MISCELLANEA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 80, 17 July 1852, Page 11

MISCELLANEA.

The following order has been issued by the Commander-in-Chief of Bombay, "With a view to establish uniformity of appearance between European and Native Ranks in regiments of the Native army, the Commander-in-Chief is pleased to direct that Moustachios be worn by all European Commissioned and Non-Commis-sioned Officers actually serving with Native Corps, of whatever branch of the service." We are sure the innovation will become generally popular ; and it is possible that the contagion may spread move generally through the ranks of "the Civil service. Nothing gave the Affghans so decided a feeling of contempt for their European opponents' as their cleanly shaven faces, and the prejudice is, we believe, universal in the North-west.

Conquest of Difficulties. —"It is well known," says Sir Francis Head, tk that one of the results of Mr. Bobert Stephenson's elaborate investigation was, that the London and Birmingham railway ought to pass through the healthy and handsome town of Northampton. The inhabitants, however, urged and excited by men of influence and education, opposed the blessing with such barbarous fury, that they succeeded in distorting the line via the Kilsby tunnel, to a point five miles off. Tlie_ Kilsby tunnel is a specimen of engineering which tells with double force after the above relation. Let to a contractor for £99,000, a quicksand soon stopped his progress, and tnough the company relieved him from his engagement, the vexation killed him. Mr. Stephenson then undertook the task, and confronted the difficulty with a most inventive spirit. Though the water rose and covered the works, though the pumping apparatus appeared insufficient, though the directors were inclined to abandon the task, the engineer, by aid of their capital and his skill, with 1250 men, 200 horses, and 13 steam engines, raised 1800 gallons per minute night and day, for eight months, from the quicksand alone, and infused into the workmen so much of his own energy, that when one of their comrades were killed by their side, they merely threw the body out of their [sight, and forgot his death in their own exertions. Three hundred thousand pounds was the cost of this great work. Thirty-six millions of bricks were used in its formation; 177,452 cubic yards of soil were taken from the tunnel in eight months; 286,480,000 gallons of water were pumped from it ; and for all this the shareholders of the company are indebted to the men of influence and education,'' who excited the people of "the healthy and happy town of Northampton."

The Climate of New Zealanb, though undoubtedly good, has been described injudiciously, and without discrimination. Beautiful, delightful, and splendid, are the epithets which have commonly been applied to it. These terms naturally convey the impression of .an atmosphere rarely disturbed by wind or rain. Until its true value comes to be appreciated by them, strangers are at first somewhat rudely disenchanted by finding that their imaginary Paradise can be visited, and that, too, rather roughly, by the winds and rains of Heaven. This disenchantment frequently takes place at an early period; for it not uncommonly happens that vessels enter the harbour in a gale of wind. Impatient to view the promised land, the new-comer, in spite of the weather, lands without delay. Wading along a sloppy clay road, in a boisterous gale of wind and rain, with perhaps an umbrella turned inside out. in one hand, and his hat jammed tightly over his head with the other, he can scarcely divest himself of the idea that the ship must have lost her reckoning, and mistaken her port. Pride, however, prevents him asking questions, and politeness forbids disparaging remarks. But in New Zealand, as elsewhere, a storm is followed by a calm ; and if disenchanted to-day, the new arrival will probably be charmed to-morrow by one of those calm, bright, and lovely mornings, whose beauty no language can fittingly describe. The fact is that the climate of a country may be fenile and salubrious, and such is the climate of New Zealand, without being either splendid or delightful.-— New Zealander.

Unpublished Anecdote of Mrs., Bloomer. —Mrs. Bloomer declares that she will never be able to summon courage to visit England; for it would be most painful for her feelings to cross the Atlantic, and see so many vessels, even though they should be of the weaker sort, going about it stays. — Punch.

University Intelligence.—A tutor asking a fast undergraduate to give an account of the Judgment of Paris, the rapid student replied, he believed it was unfavourable to Louis Napoleon.—Punch.

Smoking in 1851.—Among the articles of traffic which were most in demand during the Exhibiton season, cigars have taken the lead. It would be dangerous to say how many millions have been sold. The run on real Havannas was so great that they were called for much faster than they could be made. The smoking mania has now become a universal epidemic. Of all intolerable street nuisances this is the greatest, and ought to be resisted by every true born Briton who has a spark of patriotism or independence left. The very atmosphere is redolent of the odious weed. If you meet 20 men, they have, on the average, thirty cigars or pipes among them. From the peer and the heavy dragoon, down to the butcher boy and the omnibus cad, there is scarcely an exception. A leading medical practitioner, at Brighton, has lately given a list of sixteen cases of paralysis, produced by smoking, which came under his own knowledge within the last six months. Then, the experience is ruinous. Many young men smoke eighteen cigars per diem, besides what they give to their friends. Not long ago, I heard an inveterate smoker whose entire income could scarcely have amounted to three hundred a-year, declare that his cigars alone cost him one hundred and fifty. He drew the long bow, of course, but if fifty was the truth, it was bad enough. A curious phase in the disease is the taste for short dirty pipes, black with age, use, and abomination, which has crept in lately. Every third dandy you meet has one of these in his check. The cutty and the cigar hold divided reign. Several speculators, during the last year, traversed Ireland, buying up sackloads of these indigenous productions, which they sold again in London at an enormous premium. The peculiar, aroma, so much coveted, is only to be met with in specimens of the dlauleen which have passed through many mouths in successive generations, and have become family relics. Even in Boston, in the United States, in the land where, according to some naturalists, children are born with lighted cigars in their mouths, there is a law against smoking in the streets, and penalties inflicted on the offender. With all our respect for our transatlantic brethren, and their matchless energies, we scarcely expected to have received from them such a lesson in refined civilization. — Dublin University Maga" zinc.