MISCELLANEOUS

Press, Volume VI, Issue 624, 29 October 1864, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS

A medical officer of volunteers says that a very few crack shots (especially with small bores) keep up their " form" for many yeare, or even months, together, one effect of shooting with very delicate sights at long ranges being to produce a partial congestion of the retina, which, if it were allowed to go on, might end in the loss of the sight of the eye altogether. A new machine, by means of which its inventor hopes to supersede the steam-engine, is the order of the day in France. It has been already introduced with success into a paper factory belonging to a M. Auzon. This machine can, it is said in a report of the French Academy of Sciences, be made to do the work of a steam-engine of equal power at an economy of from 60 to 70 per cent. It is, too, free from such drawbacks as the necessity of high chimneys, smoke, or the danger of explosion. In many ways it bears a close analogy to the Ericsson engine, and is called a " gazomoteur," being composed of three principal parts, namely, an air-pump, a smoke-con-suming furnace, and a motive cylinder. The furnace, when the engine is at work, remains closed, unless at the orifice by which the air-pump opens on it and the one by -which the heated air sets the cylinder in motion. It is so arranged that a quantity of combustible matter equal to that which it consumes falls constantly into it. A state of combustion is kept up by the air-pump. Part of the air passing from this rushes into the furnace ; the rest combines with the coal gas, forming thus a gaseous mixture the volume of which is far greater than that of the air previous to its introduction to the furnace. This mixed air acts on the piston of the cylindre moteur with a force proportionate to the volume produced by the augmentation of the elevation of the temperature. The Queen and the Prince of Wales have graciously signified their wish to become the patrons of the Royal School for Daughters of Officers in the Army, which has been already fostered by the sympathetic interest of the Duke of Cambridge and the Archbishop of Conterbury. The object is to provide for the suitable education of daughters of military officers. The Executive of the London Shakespeare Committee have been sending out a circular to the subscribers to the proposed memorial which was to have been erected in the Green Park, suggesting that the £1280, which is all they have,. or are likely to get, towards the amount of £30,000 which they originally fixed upon as requisite, should be devoted to the erection of a statue of Shakespeare in the neighbourhood of the Thames Embankment. To this sapient suggestion one of the subscribers, Mr. Gruneisen, has replied by protesting " against any application of the money raised for a grand memorial towards a petty monument, to figure on the Thames Embankment, to be pointed at by the finger of scorn as the failure of the London Committee to do honor to Shakespeare." He adds a very proper suggestion, that a meeting of the subscribers should be convened at once to consider the best course to be pursued ; but if that be not deemed expedient he recommends that the funds in hand be appropriated to the schools of the Dramatic College. The Nain Jaune (Paris) relates the following anecdote : —At the commencement of the winter, two journalists were in conversation at the opera. The one M. Dβ X -, is a bachelor, the other, M. De V , just married. " Well," aaid the one to the other, "how do you get along in your new condition ?" "Ah! my dear, there is nothing like being married. You cannot imagine how happy I am. When lam at work my wife is by my eide, and at the conclusion of each paragraph I embrace her. That is charming." " Now I understand " was the hapy retort of X , " why your sentences are so short." This conversation quickly spread through Paris.. From that time forth the articles of V—— were consulted by the public as the thermometer of his conjugal felicity. During two months the prose of M. V was disjointed and epigrammatic, in shorter periods than are being found in the earlier writings of Emily de Girardin. All the women grew jealous of Madam V But gradually the periods elongated, and at last Madam V opened the journal edited by M. V——-, and casting a rapid glance over the article signed with his; name, cried " What! but a single paragraph in the whole article! Poor woman, a divorce will most assuredly follow."