MISCELLANEA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 117, 2 April 1853, Page 10

MISCELLANEA.

Joseph Ady,—who was always willing to tell people of " something to their advantage," died recently; it is said from an illness the result of his imprisonments for not paying the postage of his letters; but at any rate it was not at a very premature age—B3. The Early Days of Australia.—-In Mrs. Chisholm's papers we find some striking illustrations of the social history of Australia.' Joseph Smith's confessions, written down in 1845 by the philanthropic lady, in his own words, run thus:—" I arrived in the colony, fifty-six years since ; it was Governor Phillip's time, and I was 14 years old; there were only eight houses in the colony then. I know that myself and 18 others laid in a hollow tree for 17 weeks; and cooked out of a kettle with a wooden bottom ; we used to stick it in a hole in the ground and make a fire round it. I was seven years in service (bond), and then started working for a living wherever I could get it. There was plenty of hardship then; I have often taken grass, and pounded it, and. made soup from a native dog. I'would eat anything then. For 17 weeks I had only five ounces of flour a day. We never got a full ration, except when the ship was %n harbour. The motto was, ' Kill them or work them, their provision will he in store.' Many a time have I been yoked like a bullock with 20 or 30 others, to. drag along timber. About 800 died in six months at a place called ■ loongabbie, or Constitution Hill. I knew a man so weak, he was thrown into the grave, when he said, ' Don't cover me up ; I am not dead ; for God's sake don't cover me up!' The overseer answered, < D your eyes, you'll die to-night, and we shall have the trouble to come back again !' The man recovered ; his name is James Glasshouse, and he is now alive at Richmond. They used to have a large hole for the dead; once a day men were sent down to collect the corpses of prisoners, and throw them in without any ceremony or service. The native dogs used to come down at night and fight and howl in packs, gnawing the poor dead bodies. The Governor would order the lash at the rate of 500, 600, to 800.; and if the men could have stood it they would have had more, l knew a man hung there and then for.stealing a lew biscuits, and another for stealing a duck nock. A man was condemned—no time—-take nun to the tree and hang him. The overseers were allowed to flog the men in the fields. Uiten have men been taken from the gang, bnd ov, and sent back to work. Any man would have committed murder for a month's provisions : I would have committed three (murders) tor a week's provisions ! I was chained seven weeks pn my back for being out getting greens, wild herbs. The. .Rev.-__ usld to come it i r j t0 foice some confession. Men were obliged to tell lies to prevent their bowels from being cut out by the lash.

Steamer "Melbourne." — The following particulars of the voyage of this unfortunate steamer appear in the Sydney papers. " The Melbourne left London on the Ist October, and encountered very severe weather iv the Channel, causing the vessel to put back to the Downs,

with the loss of top-gallant mast, and one of the engineers injured. 4th and sth October, rode out a tremendous gale of wind in the Downs. Left the Downs for Plymouth 6th October, encountering heavy head winds and sea. Arrived at Plymouth Bth October. On the 9th steamed up to the Royal Dockyard at Devonport, and had the ship thoroughly repaired. Left Devonport on the 13th in charge of a pilot, who managed to run us into H.M.S. Jupiter, carrying

away jib-boom, and all the head gear, port, cathead, and rails, auchor, and chain cable, &c. Finally left Plymouth on the 15th. All went well till the night of the 19th, when, in rather a high sea and fresh breeze, the ship began to roll very much, and all the topmasts were suddenly lost, and then the jib-boom was carried away, nothing being left standing but the three lower masts and yards. Every exertion was instantly made to clear the wreck by cutting away, the ship rolling heavily and "listing" very much on one side. About the middle',of the day the ship was got clear, but unfortunately the whole mass of rigging became entangled with the screw propeller, and the engines, which up to tbat_ time had performed their work, suddenly stopped. The situation of the ship now became very critical, as the whole .of the wreck, being fast to the stern of the ship, at times beat against the rudder, and rendered it almost impossible to steer. Twelve hours elapsed before the screw could be raised and disentangled from the floating wreck of topmast and rigging, the engines were then again set in motion, aud the voyage continued. On the following day a leak was

