M1SCELLANEOUS.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 417, 16 January 1875, Page 2

MISCELLAN EOUS.

" Attention frequently has been drawn in France," the Pall Mall Gazette observes, " to the murderous results of baby-farming. A book has been published in Paris in ■which the author describes the extent of the evil, and indicates the localities where it prevails. Mortality among babies, which is only 10 per cent, among those tended by their mothers, rises to 30 and 40 per cent, with those entrusted to professional wet-nurses. A rural mayor, the author observes, was heard to say, that the deaths of babies sent from Paris to be suckled were so numerous, that his commune was pared with little Parisians. Cher 100,000 babies are yearly sacrificed to the repugnance of mothers to take care of their children. The unfortunate custom has, it appenrs, demoralized many localities in Burgundy, Normandy, Nie"vre, and Alsace. The feminine population of entire villages find, more profil in baby-farming than in manual work ; and the husbands live on their wives' earnings. This state of thii gs may partially explain the slow increase of in France." Every romance has its reality and even reality its romance, says the New York Herald, as the following will show : — John Horan went to the bar of the Tombs yesterday afternoon to m ke a charge of felonious assault and battery against his son Willitm., a youth aged twenty jears. Mr Horen's head gave proof that he had been roughly handled. Both of his eyes were" black and his forehead was cut. He told the Judge with much deliberation that his son at whom he looked now and then wiih a soitof sardonic grin, had beaten him most unmercifully, without provocation. William looked so quiet and decent that the Judge called him up to see what he had to say. William modestly stepped up to the desk and was at first inclined to say nothing, but suddenly a thought struck him and he ;aid, "If I let myself be brought to jail she will not be safe." " Who will not be sale ? " atked the Judge, "My mother," said William, in a very low tone, as he looked towards his father. He told his story which ran as follows j — "He whips my mother now and then when I'm not around, and she never tells me, because she kr-ows there would be a row in tie houte. But I hear it fiom others, and tax her with it, but she always denus it. 1 would have brought the case to court long ngo, but my mother, although she is poor, is a lwdy, and would not come btne.^ She prefers to keep her little misfortunes to herself. This morning mother, in her metk, quiet way, asked thia man, her husband, for some money lor jonp to wash the cJothes with, or for some other household purpose. He told her she could not have it. and made some taunting remark about her pride in keeping clean. Mother never answers him back, for ehe knows how cross and rough he is. He said much more to tantalize and make her reply, but she woulrl not, and then his anger got the better of him. He hit mother in the face with his fist. It was the first time he ever dared to do it in my presence, and I was determined it should be the last. I told him a poor, weak, sickly woman was no match for him, and that he should protect himself, as I iutended to give him a right good throbbing, he did try to protect himself but without success If I hare broken the law I dou't object to being punished, provided that man is put where he will not be able to whip my mother until I come back to take care of her." Judge Wandell said, "Young man, I am proud to see that you love your mother and aie anxious to protect her, but your violence to your fnher has been of a vigorous character. Try and keep your hands off jour father; but, in any event, protect your mother from injury. You may go. ' The noble and highly aristocratic sport of horse-racing, as it was ence consideied in England, is in a decidedly bad way. " The Thames fly fiom it." It is yet fresh in our memories that Sir Joseph ti aw ley, one of the most spirited and honorable patrens that ever gave countenance and aci ire ci. operation to " the turf," sold off his stud j aud now we ha\e another »ad defection, which will bring sorrow to the bookmakers and the bettii q world. " The Maiquis of Exeter," says the Times «»f the4th August, "iutimates his intention of witbdiawing his fiibscnption from the Stamford races, after the s ason of 1874, and of devoting the stand and course to more useful purpeses for the future." Ti c gtound of this determination is (as we collect from the article of which the ibore quoted words form part) that hoise*ra< iiig in Lngland has from the various causes set forth, degenerated into a mere medium for gambling and demoralization, and that the old plea about the impiovemcut of the breed of horses is at au end. Railways are said to be accountable for much of the decline, as enabliig speculative turf men to move "dark horses" about the country at pleasure, and thus discourage the more local efforts once common among farmers and other breeders, to raise Hne stock for the Jecal laces. " Queen's plates " are pi oclaimed a farce, and are said to be doomed. There can he no doubt that racing of late years has become a sport of which gentlemen are rather shy. The " horsey men " of the day are not remarkable either for refinement, education, elegance of manners »nd speech, or even for honesty. Their betting shops, studded throughout every large town in the country, are accountable for many a robbed till, and for many a delaulting clerk. Thus the turf has become a much more vicious tning than was the old lottery. Society is awake to the evil, and the Legislature is compelled to notice ib. In the same impression of the Times which con* tains the account of the Marquis of Exeter's secession, is a report of some " betting prosecutions at Birmingham,' which -hows, as most of such reports do. that the turf is now supported in England by a very equivocal style of patrons. " The book-makers," of course, take a deep inter-, est in the whole subject, and under recent enactments are being rapidly made much less happy than they were a few ! yeais back If bright eyes and smooth fur are points of animal beauty a rat should not be an object of disgust and aversion; but when the rat appears "in his thousands" he certainly inspires the greatest possible loathing in the human breast. The notion of swarms of rats running over each other to reach some hapless victim, and forming a seething mass instinct with hunger and thirst, is one ever present to sufferers from nightmare or students of historical novels. These unfortunate persons should avoid Paris for, if we may believe some statistics lately published of the number in that metropolis, the "joyous city," is a complete rat's nest. 30,000 were k&Vsf* last year in the Central Holies ; 190,000 in the Market Holies, 120,000 in the slaughter-houses, 40,000 in the butchers' shops, 300,000 in the procers' shops, 900,000 in the tanners' yard, 110,000 in the canals— a total of 1,790,000 j to which added about 3,000,000 rodents which ekide capture, bo that Paris boasts of a standing army of soinetHng like 5,000,000 rats. Some magnitude of this loathsome host from the fact that if a procession of Parisian rats running ten abreast we] c to start from Paris to Berlin, the vanguard would reach the Ger-

Tie C< urner de Mo-t itrntiem iel.iti>> t itt mi nu,)i>it.iiit di»eovpjy hi* iti"t been made in the Plum uf Chrh!, « here the (lpimnr Purmoy i>> now evcutmg I l<e soundings iequiied for f: the coii-tiuction of a bruit;** on the mut« ol mrirann Mi<z< uno. After lmvnig pas-ed il'nuiili n stratum of clti^ nt out tncntj one Vneties llnolc, tlio borer was penetialing a bed of Nind, wlipii suddenly a jet ©f water M|.rai)g-out of t Ji. * trround to 11 lieii»!it li of I'onv >ords above the bed ol the river. The volume issuing from uti onfiee of j&)ur inches in diameter, gave from eleven to tvehehl^g per sfcond, or about 1,000 cubic metres per day. Tubes are now being sunk to laise t>till higher the lewl of the a^erndhifj column. If tho supply of \uiler tontirne6 abundant, the whole of this desolate region will 6borlly bej'covered with rich cultivation. Up to this tio c the population has been unable to create auy garden, liaving lib(| to content itself with the stagnant water of the Chebf. A second sounding, made at thirty yards distance fioin Ihe fuel, has produced a yield of twenty litres per second, without the volume of the other being perceptibly flittunißhed.