Miscellnaeous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 597, 24 July 1858, Page 4

Miscellnaeous.

A Government Eoundet.—At Keyham steam-yard the £40,000 granted for the current year has been all expended towards the completion of one of the finest Government foundries in existence. The chief portion has been laid out on the great quadrangle, which, with the buildings, has a roofage of seven acres. It is 900 feet long by 430 broad. Since their lordships were there last year the engine smith snip, south, has been completed, including the erection of a Nasmyth five-ton steam hammer, and several of lesser power. In the north end of the quadrangle, the oil smith's shop and "stores and the furnaces,are in a forward state. The larger foundry is in use; it has four powerful travellers, constructed on the tupular principle, each weighing 22 tons, and tested to the extent of lifting 30 tons—the side walls are equally armed, bavins; four cranes each tested to 30 tons, and four or five others with lesser power to suit the various requirements. The gas pipes are laid on, and there are two furnaces and a drying: stove attached. North of the foundry are the usual pattern smiths' shop, trimming shop, iron store, pug mill, blast, &c, all'put up, and north of these again, to drive all the machinery, is a 50-horse engine, similar to the one on the south. The boiler shop on the north end of the quadrangle is nearly complete, the cranes and travellers are up and the pavement and gas could be finished in a month. The Government have not yet availed themselves of all the land they possess on the north, and the tidal basin has therefore not obtained its full proportions. Negotiations are pending with the St. Auhyn family for the purchase of 50 additional acres, and with the Duchy of Cornwall for a frontage of 50 acres of mud. This may involve an outlay of £100,000. Space would be obtained ,for a dock suitable for the increased -length of the new war ships, for a barracks to save thei 'military guard, their.long and tiresome march before commencing duty/and;'what may be of more consequence than either, for a siding into the new Cornwall. Kailway,' which will thus open direct communication with the South Devon, Bristol and Exeter, and Great Western lines. No. 1 dock at Keyham, which took the Himalaya with not an inch to spare, is being lengthened 12' feet, and now contains the screw steamship Doris, 32, 800 horse-power, the first of her.class in Devonport, preparing for commission. No. 2 dock has the screw steamship Exmouth, 90, which was taken in on Monday, her stem has received.extra supporting shores, to facilitate the repairs of her keel and false keel, recently damaged by grounding on the Lands-end on returning from Lisbon, and in No. 3 (the Queen's dock) is the screw steamship Nile.

* The Woes of an Author.—Mr. Bayard has been overwhelmed by impertinent confidential letters from a large circle of divine creatures^ yclept " Blue, Stockings." Driven to desperation, he has administered the following rebuff, which he indited from " Gotha, Germany," and forwards to tlie editor of the 'New York Tribune :'—ln a certain contingency, the ancient Israelites excused a man from all military duty for the space of one year; but in our exacting times, I have no right to expect that the same dispensation of Providence will justify me in laying aside my steel (pen) for a longer space than one month. Not that writing is a necessity to me. On the contrary, I am sometimes heartily tired of it, and wish thai I had been born with a spade in my hand, instead of a quill. My Nemesis is the word " contract," and my only consolation, when she sometimes drives me too hard, is the saving' clause I inserted, that I should only write when I had (or supposed I had) something to say. During the past month I have written nothing, and you have lost nothing. For I persist in the antiquated idea, that the public has no right to know anything about the private life of- an author. His household gods are as sacred as those of any other individual whatever; and if he chooses to keep a skeleton, that is his own business. That certain portions of my life have been betrayed to the world, is a thing for which I am not accountable. I have always resisted protested against any such revelation, either in my own case or in that of others. You, anonymous American females, will still persist m sending me letters, for the most part either silly or impertinent—should you be well pleased, it I know you personally, were to entertain the public with the secrets of your hearts or your toilettes? Reverse the case, in your imaginations, and you may perhaps spare me, henceforth, the bore of your advice and your meddling criticism. There is scarcely an American author of any reputation who is not subjected to this private annoyance, in addition to published mis-statements of his life, pW nnances, political and religious creed, &c. Two years ago the newspapers insisted on. marrying me to somebody in Ohio—l never could discover precisely to whom—and the result was a shower <tf anonymous letters, somo of which were positively insulting. I have since learned that Jinghsh authors are subjected to the same annoyance, though in a less degree. In Germany there is not much of it—which is rather to be wondered at. I have read lately, in

