore he had returned the money, and it was at that very time in the plaintiff's possession. Another method explained at large by a learned Dutchman, which consisted in first writing the letter in lilliputian character and enclosing it in a hazel nut, cannot, for other reasons than want of space be more than alluded to here. Among a hundred other devices suggested by affection or by fear, letters were hidden in women's hair, which would now we suppose, be represented by their chignons. But wo cannot refrain from adding one more method which has been proposed for secret transmission of sound. Let a man, says the ingenious author, breathe his words slowly in a long hollow cane hermetically sealed at the farthest end, then let him suddenly and closely seal the end into which he breathed. The Toice will continue in the tube until it has some vent. When the seal is removed at the end which was first sealed, the words will come out distinctly and in order, but if the seal at the other end be removed their inverted series will create confusion. This happy conception, which seems to have been proposed in all good faith by its author, reminds us of that famous one of bottled sentences, and may be compared with Joseph'! grunt, to which he gave Tent in the execution of his trade, and which is preserved, it is said, m crystal among other equally valuable and sacred relics in a celebrated church in Madrid. — The Cornhill Magazine. The poetry of Wordsworth it the poetry of humility, of natural and simple beauty, and of love without its passion and its stilly — of love, the tender mother of the world. It is no small triumph to the poet that he 'touched the heart of Mill. It is no small honour to Mill that his heart gave a response to the Orphic strain of the poet:— "Here you stand, Adore and worship, though you know it not : Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will. But, indeed, we know of nothing in. the literature of England more fitted to speak to one afflicted by a " wilful disesteem of life," and correct the false conclusions of the reasoning power, which make the eye blind and close the passage through which the ear converses with the heart, than the third book of " The Excursion." It would seem with preternatural power to anticipate the very frame of mind into which Mill had fallen, and to apply to it a transcendent remedy — "The light of love Not failing, perseverance from their steps Departing not, for them shall be confirmed The glorious habit by which sense is made Subservient still to moral purposes, Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clotho The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore The burden of existence .... So build me up the Being that we are. " But this light of love, which is the light of life and of the world, is the very genius of religion and Christianity. The poetry of "Wordsworth was to Mill, not the direct light, hut the refletted ray. It reached him in a form congenial to his tastes, congenial to his wants; but the source of it was not the less divine. Henceforth the natural world, which he always loved, had a fuller and deeper meaning ; and he may have felt for a time that the all-pervading Spirit, upon whom our dark foundations rest, is itself the source and the object of knowledge and of duty. At that moment of his life Mill was nearer to a spiritual philosophy than at any other time. Wordsworth had opened to him an inner » orld by his poetry ; Coleridge roused his curiosity by his exposition of a philosopy diametrically opposed to his own, but mighty in its effects on the last generation. And these new ly awakened sympathies unlocked a donr to the friendship of other hearts. A discussion took place at a debating society frequented by these young men on the comparative meriti of Byron and Wordsworth. Roebuck spoke on the side of Byron, Mill on that of Wordsworth. Thus he found himself in this argument, and in the sentiments it ciused him to express, opppsed to hit old Benthamite associate, and on the sane side as John Sterling and Frederic Maurice, to their mutual surprise, but not without lasting consequence). — " Edinburgh. Review " The Chinese have no superiors in the art of forcing vegetation. In favorable seasons, they obtain of some vegetables, two or three crops, and of others three or four from the same ground, which is kept in cultivation at long as the weather is warm enough to grow anything. Indeed some Tegetables may be grown in certain situations in the open air all the year round. The Chinese have the earliest green vegetables and tho latest. Some root crops, particularly, they irrigate by flooding ; others by copiously showering from the huge wateringpots, just after sunrise in the morning, and just before sundown in the evening. But in addition to water the Chinese apply liberally to the surface of the ground a dilution of human ordure and urine, previously mixed and left to ferment in earthen jars set in the ground. A grave objection to this application is that it diffuses an offensive odour for a great distance, and is believed to be the occasion of much ill-health. It is probable that less noxious fertilisers might be applied in a similar manner with good resultt.

THE USEFUL PLOUGH. A country life is sweet ! In moderate cold and heat, To walk in the air, how pleasant and fair ! In every field of wheat, The fairest of flowers adorning the buivers, And every meadow's brow : So that I say, no courtier may Compare with them who clotho in gray, And follow the useful plough. They rise with the morning lark, And labor till almost dark ; Then folding their sheep, they hasten to sleep ; While every pleasant park Next morning is ringing with the bird* that are linging On each green, tender bough, "With what content and merriment Their days are spent, whose minds are bent To follow the useful plough ! A rather astonishing bit of chemical news appears in a Paris letter to the Turf, Field, and Farm. It describes a discovery related at a secret session of the Paris Academy of Science, last summer. The discovery is, that hydrogen, hitherto considered an element, is in reality a combination of two elements, one of which is nine times us light as illuminating gas. The new element is called abaron, meaning weightless. It will not burn, extinguishes flame, is without odour, taste, or colour. The discoverer is M. Lobarre, a wellknown French chemist, and his discovery was not an accident, but the result of a series of successful experiments. The influence of the discovery, should it be substantiated, upon ballooning will be manifest. The tremendous lifting power of abaron will render possible the employment of metallic balloons, capable of resisting all strains and shocks, and of preventing the escape of gas by oxosmosis. The daughter of the onco well known Dr Darwiu, philosopher, poet, and author of the Botanical Garden, died in February last, in her 91sfc year, and was probably the last link between us and a society of provincial celebrities to whom the progress of British industry has been enormously indebted. Her father was a prominent member of the wellknown " Lunar Society," so called because of the day of meeting, that of the full moon, to enable the visitors to see their way homo the more clearly in the evening. Among its members were Watt and Boulton, of steam-engine j celebrity ; Wedgewood, the father of British popery ; Priestley, the chemist ; and very many others of little less note. The lady just deceased had made tea in her youth for all these celebrities, and her memorj of past times remained wonderfully clear. An improvement in oiling millstone (spindles has been patented by John J. Chuob. This invention has for its object to furnish an improved device for oiling spindles, by the use of which the spindle may be kept propeily oiled, and which shall bo convenient in use. The invention consists in the tube embedded in a channel in the leading furrow of the stationary stone, and extending from the heel or skirt to the bosom of said stone. Upon the outer part of the tube is 'formed a cup to receive the oil, and which is provided with a cap or cover. The outer end of the tube is provided with a cap, cork, or other stopper, to enable a wire to be inserted to clear out the tube. Corporal punishment has been systemized to a fine point in Washington. Every teacher administering it must fill out a blank, reading at follows : — To the Superintendent — Sir, — I have this day administered corporal punishment to , for . Instrument usod . Number of strokes . Part of person applied to : Why not a different method of punishment ? Answer . , teacher. Why are coals the racst contradictory articles known to commerce? -Became, whon purchased, mitoad of going to the buyer, they go to the cellar.