MISCELLANEA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 108, 29 January 1853, Page 10

MISCELLANEA.

The Liverpool Mail (Oct. 2nd) contains the following announcement relative to the Duke of Wellington—" The Duke's body still lies in Walmev Castle, and will probably remain there some time to come. It has been enclosed in an outer coffin of the finest mahogany, which is again covered by a pall, and the whole surmounted with funeral plumes. The little room wherein the death took place is that still used, but its scanty furniture has been removed, the floor laid with black cloth, and a frame constructed upon which the coffin rests. The family and household, except one confidential domestic, have left, and the illustrious dead remains in solitary state under the protection of a guard of honour from his regiment—the Rifle Brigade."

A Large Telescope, constructed on the achromatic principle, equal in power to the famous instrument constructed by the Earl of

Rosse, is now in process of being set up on Wandsworth Common. Whether it will be successful or not, is a question which time and experiment alone can decide; as hitherto the construction of an achromatic telescope of such power has been deemed an impossibility. The length of the main tube, which is shaped somewhat like a cigar, is 76 feet; but with an eyepiece at the narrow end, and a dewcap at the other, the total length is 85 feet. The design of the dewcap is to prevent obscuration by the condensation of moisture which takes place during the night, when the instrument is most in use. Its exterior is of bright metal, the interior is painted black. The focal distance will not exceed 76 feet. The tube at its greatest circumference measures 13 feet, and this part is^ about 24 feet from the object-glass. The flint object-glass is 24 inches in diameter.

Perpetual Light.—A most curious and interesting discovery has just been made at Langres, in France, which we have no doubt will cause a searching scientific inquiry as to the material and properties of the perpetually burning lamps said to have been in use by the ancients. Workmen were recently excavating for a foundation for a new building, in a debris evidently the remains of Gallo~Roman erections, when they came to the roof ol an underground sort of cave, which time had rendered almost of metallic hardness. An opening was however effected, when one of the workmen instantly exclaimed that there was a light at the bottom of the cavern. The parties present entered, when they found a bronze sepulchral lamp of remarkable workmanship suspended from the roof by chains of the same metal. —It was entirely filled with a combustible substance, which did not appear to have diminished, although the probability is the combustion had been going on for ages. This discovery will, we trust, throw some light on a question which has caused so many disputes among learned antiquaries.— Mining Journal.

The Femaus Attire op the Present Day. —It is, upon the whole, in as favourable a state as the most vehement advocates for what is called nature and simplicity could desire. It is a costume in which they can dress quickly, walk nimbly, eat plentifully, stoop easily, 101 l gracefully, and, in short, perform all the duties of life without let or hindrance. The head is left to its natural size, the skin to its native purity, the waist to its proper region, their heels at their real level. The dress is one calculated to bring out the natural beauties of the person, and each of them has, as far as we see, fair play. In former days, what was known of a woman's hair in the cap of Henry the Eighth's time ? or of her forehead under her hair in George the Third's time ? or of the fall of her shoulders in a welt or wing in Queen Elizabeth's time ? or of the slenderness of her throat in a gorget of Edward the First's time ? or of the shape of her arm in a great bishop sleeve, even in our own time ? Now-a-daysall these points receive full satisfaction for past neglect, and a woman breaks upon us in such a plentitude of charms that we hardly know where to begin the catalogue. Hair light as silk: in floating curls, or massive as marble in shining coils. Forehead bright and smooth as mother-of-pearl, and arched in matchless symmetry by its own beautiful drapery. Ear, which for centuries has lain concealed, set on the side of the head like a delicate shell. Throat a lovely stalk, leading the eye upward to a lovelier flower and downward along a fair sloping ridge, undulating in the true line of beauty to the polished precipice of the shoulder, whence, from the pendent calyx of the shortest possible sleeve, hangs a lovely branch, smooth and glittering like pale ,pink coral, slightly curved towards the figure and terminating in fine taper petals, pinker still, folding and unfolding " at your own sweet will," and especialty contrived by Nature to pick your heart clean to the bone before you know what you are about.— Music and the Art of Dress.

General Wolfe. —Some time after Wolfe's death, his family wished to give some memorial of him to the lady who had been engaged to him, and they consulted her as to the form it should take. Her answer was, " A diamond necklace ;" and her reason, because she' was going to he married to another person, and such an ornament would be useful. My informant, whose birth, according to the " Peerage," was in 1778, had, in her earlier days, often met this lady, and described her as showing remains of beauty, but no wiser than this anecdote would lead us to suppose her.— -Notes and Queries.

