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Lyttelton Times, Volume XII, Issue 731, 9 November 1859, Page 3

The American aeronauts have just performed a feat worthy of being chronicled—an attempted trip from St. Louis to the city of New York, and an actual trip, owing to adverse currents, from St. Louis to the Northern part of this State. The balloon, one of monster size, was, in addition, provided with revolving wheels for propelling it in any desired direction, and with a metallic lifeboat suspended to the car, for use in case of falling into the water. As it turned out the precaution was a wise one. They left St. Louis about 7 o'clock in the evening of the Ist in the presence of a crowd of many thousands. At 4 o'clock in the morning of the 2nd they passed near Fort Wyne. in Indiana, and at 9 of the same morning passed near Cleveland and over Lake Erie. In this part of their passage their speed is reported at nearly 75 miles an hour. Up to this point they seem to have followed the course which they had marked out for themselves. The plan was to have followed the course of the Central Railroad across the State of New York and thence down the Hudson River to New York; but unfortunately they determined first to make Rochester, near Lake Ontario, and land one of their passengers. In descending to do this they fell into a hurricane strata which drove them out to ses, and obliged them for safety to make way to shore and abandon the rest of their trip. In less than 20 hours, however, they travelled 1,150 miles, and they think that they have demonstrated that for which, this was an experiment—the possibility of an aerial trip across the Atlantic. A still more extraordinary feat, in the acrobatic line, has been performed at Niagara Falls; one that fits the performer for the highest place in a lunatic asylum. A-M. Blondia has actually walked across the seething abyss upon. a slack rope, stopping in the middle to lower a bottle for water. When you reflect that the distance is so great that, with all care, the slack of the rope made a descent of 60 feet to the centre, and that a single false step must have plunged him to certain death, in the current that runs with a rapidity which defies the sounding lead, you can have some idea of the difficulties and dangers, and can appreciate the foolhardiness of the man who did such a feat.

The late Jacob Bell.—Mr. Jacob Bell died at Tunbridge, Wells, in his 49th year. He died of hard •work. In the full expectation of death, and in spite of a most painful malady, he could not desist; from his labours, and in a half-tainting state was buckled up to his work till within an hour before he breathed his last. The principal part of these labours was directed to the raising of his profession, which was that of a dispensing chemist. He spent a fortune iin starting and in advancing the Pharmaceutical Society, which bids fair to embrace before lpng all the chemists and druggists of great Britain, and which in the meantime has raised enormously the educational standard of the class. He was the president of the society, and it is some proof, of the estimation in which he was held, not only in hi 3 profession, but throughout the district where he resided, that on the day of his funeral there was scarcely a town in the kingdom in which some "Pharmaceutical chemist" had not his shutters closed to mark the event, and in many of the streets in Marylebone—notably all down Oxford street— the same respect was paid to his memory. He was a man of the most unselfish nature, who devoted himself to public objects, who toiled like a galleyslave for other people, and who won the affection of all who knew him. One class of the community besides that to which he more immediately belonged will feel his death as a great loss,—artists of every sort, with whom he had a genuine sympathy, and for whom he was always planning some anonymous benefit—some pleasant surprise. It is pretty well known that, subsidiary to the professional views which were the absorbing objects of his life, Mr. Jacob Bell was a most generous patron of the arts, and had collected in his house at Langham place a very valuable gallery of pictures, many of them from, the easel of his friend Sir Edwin Landseer. Those who knew the liberality of the man, and how much good he did in a quiet unassuming way, will not be surprised to hear, what he kept a profound secret from even his most intimate friends, that he has bequeathed the best of his pictures to the nation. Among them are the following of Landseer's:— " The Maid and the Magpie," exhibited last year at the Royal Academy; the celebrated picture of the "Shoeing," "TheSleepingßloodhound," "Alexander and Diogenes," " Dignity and Impudence," and the "Defeat of Comus." In addition to these there is " The Sacking of a Jew's House," by Charles Landseer- there are a couple of landscapes in which Lee and Sidney Smith have united their efforts; there is O'Neil's picture of " The Foundling Examined by the Board of Guardians;" there is one of Ward's best historical works—" James 11. receiving the news of the Landing of the Prince of Orange;" there is the " Derby Day " of Mr. Frith, which, however, has to.fulfil certain engagements with the engravers before it can appear in national collection; and, to crown all, there is the "Horse Fair" of Eosa Bonheur. This last is not the large picture of the "Horse Fair" with which everybody is familiar, but a smaller edition of it, painted simultaneous y. In everything but in size it is a fnc snmle of the larger canvas, and it is the original from which the engraving has been made. There are 13 pictures, and the commission for a fourteenth has been given to Mr. Frank Stone, but what is the nature of the subiect, and whether any progress has been made m the work we arc unable to say. One thing is certain that the public have received from Jacob Bell a most valuable gift, and we may ndd that the testator has attached no conditions to the acceptance of his legacy. Such a great public benefit is the fitting close to a life of much public usefulness. Tnr Weatiibu in Duumn.—Some idea of tho effects of the long.continued dry weather in Dublin may be gathered i'roin the fact that the Corporation have issued a public notice stating that the supply of water with which they are served has become deficient even for domestic and manufacturing purposes The consequence is that the watering of the streets in the southern districts of the metropolis is to bo curtailed, and the inhabitants of the most populous and fashionable portion of the city subjected to nil tho miseries of a perpetual dust storm, btidi a deprivation us a short supply of water is a perfect; novelty in Dublin, DirriuiuiA.—A correspondent of the ' Mount: Alexander Mail.' says that in the reign of one of the Charles'a very virulent sore throat broke out in Sussex, and a clergyman published a remedy, tor which a grant of £1000 was awarded linn.W *!""*: raent, it was'so successful. I have myself used anil given it in bad cases with invariable success it is simply a spoonful of fresh yeast taken into i the .moi th and swallowed by degrees three or four t mes a-day, For a, S mwn person a table spoon dessert spoon for a big child, ami a tea spoon lor a httlc one.