MISCELLANEA.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume VI, Issue 431, 15 August 1851, Page 4

MISCELLANEA.

Practical Exorcism. —About ten days ago all the population of Brunn, in the j Austrian States, were thrown into commo- j tion by the appearance of the devil in propria persona, surrounded by gendarmes with drawn swords: His Satanic Majesty was, as be is always represented, perfectly black, with two enormous horns, goat's ears, a body covered with hair, horse's legs, and cloven feet; but he seemed decidedly out of spirits, and it appeared that he was undergoing the indignity of being conveyed to durance vile. The old men and women of the place fell on their knees and prayed to all the saints to protect them against the terrible Prince of Darkness ; but the young men Had the impiety to laugh and scoff at him. On inquiry the following facts were stated: —A few days before, as a peasant woman, named Hint, was lying in bed, after having been delivered of a child, the devil suddenly leaped through a window, clanking a chain, and demanded that she should give him the child, to be carried to the regions below, or make over to him a sum of 100 florius in new silver, which he knew she had collected. The poor woman, greatly terrified, at once produced the money, and the devil pocketed it; after which he went away. The next day the woman told the parish priest of the visit she had received, and added that she had collected the 100 florins penny by penny to pay for religious services on her accouchement. " Did you tell any one that you had the money?" asked the priest. "Only the midwife," said she. " Well, tell the midwife that the devil was mistaken in supposing that you had only 100 florins, for that you have 50 florins more; and say that you are glad he did not compel you to give them up. The devil will perhaps pay you another visit after that, but I will be there to exorcise him." The woman told the midwife what the priest had said. The next night the devil re-appeared and demanded the 50 florins; but, at the same jpipment, the priest rushed forth, seized him by the neck, and charged him with'being a thief. The devil, it turned out, was the husband of 'the midwife. Ho was fastened in a room, and the next morniug was taken to prison .—Galignani

Probable Future Substitutes tor Coal. —We have a confident, hope — or rather a firm belief that longs before our coal-fields are really exhausted, discoveries will be made, both of new motive power and new sources of heat or caloric, which will make all future generations independent of those clumsy and dingy resources. Motive power, we think, will probably be supplied, either directly, by such omnipresent andj inexhaustible elements as electricity and galvanism, or by the employment of some gas, far more elastic than steam, and capable of being called into action, and again condensed by slight mechanical impulses, or by charges of temperature incalculably less than are now necessary for the management of that comparatively intractable substance. But even if we should still require to use steam, we are persuaded that means will be devised for its generation, or rather for the production and evolution of heat for that and all other purposes, far less operose, direct, and precarious, than the combustion of coal. This may probably be effected without any process of combustion at all: eitner by the great agents of galvanism or electricity, already referred to: or by the friction, hammering, or rolling of solid and practicably indestructible bodies: or by the forcible compression of common air, or of other elastic fluids; or by the chemical combination of different substances; while, if combustion must still be resorted to, might it not be constantly maintained-without the tremendous expense of the working and transportation of fuel, by merely contriving a method of burning the inexhaustible, omnipresent, and eternally reproduced element of hydrogen, as it exists in the great ocean, and in all our lakesj rivers, fountains, and tanks and tubs of rain water, with the equally omnipresent, inexhaustible, and constantly produced hydrogen of the circumambient atmosphere. These, we are aware, may now strike many (perhaps most) people as mere Utopian and Laputan fancies; and undoubtedly they are, as yet, but vague and general suggestions. But when we consider how much wilder and more audacious (as les3 warranted by any analagous experience) similar anticipations of electric telegraphs, photographic painting, or railway locomotives, must have appeared but fifty years

