Miscellaneous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 660, 5 March 1859, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

AMERICAN WIT ON ENGLISH GRAMMAR

The ' Comic Grammar' says— But remember, though box In the plural makes boxes, The plural of ox Should be oxen, not oxes. To which an exchange paper adds ;— And remember, though fleece In the plural is fleeces, That the plural of goose Aren't gooses nor geeses. We may.also be permitted to add :— And remember, though house In the plural.bis houses, The plural of mouse Should be mice and not mouses. —Philadelphia Gazette. All of which goes to prove That grammar a farce is ; For where is the plural of rum and molasses ? - — New York Gazette. Thepluraj— Gazette— , : Of rum;.don't us trouble: Take one glass too much And you're sure to see double. — Brooklyn Daily Advertiser. A pair of blue eyesJust to vary the strain— Say the plural of kiss : Is—"doit again!" ■ — Howard County Sentinel.:

Secret Societies in Ireland.-—On the 9th December, fifteen persons charged with being members of an illegal society, arrived at Cork by the Bandon train, under the escort a large of party of police. They are all young men, in a respectable position in society. Twelve of them are from Skibbereen and three from Bantry. The captures were effected on the previous night while most of the parties were in bed. They are members of the Phoenix Society, and the informations have been sworn against them by one of their body, named Sullivan, the object of the Society is said to have been for the purpose of obtaining the invasion of our country by American filibusters. The prisoners, three of whom are attorney's clerks, and the rest rather^ respectable, are charged with being members of an illegal secret society, and with illegal drilling with fire arms, pikes and other weapons. There are a great many other persons accused of being members of the same society., On Saturday ihe 11th, the police, acting upon information supposed to have been supplied by the same approver who gave evidence upon which the arrests were made in Skibbereen and Bantry, apprehended nine persons- in Kenmare, on the charge of being members of the Phooenix Association. They are generally young men of the respectable class, such as clerks, shopkeepers' assistants; &c. Two parties against whom warrants are said to have been issued managed to make their escape. The prisoners were duly dispatched to Tralee, under a strong escort of police, for committal. On Saturday evening Mr. Laurence O'Sullivan, assistant to Mr. Richard Linnegan, apothecary, Killarney, was arrested on a warrant charging him with being a member of a secret society called the Phoenix Club^ At a subsequent period of. the night the following arrests were made: —Patrick Cronin, assistant to Mr. John Martin, grocer; Daniel Murphy, assistant to Mr. Coglan, grocer; and Joseph Murphy, assistant to Mr. Lewis. The above are all about 20 years old. On Sunday, the* 12th, considerable excitement was caused by the general report that a Ribbon Lodee had been captured in Belfast. The facts are as follows:—At six o'clock a party of constabulary, fully armed, surrounded a puplic' house in the Cromac street,' kept by a woman named M'Kee, and arrested some fifteen persons who were there assembled on the charge of being members of an illegal society. The prisoners were immediately marched to the police-office, where Mr. Tracey, resident magistrate, and the inspector and sub-inspector of constabulary were in attendance. The committal was made out, and the men were immediately marched off, under a strong escort, and lodged in the county of Antrim gaoly The men who have been arrested are believed to be all Roman Catholics, and, of course, the report goes that they.were members of a Ribbon Lodge. They are of the class of working men, and of ages ranging from mere lads to.grey-haired men. Mr. Wiljiam Sharman Crawford, in a letter to the 'Times,' attributes the instigation to Ribbonism,. to the land system of Ireland, the land laws by which that system is maintained, and the consequences resulting therefrom.

Pat's Description of a: Fiddle.—lt was the shape of a turkey, and the size of a goose. He turned it over on its backhand rubbed its belly with a stick ; and och ! St, Patrick ! how it did squale.