Coincident events are noted as occurring on the day of the Duke of Wellington's death. We find it was the anniversary of the burning of Moscow, and of Humbolt's birthday. The Prussian sage has entered his eighty-fourth year, and is still working at the fourth volume of " Cosmos."

St. Napoleon.—The overweening ambition of the French President appears to shoot beyond the setting up of a mere temporal kingdom for himself, and the establishment of a theocracy. Louis Napoleon ordains that the great national holiday of the year shall be the saints-day of his uncle : and in solemnizing it, along with other imposing agencies, he availed himself of the gorgeous superstitions of the Romish Church: military display, illuminations and fireworks, and the ceremonies of high mass, were so skilfully blended, that spectators, dazzled with light and drunken with frankincence, lost the power of discriminating between Napoleon'the Saint and Napoleon the Emperor. Their imaginations began to manufacture one mythical personage out of those two dissimilar characters, and to attribute a share in their sanctity to all members of the family. This attempted apotheosis of the Emperor has been compared to the deification of Julius Ceesar by Augustus: it more resembles the attribution of a sacred as well as a\royal character to the reigning families of Russia and China. This i-etrogade movement towards the hierarchial juggling of barbarous ages, is passing strange in the land—we will not say of Voltaire, but of Pascal. The spectacle, however, is not without its uses. As in the missionary operations in the Pacific, we may see in a manner with our own eyes the living presentment of the first dissemination of Christianity among our barbarous ancestors, so in the fetes of Louis Napoleon we may see how hierarchal dynasties were founded in old Egypt and Babylon. In particular, we may see of what unworthy materials the human gods of old times might be made. The reflex glories of the composite warrior and saint Napoleon are made to gild the hero of Boulogne and Strasbourg and roue of London.—Spectator. , '.-•'"

Religious. Intolerance.—ln the parish: of Cugandj in La Vendee, diocese of Lucjon, a Protestant died recently,holdirig a highly respectable position in society, of exemplary character, but the only person of his creed either in the parish or the surrounding neighbourhood. There is no Protestant clergyman, nor any Protestant burial-ground within the district. The law of France, under such circumstances, directs the municipal authorities to select an " honourable place of burial" for the deceased person, and, accordingly, the corporation of the place, with the express sanction of the prefect, determined upon interring the deceased privately in the common Catholic cemetery, having, indeed, no option between so doing or burying the body by the wayside, or in the ground appropriated to condemned criminals, neither of which could be construed as honourable positions for a Christian corpse. The body was therefore buried in the cemetery, but no Protestant minister officiated, nor was any ceremony performed over it, nor, in fact, anything done beyond what mere necessity and Christian decency dictated. One might have supposed that, in the nineteenth century, such a circumstance might at least have been suffered to pass without further notice. But it having come to the ears of the Bishop of Lugon, that Prelate thought it worth his while, not only to appeal to the Minister of Public Worship to have the body taken up again, but to appeal also to the fanatical feelings of the population, by making a procession round the burial<-plape with bell, book, and candle, and publicly pronouncing it desecrated and unfit to be used, for Christian burial. The appeal made to the Minister was at first answered by an order for the exhumation of the body ; but it is said that this order was. obtained a Vimpurke, and has since been revoked. At all events it has not as yet been acted upon, and, in consequence of its not being so, the Bishop addressed the following circular to his clergy the day before the lute fete — " Notice.—The diocese is plunged in grief in porisequence of the non-execution of the orders of the Minister of Public Worship respecting the burial ground of Cugand. Songs of thanksgiving would be little suitable to so deplorable a situation, and His Grandeur, as has been announced to the Government, will order no Te Deum to be sung on the loth August, unless the evil complained of shall have been first remedied."—Guardian.