ago, we really cannot consent to put them in such a category j but, on the contrary, confess to a certain feeling, both of pride and confidence, in thus recording what we cannot but consider as a truly prophetic, though it may be but a dim and somewhat indistinct, vision of a good and a glory to come. —Edinburgh Review. i Dreadful Sufferings of a Boat's ' Crew. —The followiug extract of a letter from Mr. James 0. Jones, second master of her Majesty's steamer Dee, employed on the Cape of Good Hope station, which has come to England to his parents, discloses some almost unparalleled privations and sufferings of himself and crew, by the upsetting of their boat:—-" We are at present lying'up Quilimane River, but I believe we go to the Cape about Christmas ; we are nearly tired of stopping up here. It's a very great chance sending this letter, as the vessel only anchored off here yesterday (no date is given), and sails to-morrow, and she lies about nine miles from us. The greater part of this was written in an open boat, as I was going out to overhaul her..... I have sad news to tell you. I had a narrow escape with my life. I was going into the river from the Pantaloon, 10, Commander Parker, where I had been for provisions in one of the Dee's cutters, when just as we were crossing the bar a heavy breaker ran in over the stern, filled and capsized the boat in the middle of the surf, and it was just dusk, they could not see us from the ship, so we were drifting about the breakers all night, clinging to the boat. In the morning we drifted up the river, and not far from the ship, but as only our heads were above water, they could not see us, although looking out for us ; at last w« drove ashore on the sand bank, where we got out, more dead than alive, after having been in the water 34 hours without anything to eat or drink. The next day, about two o'clock, the ship sent a boat and picked us up. Out of six men and three officers who were in the boat, there are only myself and four others saved. The master's assis- ; tant (Mr. Dyer) and three men were washed'off the boat by the surf. Poor Dyer got hold of my foot and took me down a good way with him; I tried to swim up with him, but found 1 could not, so I was compelled to kick him clear of myself, and could only just get hold of the boat then." The Light of Nature. —The celebrated Mr. Hume wrote an essay on the sufficiency of the light of Nature ; and the less celebrated Robertson wrote on the necessity of revelation, and the insufficiency of the light of Nature. Hume came one evening to visit Robertson: and the evening was spent in conversing on the subject. The friends of both were present; and it is said that Robertson reasoned with unaccustomed clearness and power. Whether Hume was convinced by his reasonings or not, we cannot tell; but, at any rate, he did not acknowledge his convictions. — Hume was very much of a gentleman, and as he was about to depart, bowed politely to those in the room, while, as he retired through the door, Robertson took the light, to show him the way.' Hume was still facing the door. " Oh, sir," said he to Robertson, "I find the light of Nature always-sufficient; arid he continued, "Pray don't trouble yourself, sir," and so he bowed on. The street door was open, and presently, as he bowed along in the entry, he stumbled over something concealed, and pitched down stairs into the street. Robertson ran after him, with a light; | and, as he held it over him, whispered softly and cunningly, "You had better had a little light from above, friend Hume." And raising him up, he bade him good night, and returned to his friends.

Sir Charles Napier's Farewell Fire. —On quitting the Indian army, Sir Charles Napier has discharged among his own troops a tremendous broadside, which, if it hits its mark, will be a death blow to the knavery and folly by which not only the army, but every class of society, is more or les3 degraded. Not the military ranks alone, but every rank in life, may profit by. the vigorous assault that Sir Charles Napier has made upon humbug and dishonesty. He shows that it is idle for officers to boast of the valour with which they meet the charge of the foe, when they are obliged to sneak and shuffle away from the charges of their creditors. As long as a soldier cannot pay the debts he owns to his tailor or his wine-merchant, he is degraded, however much he may pride himself on the manner in which he discharges the debt he owes his country. An officer cannot honorably draw his sword, so long as disreputable mortgages will not allow him to draw his pay for his necessary expenses. There is something so completely after our own hearts, in the way in which Napier calls things by their proper names, that we can scarcely refrain from singing " Charley's my darling," as we peruse his spirited orders to the Indian army. He denounces as it deserves, the miserable error' of living beyond one's means,— a low-spirited vice which is the curse of nearly the whole of the " professional" class of society. The world 1 must be knocked out of its snobbish struggles for "appearances," and we gladly hail such a colleague as Sir Charles Napier, in the office of putter down of that hateful humbug, which seeks respect by living far beyond one's income, often swindling one's creditors and leaving one's family to beggary. If a man is known to have a thousand a-year he must needs live at the rate of fifteen hundred: a proceeding, which among those who take the trouble to calculate, will show that he must

be defrauding somebody, and going to the dogs, at the rate, of five hundred "per annum. Instead of making it a point to live within one's means, the vulgar ambition of the present day is to live without them. Oh! for a few sensible men in every class, to set the example of making, literally, a virtue of necessity, by doing honour to those who live in accordance with their circumstances how- •' ever narrow. Let the rich spend their money as freely, or waste it as foolishly as they please, but let us knock for ever on the head the footmanlike idea that the having * or throwing away of money is, in itself, respectable, and that to live as if we had it, when we really have it not, is anything but swindling of the lowest description. Sir Charles Napier has done a great deal towards the promulgation of this wholesome doctrine, and we must say that, notwithstanding all the good he has done in the services of India, nothing has become him better than his last* act in leaving it.—Punch. i