Eauthqiukk at Sjuix and Poiitugau— An earthquake which lifts been felt in every part of i Spain, and which has been productive of some damage in almost every city iv the south of Spain, has been a cause of the expression of much religious feeling; At Saville, where its effects wen; more i sensible than in any othtfr city, several public establishments having received considerable injury, processions have taken plape with unusual religious pomp,' and, the churches are daily visited by thou-sands-whose piety is stimulated by the reflection that they may again experience this awful visitation. It appears;that the earthquake was so much felt in the principal markets that all business immediately stopped, and hundreds thew themselves on their knees; to beg for the Divine mercy. In some of the churches mass was being celebrated'at the moment of the shock, and its different effect upon the priests was striking. Some stopped terrified, and could not go on with the religious ceremony till the cause of terror ceased, whilst others, turning to the congregation cliaunted the divine offices with fervor. The cries of the people resounded through the city, and even domestic animals showed their terror. The convents and churches have nearly all experienced the effects of the earthquake, and the famous tour of Omnium Sanctorum has deviated. The church clock of St. Mark struck 12' by the effect of the oscillation. The "hospital physicians make mention of the same phenomenon, which was perceived at the General Hospital of Madrid, namely, that there was a general complaint amongst the patients of increase of pain and uneasiness. Letters from Lisbon state that the earthquake produced a complete panic in the city, many persons jumping out of their beds and rushingVfrito the streets. A priest who was saying mass ran out into the streets dresseddn his sacerdotal' garments. The panic in Oporto was also equally great. No damage of any importance occurred. Te Deums had been sung in the churches, and other religious jacts, in token of gratitude for the happy escape from'the threatened danger.

Tine Writing.—On Thursday morning the Chancellor of the Exchequer must have been highly gratified by. finding on his breakfast table, prominent in the columns of a Ministerial journal (the 'Herald') a " comprehensive exegesis" of his novels. Here are some choice morsels from the pen of this magnificent reviewer. Of Mr. Disraeli it is said that. his mind is mighty in the lone magnificence of its waste of waters." "There is ho taint of hyperbole in saj'ing his orbit is so large and.lustrous that he is lost to the ken of the most prescient of gazers in the brightness and breadth of his area. ; We see him at distinct points, but the highest bound of his.track is hidden in mystery." Then the right ; hon. gentleman,, in the course of one column, is compared to the ocean, Piccolomini(Max,not the siren), a viper, the sun and moon, Bolingbroke, a two edged Cadurcis, " living behind a hedge of pikes/ a well-fed horse attacked by pismires, Shakspeare and Byron, and a good many other things and persons. Again —" He is so concordant and contradictory— so great in his proportions, and yet so indefinite and divided in his vastness—that in judging of anyone phase of character we find it gradually verging into another; while in examining his life as a whole we presently find our vision directed from several distinct and widely separated stand points." Vivian Grey, which is the book specially under notice, stands, it is declared, in the foremost rank in the original achievements of our time. But one man in England could have written with this sublime unintelligibility. I know it; I am sure of it; I claim a silver medai for the discovery. The author is, must be, can be no other than Mr. Murrough, late M.P. for Bridport. He shall not be another "great unknown." The world shall not be lost in bewilderment as to the writer of articles of such startling originality. I will not allow the world to wait until another Edinburgh banquet enables the Wizard of the South to satisfy its burning curiosity, and makes known that he po36esses so powerful a pen. From internal evidence I pronounce the critic to be Murrough, of Tew Inn and Camberwell.— London Correspondent of Dundee Advertiser. ~ '.. ' l : :■■..

The Proof of an Article is in the Reading. —We lately concluded an article upon things :in general, and the universe in particular, in the following terms:—"And we look forward to the day when time and space shall really be annihilated, and two vast continents, widely separated by mighty oceans, shall _ practically be brought together, when the electric flash shall carry intelligence in considerably less than no time, and when there will be a mighty link.binding the whole world in a bond of brotherhood. When we had -written this we looked at "it with considerable satisfaction, arid flattered ourselves that it would, indeed, read well in the universallyread columns of the journal in which it was to appear. Guess then our disgust, when the printer's devil handed us the following "proof" of an article, against which we need scarcely to say that our temper was not proof:—"And we loak foreign to the time when high in space we shall real and be hilated.and the. vast compliment widely, exasperated by mighty ones, shall piratically be brought together —when the electric bosh shall curry intelligence in consideration to lose no time, and when there will be a mighty wink blinding the whole world in a hard featherbed."— Knickerbocker.