The Wife of Eight Hushanps.—ln the London papers appears the following notice :— " Died, in April last, at Brooklyn, New York, Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, at the patriarchal age of 145 years. This venerable old lady was equally remarkable for plurality of husbands as length of days. She had been united to no fewer than eight partners —four in Scotland, and four in America. She was amazingly active, and her eyesight never failed her. Thirty children survive to lament her death, which an antedeluvian could hardly call premature." The Jews of Palestine.-—" In going to visit a respectable Jew in'Jernsalem, it is common to pass over a ruined foreground, and up an awkward outside stair, constructed of rough unpolished stones that totter under the feet. But the access improves as you ascend, and at the top it has a respectable appearance, and ends in an agreeable platform in front of the house. The court is overshadowed by a vinecovered trellis.- Oh entering the house itself it is found to be clean and well furnished and lighted. Sofas or low divans stand around the walls. They are soft, and covered with Persian carpets, and look even elegant; but nobody can sit long on one of them without getting a start at the sight of some little vermin. The people are hospitable, and happy to receive you. The old Jew leads you in very politely, and introduces you to his wife and daughters, who are ordered to furnish pipes and coffee, and water and bread. You admire their faces and forms, their easy and elegant gait, and their address surprises you. They chat and laugh with great vivacity of manners, and are on a perfect footing of equality. They speak very readily, and give their opinion with confidence, when even that of a wife controverts her husband. Many of these daughters of Judah are remarkable for their attractions^ beautiful and well-behaved, tall, fair, and blue-eyed, and around their forehead and cheeks are several roses,large ear-rings, and the vermilion blossom of pomegranate, forming an exquisite pendant, reflecting its glow upon the dazzling whiteness, of the skin. No interpreter is needed. The Jew speaks English easily, and the Jewesses talk Italian with elegance, to the Nazarene; while the pure Hebrew goes from one another very fluently, and it is easy to see who and what are the subjects of their remarks. The mother produces her child by this time, elegantly dressed, and adorned with jewels. You ask if the boy has been circumcised ; and the father looks very solemn, and answers in the affirmative. You ask what tribe his family belongs to. He answers with a sigh, that he cannot exactly tell, as, alas ! the tribes are now no longer separate and entire. His keen eye notices the sensation this simple but most important fact has excited in your mind, and something solemn is said again in Hebrew by the father to the family, and among one another. You hesitate once and again, but at length you break the ice, and speak of the prophecies, and their promised Messiah. Their eye kindles, their cheek flushes, their lips quiver, and their hand trembles. ' Yes, we expect him, and were certain that he was to appear last year. But he will come this year, and then the land will be our own again.' You press him gently to poiiit out some prophecy on which his mind mainly rests as to the time. He remains long silent and sad, and 'at last comes out with the very candid admission, that 'the prophecies have failed, so often as. to time that he cannot mention one passage more-Jhaii another. But the Messiah will come; the God of Abraham has promised, and He is no liar.' But I ask, 'When will he come?' 'This year,' he answers, ' and the land will be ours.' I speak of Jesus of Nazareth, and in a moment the frown flashes over his face and frame, and he tells you sternly never to :name the name again within these walls, and he moves as if he were about to.start to his feet. You change the subject and propose to purchase some trinket, and you are friends in a moment. ' Only shirty piastres,—shirty piastres.' You have had cofiee and kindness, and how can you return it better than by making a small purchase ? And this was the main pomt —the number one towards which the whole mind of Israel was constantly bending, and from which his entire inner man never was turned in all the conversation from beginning to end. Thus are they an acute, plausible, calculating, and kind-hearted people. Sure and sharper to their own worldly interests than either their ,razors or penknives. They have always an aim, and they are never idle. Their sympathy and benevolence for one ano-

ther must be well sustained and directed. They have no compulsory poor-laws among themselves, nor are the poorer classes of Jews left to the tender mercies of the public at large.— Alton's travels in the Holy Land. An Arab's notion of Vinegar.—l carried with me some vinegar in case of a return of fever ; and, mixing a little of it with the dirty water to make it less unpalateable, asked the Arab if he should like to taste it. He looked at me very archly and said—"You should not ask me—it is against the Prophet: and yet I can't refuse—but I never touch those .things.'' I replied, " Nonsense, tins is vinegar, not wine ; it is no heating liquor, but produces quite a. contrary effect." With much difficulty he overcame his scruples, and drank it; but so strong was the conviction on his mind of its being an intoxicating liquor, having never heard of vine- '. gar, that he stroked himself down complacently, and said, "How good!" Next day I offered him some more: he winked his eyes, and said " Its veiy wrong—but its your fault; you know' I can't refuse ; you taught me." He objected this time to my putting any water to it, and tossed off so much that it gave a twist'to his inside; and yet stroking himself down, he cried,. " How good, how good I" and for the next two or three hours was under the first impression of being intoxicated.— Captain Peel's Ride across the Nubian Desert.