discovered in the mail room, and the mail bags were brought oh deck thoroughly saturated with wet. At "the instance of the mail-agent, and in consequence of the leak, a course was laid for Lisbon. After some stay in -the Tagus, the mail-agent required the ship to proceed again to sea for Australia without being docked, as he affirmed the leak was stopped. The commander, however, refused to do so, and a survey was held in the presence of Lloyd's agent, the result of which was that the' ship was'docked, the Portuguese Government having placed all the resources of their arsenal,at the disposal of the captain of the Melbourne, which finally left Lisbon on the 21st November, and arrived at Sydney on the Bth Feb. On the 7th February a most unaccountable vibration occurred, and it is supposed that half of the fore part of the screw propeller was carried away. To add to all these

disasters a mutiny occurred in the Bay of Bis-

; cay, owing to the.boatswain and his mate being j disrated for drunkenness, and the master-at-

l arms being appointed boatswain, much to the i chagrin of Johnson, the second boatswain's mate. | The latter induced part of the crew to support I his authority as boatswain in opposition to | Captain Cox .'and the first officer. Several of i the mutineers were lodged in prison at Lisbon. I China 3000 Years Ago.—A very curious | volume—certainly the most curious in the matI ter of its contents that has yet been rendered I direct from the original Chinese into English— I has just appeared. The title runs thus :—" The I Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese, B.C. 1121, I as prescribed in the ' Institutes of the Chow I Dynasty strung as Pearls ;' or, Chow Le Kwan H Choo. The translation has been made by Mr. 1 W. R. Gingell, interpreter to the Consulate, and §1 from the care apparently bestowed upon it, there 1 can be little hazard in saying that it has been X executed with remarkable success. The " InBstitutes" contain elaborate descriptions of j| die rites and ceremonies, the state pastimes jpdd the whole of the intricate paraphernalia Kof what may be designated the golden age of Kthe Celestial Empire—that is to say, the age of peace and plenty, when the nation, having leip^ne to indulge itself in its peculiar shows and [■priiis, put out all its picturesque and allegorical [Resources of sun, moon, and stars, birds, trees, land flowers, emblazoned banners, crowns, and pooes, in the full garniture of eastern gorgeouspess. The account of these pageantries, the dissection of the machinery of state and government, and the maxims of social and civil polity scattered through the work, exhibit an amount HP' ceremonial breeding and magnificence of ■Kesign which, notwithstanding the odd tapestry ■p language upon which it is embroidered, conHj rasts by no means disadvantageous^ with the ■PPst ornate development of Western civilisation.

These " Institutes" prove, in fact, that, long before the dawn of European systems, the Chinese were governed by the most courtly notions, and possessed modes and customs distinguished quite as much by grace and regularity as by singularity and quaintness. The work also establishes the extraordinary antiquity and unchangeable character of the Chinese institutions, and discovers to us a nation which seems early to have attained the highest pitch of order and refinement it has ever reached, and never to have varied in the slightest degree throughout its entire articulation up to the present time. The " Institutes" describe China as it is in describing China as it was upwards of 1000 years B.C. The original from which this translation is drawn appears to be regarded as a work of profound erudition, too profound in substance and treatment for the common run of mankind, and intelligible in all its subtleties only to the most learned scholars. In the translation, however, much of these difficulties vanish, and although there are many stumbling blocks in the peculiar turns of the phraseology, and the unfamiliar manner in which the several subjects are strung together, a little patience and perseverance will suffice to enable the English reader to explore the treatise to its depths. Mr. Gingell has done good service in the labour he has bestowed upon this work; and, although we cannot exactly say that it is as easy of comprehension as our hasty notice of it, or as interesting as a fairy tale, we can confidently guarantee a large amount of pleasure and instruction as the result of its attentive perusal.— Home News.