- Stream and Gas without Coal.—lt is scarcely thirty years since a committee of the House of Commons doubted the possibility of travelling at the rate of even fifteen miles an hour. Winsor, too, was laughed at when he proposed to light street lamps with coal-gas; Dr. Lardner endeavoure&fto r* prove the impossibility of a steamboat ever crossing to America; Professor; Wheatstone was treated as a clever enthusiast when ho first promulgated his ideas d? vthe electric telegraph: yet all these things j^ave been brought into successful operation." One or two of the principal railway companies have lately entered into an arrangement 4 with Mr. | Shepard, who has 1 patented an invention for - the decomposition of water, and negociations are pending with some steamboats, locomotives, and other engines, by which the cost of working machinery and generating gas is likely to be greatly reduced. At the coming Exhibition we hope to have an opportuity ■ of testing the merits of this wonderful invention. — Times.

Curious Sympathetic Phenomena. — The Salut Public of Lyons says, "The National Manufactory of Tobacco was a few days ago the theatre of a strange scene, which has created great interest among medical men. | In a workshop occupied by about sixty women, one of them, after a violent altercation with. | her husband, was seized with a nervous attack. Her companions immediately afforded her assistance; but by a curious sympathetic phenomenon, one, two, then three, then four, then ten, then twenty, had nervous attack; and all the others would probably have been seized in same way, if the workshop had not j been cleared. With the exception of the famous scenes in the Cemetery of St. Medard, at the commencement of the last century, the only other case of the kind on record occurred injthe practice of the celebrated Dutch | physician Boerhaave. In one of the women's I rooms in the hospital at Leyden, an enidemy of convulsions existed with such intensity, that the moment one of the sick had given the signal, those around her were attacked in | the same way, and the attacks spread one after the other to all in the room. To put an end to this signal contagion, the physcian employed the terrible means having a furnace containing red hot irons brought in, and he threatened to brand with the irons the first person who should disturb order. This had the effect he anticipated: the

attacks ceased." Golden Bules fob Brides.—Resolve every morning to be cheerful that day; and should any thing occur to break your resolution suffer it not to put you out of temper with your husband. Dispute not with him, be the occasion what it may; but much rather deny yourself the satisfaction of having your own will, or gaining the better of an argument, then risk a quarrel or create a heart burning, which it is impossible to see the end of. Implicit submission in a man to his wife is ever disgraceful to both; but implicit submission in a wife to the just will of her husband is what she promised at the ' altar—what the good will revere her for; and what is, in fact the greatest honours she can receive. Be assured, a woman's power, as well as her happiness, has no other foundation then her husband's esteem and love, which it is her interest, by all possible means, to preserve and increase, to share and soothe his cares, and, with the utmost assiduity, conceal his errors.

Sang Froid of the Queen of Spain.— Letters from Madrid, published in the 'Daily News,' say "A curious incident occurred the night before last, at a family ball given by the Queen-mother. PenaFlorida, a member of the Gonzales Bravo Ministry, is subject to intervals of mental alienation. Although not invited to the ball alluded to, he presented himself in full uniform, and, walking up to the young Queen, informed her in a loud voice that it was already time she was introduced to her ancestor, Charles the FiCtb, and that he, for his part, intended to levy 20,000 negroes dressed in red as a body gxlard. ■ The Queen, without being disconcerted at this abrupt address, told him to go and levy them without loss of time. The unfortunate man then bowed himself ont and was conducted home."

A Sharp Answer.—" Would you knfcw this boy to be my son from his resemblance to me ?" asked a gentleman. . Mr. Curran replied, "Yes, sir, the maker's name is stamped upon the blade, -