ENGLISH MISCELLANEA.

Press, Volume VIII, Issue 931, 1 November 1865, Page 3

ENGLISH MISCELLANEA.

Mrs. Cobden has presented a bust of her illustrious husband to the Emperor Napoleon. The presentation was made through M. Michel Chevalier, and his Majesty has acknowledged the gift in a graceful and feeling letter. The commission for the bust was given to the artist by the late Mr. Henry Christy. The northern extension, it is said, of the Underground Railway will cause the demolition of the house at the top of Upper Baker street, in which Mrs. Siddons lived. " Progress" is in most eases destruction ; and what we gain in accommodation, we more than lose in the obliteration of the landmarks of our local traditions. A large number of noblemen and gentlemen have formed themselves into a committee, for the purpose of erecting a proper monument to the memory of the late Sir Joseph Paxton. They propose to open a general subscription list; that the memorial shall be a marble statue, which is to be placed on a chosen position in the English landscape gardens of the Crystal Palace; aud that the commission for the statue shall be intrusted to Mr. Spence, of Borne, to whom Sir Joseph sat for his bust a few mouths before his death. The '* Mechanics' Magazine" states that the longest aerial flight on record was made by Mr. Wise, Mr. La Mountain, and others, who started from St. Louis for new York. They succeeded in following the course they had mapped out fur themselves until they had crossed Lake Erie, when they were caught in an adverse current of air, and forced to aband »n their original design, after having travelled 1150 miles iv less than twenty hours. Mr Low, another American aeronaut, has constructed what he terms an aerial ship, the greatest circumference of which is 337 ft., with a capacity to hold 700,000 cubic feet of gas, and a lifting power of 22 tons. The machine is furnished with many novel appliances for the purpose of elevating, depressing, and directing the machine; and in this machine Mr. Low proposes to cross the Atlantic in fifty or sixty hours. The senate of the London University have agreed upon the immediate institution of a new degree, that.of | " Doctor of Literature," and the; scheme has been approved of by her Majesty's Government At first thought, there does not seem to be any connection between Madame Tussaud's Wax-work Exhibition and the law of copyright j yet it seems not unlikely that the family of the late Dr. Pritehard will dispute the right of the proprietors to exhibit a wax effigy of the deceased murderer in ; the. Chamber of Horrors, or in any other part of their establishment. Some photographers and stationers, in Dandee had thought proper to expose for. sale, not only portraits of the poisoner, but of his faintly; and this coming to the knowledge of the latter, they ob- ; tuitied iuterdic-L* against' any further sale, on the ground that auteh sale is unauthorised, and injurious to the feelings and interests of the' family, • who were innocent of the father's crime, s