The Toad.—-Popular tradition has from time immemorial attached a poisonous influence to tMfyoad, but enlightened opinion presumed that t. idea was an ignorant prejudice. All doubts, however, as to the poisonous nature of the contents of the skin-pustules of the toad and salamander lizard are set at rest by the recent experiments of two French philosophers, MM. Gratiolet and S. Cloez, who by inoculating various animals with the cutaneous poison of toads and salamanders, have demonstrated that |the substances in question are endowed with well-marked and exceedingly dangerous qualities. The first experiment of these gentlemen was prosecuted on a little African tortoise, which was inoculated with some of the toad poison in one of its hinder feet: paralysis of the limb supervened, and still existed at*the expiration of eight months; thus demonstrating the possibility of local poisoning by the agent. In order to determine whether the poisonous material spoiled by keeping, the two gentlemen procured about 29 grains of the poison, on the 25th April, 1851; and having placed it aside until the 16th March, 1852, they inoculated a goldfinch with a little of this material. The bird almost immediately died. Subsequently the investigators succeeded in eliminating the poisonous principle from the inert matters with which it is associated in the skin-pustules ; and they found that when thus purified its effects are greatly more intense than before. Like most of the known very strong organic poisons, the active principle of toadvenom is alkaline in its character ; almost insoluble in water, slightly soluble in ether, and very soluble in alcohol. MM. Gratiolet and S. Cloez are at this time occupied in collecting a large amount of toad-venom, and will shortly make known the result of their further investigations, which are calculated, in the opinion of the investigators, to throw considerable light upon the nature and action of the poisons of hydrophobia, of serpents, of contagious diseases, and animal poisons generally.

Cause and Effect.—lnfinite are the consequences which follow from a single, and often apparently, a very insignificant circumstance. Paley himself narrowly escaped being a baker; here was a decision upon which hung in one scale, perhaps, the immortal interest of thousands, and, in the other, the gratification of the taste of the good people of Giggleswick for hot rolls. Cromwell was near being strangled in his cradle by a monkey ; here was this wretched ape wielding in his paws the destinies of nations. Then, again, how different in their kind, as well as in their magnitude, are these consequences from anything that might have been a priori expected. Henry VIII. is smitten with the beauty of a girl of eighteen ; and, ere long, "The Reformation beams from Boleyn's eyes." Charles Wesley refuses to go with his wealthy namesakes to Ireland, and the inheritance which would have been his, goes to build up the fortunes of a Wellesley, instead of a Wesley; and to this decision of a school-boy (as Mr. Southey observes) Methodism may owe its existence, and England its military —and we trust we may now add, its civil and political —glory.— Quarterly Revietv.

Water :—lts Value Appreciated out of England.—lt is rather tantalising to one who leaves London in the beginning of August, to find himself, in ten days, in cities across the Atlantic, where bath-rooms are almost as numerous as bed-rooms in every private house of any pretensions to the comfort that even a moderate competency can command, and where the purest of water is let in at the highest habitable part of every building, in unlimited quantity, and for a most moderate payment. It is somewhat amusing, too, to see the Irish maidens in Philadelphia (in their usual vocation of housemaids, there as elsewhere) tripping out iv the early morning, upon the broad-brick foot-pavement, and screwing a small hose of an inch in diameter to a brass cock concealed un-. der a little iron plate near the kerb-stone; then, with an air of command over the refreshing element, directing a copious shower against the windows, shutters, front-door, white marble steps, elegant iron railings, green shrubs, small and much-cherished grass-plot, heavy blossomed creepers hanging on neat trellis work, and, finally, the graceful acacia, or the silver maple, or the catalpa, or the acanthus, or the mountain ash, above her head. Next advances a graver character, whose business is to " lay the dust." He "drags with him a snake-like hose some fifty feet long, one end of which he has screwed upon the stop-cock fixed to a post by the side of the pavement, while from a brass pipe of the other end, which he holds in his hand, he throws a strong jet over the street, and a considerable distance beyond the point at which he has arrived when he has come " to the end of Lis tether." He then removes the screw end to the next cock, which is at the proper distauce to enable him to reach, by the jet from the hose, the point where he left off. The jet is also eminently serviceable in cleansing streets, courts, and alleys, which can never be sufficiently purified by mere sweeping ; and also for clearing out drains and sewers, and preventing accumulations which cause offensive and noxious exhalations. No one who has seen it in operation, and who has also experienced the comfort and luxury of an abundant supply of Iresh, sparkling, cool, and what is of more consequence than all, most agreeably soft water, in the hotels and private houses, can fail to feel himself under the temptation to encourage a wish that theandividual members of our Water Companies, and they alone, might be confined to the use of their own hard and muddy water for the rest of their lives.-— Tremenheer's Notes on Public Subjects.

AxECDOTE 05 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. —The lately appointed bishop of Nova Scotia applied to the Government of that Province to allow the soldiers of the garrison to present arms to him, which Sir John Harvey permitted until he heard from the commander-in-chief. The old Duke's answer was, "The only attentions the solders are to pay to the bishop are to his sermons."