American papers, statements ."^tliat Tennvso was ruining himself by opium "eating, and that Thackeray formerly made a living by shavineat an enormous usury, the bills of young heir Knowing both the men as I do—and they ar two of God's own noblemen-—I pronounce these stories outrageous lies. There is not the shadow of a foundation for either of them. If the things are the inevitable shadows of an author's fame, then, as Tennyson sings :—

"Better the life of bush and briarThe bird that pipes his long desire And dies unheard within his tree Than his who warbles long and loud And falls at Glory's temple-gates— For whom the carrion vulturelwaits To tear his heart before the crowd !" ' I ask pardon for this digression, which is not wholly personal, since the annoyance is so K eneral. Perhaps this protest, which I make fur the first and last time, may save me future la mentations over a " lost ideal." I wish it to be understood that I never set up for an ideal Quite the contrary My tastes are really of the realest kind, including rocking-chairs, oysters, fat horses, Christy's Minstrels, la»-er-bier macaroni, Havana cigars, Flemish "artiste' sausages, salt bathing, pickled herrings theraising of vegetables, Newfoundland does camp-fires, sailors, lumbermen, uneducated men' and sinners generally. If your ideal" embraces* all these, ye anony-mice (the plural, I suppose of anonymous), hold on to it, and may it comfort you. I know an American author who was once bored for a long time by a female acquaintance for sympathy and tender appreciation of her ideas of " spiritual duty." "Mr Plutarch," she would say, "is there a more serene snd sublime satisfaction in life than that of discovering your spiritual duty, and then conscientiously performing it ? Have you not often, in your own soul, felt this tranquil bliss?" The author bore this for a time, but human patience has its limits. " No," he answered at last; " I hate to do my spiritual duty. If I know what it is, I won't do it; but, madam, there is. one thing which does fill me with a serene and sublime satisfaction, and reconciles me to the hoilowness of life." " Pray, pray, what is it ?" she asked eagerly. " Madam, it is a pig's nose, boiled with cabbage !" was his quiet answer. He was never forgiven. lam not afraid of applying the moral of this story every word of which is true—to my own case. Egyptian Cobn.-—We have now before us, upon our table, one of the most interesting and curious specimens of cereal productions upon, which the eye can rest, or the mind contemplate. It is a head of Egyptian corn, from the garden of Mr. J. M. Shrack, of the Golden Gate Eanch, four miles from Mokelumne Hill, on the Stockton road. The seed of this interesting production was obtained from Texas* having been originally procured from the shroudings of an Egyptian mummy. Thus, after agestation of 3,000 years, the earth brings forth this corn, in its second birth, to contribute to the support of. a new civilisation; and by its immense productiveness, to sustain a new population in a new world soon to be as dense as that which peopled the Valley of the Nile. So immensely productive is this corn under the culture of Mr. Shrack, which is only an evidence of what it has been and may be everywhere, that we can readilyconceive the whole arable surface of. the earth converted into a city, with only a small garden to each tenement, and yet none wanting bread. The sample before us isseventeen inches in its longitudinal circumference, and ten inches in its traverse. The interior core is only half an inch in diameter at its base, throwing off a multitude of small branches, each one resembling somewhat a head of wheat, and compactly filled with" seed. Each, stalk bears from four to six of these immense, .ears; and from the very late period at which this was sown, and its early maturity, the pro-* bability is that it will produce two crops in the year. The grain, which somewhat resembles corn, though not so large and hard, has a very thm hull,.white interior, and pleasant taste.— Qalavaras CJironicle.

Electric Messages Crossing on One Wire. —The American Telegraph' Company now send 3 despatches from both ends of the line and simultaneously, by a single wire, the electric currents meeting and crossing, but causing no irregularity. The ordinary cells of the Grove battery are used. This is the invention of a Mr. Hughes.— The Builder.