A Flying Ship.—An imnlense "flying ship' is " on the stocks" at Hoboken, near New York. The sanguine inventor, having spent 5000 dollars, has been stopped short by the want of a few hundreds more; and a New York paper says, " it is to be hoped that some one may be inclined to supply them for completing the wonderful project." The car is 64 ft. in length, very sharp at either end ; width, 6 ft.; height, 6 ft. 4 in.; the whole composed of a strong light wooden frame, covered with canvass, with doors and glass windows. The boilers are of copper, on the tubular plan, and occupy a space equal to four cubic feet; the engines are very perfect, being composed of gun metal and cast steel; they are of twelve horses power, and are to work twenty inches stroke sixty times per minute, which will give four hundred revolutions of the floats, which are placed on a substantial framework on the top of the car. There is sufficient room for twenty-five passengers, with fuel for four hours. The float is 260 feet in length, of a cigar-like shape, twenty-four feet diameter in the centre, and has a gas capacity equal to 95,000 cubic feet, which gives a lifting power equal to 6500 pounds. The entire weight of the car, float, and fixture, is 4000, leaving 2500 pounds surplus. It is designed to run about two hundred feet above the surface of the earth, at a rate of speed varying from twentyfive to fifty miles per hour. The engines are a curiosity, their weight being 181 pounds. At present the engines are to be worked with coke and spirits of wine, but Mr. Robjohn, the inventor, entertains some notion of " decomposing water, which is converted into steam by the combustion; and this steam is again condensed, and returned for decomposition—thus securing entire immunity from waste, and a uniform weight during the longest voyages."

Sewing by Machinery. — From a recent statement in the Scientific American,\t appears that Brother Jonathan has already made great progress in the adaptation of machinery to a branch of industry, which on this side of the Atlantic still remains in the absolute domain of the human fingers. After enumerating seven different patents which have been taken out for sewing, commencing with Johnson and Morey's in 1545, to Wilson's, the latest and best, our contemporary thus proceeds:—" Any one of them, but the Wilson machine especially, is, in our opinion, a great triumph of American genius. It is no larger than a neat small work-box, very portable and convenient, and we have seen fine shirt bosoms and collars stitched by it in a more perfect and accuaate manner than any we have ever seen done by hand-work. When we first noticed Howe's Sewing-machinery, in 1847, there was not a solitary machine of the kind m active operation, in our whole country, if in the world. There are now, we believe, about 500 in operation, and we have been told by Mr. Wilson that the orders for his machines cannot be supplied fast enough. .There are at present a hundred machines about finished at

the Company's works —Wheeler, Wilson & Co., Watertowni Connecticut, and these are all engaged. When we look at the progress made in. sewing-machines, we expect them to create a social revolution, for a good housewife will sew a fine shirt, doing all the seams in fine stitching, by one of Wilson's little machines, in a single hour. The time thus saved to wives, tailors, and seamstresses of every description, is of incalculable importance, for it will allow them to devote their attention to other things, during the time which used to be taken up with dull seam sewing. Young ladies will have more time to devote to ornamental work (it would be better for them all if they did more of it), and families in which there are a number of children, which require a continual stitching, in making andmending from morning till night, will yet be blessed by the improved sewing machine." Important News if Tkub.—A gentlemen on board the "Alexander" from the Mauritius, reports that just at the time of'the vessel's departure news had been received, by way of Point de Galle, of the safety of Sir John Franklin and the Artie Expedition. It was stated that he was at Santa Barbara, on the south-west coast of North America, with the ships "Erebus" and " Terror," and their respective crews, who had suffered much from scurvy.— M. _/. Herald, Feb. 17th. [We have no hope of the. report being true. ■ It emanates from San Francisco, upon the faith of a letter written from Monterey as far back as August; and subsequent news from California to the end of November make no further allusion to the subject.]