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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 242, 14 October 1869, Page 2

Duel between two Nuns. — A duel has taken place in the neighbourhood of •Genoa between two nuns. The combatants exchanged pistol shots, but no blood was ■ *hed. Balloon Voyage to the North Tole. — The invariable failure which has hitherto attended nautical expeditions to the Arctic regions has ioduwd two spirited Frenchmen, Messieurs Tasssmdier aud f.'e Fouvielle, to undertake the daring enterprise of reaching the north pole in a balloou. The machine in which the bold adventurers are about to embark on their periiousjourney, andnvhieh is appropriately named " Le Pole Nord," is being completed iv the Camp de Mars, Paris. This „ monster balloon, beside which even the famous Geant would seenra mere toy, will contain over 10,000 cubic metres of gas, and is composed entirely of a cloth manufactured from caoutchouc, which will allow of great expansion in the ratified strata of the atmosphere. The seams uniting the different pieces form a length of three English miles. The car a marvel, it. is said, of etreugih and lightness, is constructed to carry ten passengers, 4000 pounds ballast, and provisions for one month. A great deal of excitement has been caused in Europe by the discovery, in a nunnery at Cracrow, of a poor woman j ■who had been immured iv oue of the cells | or dungeons of the places, 7 feet long by six wide, for over 20 years. An anonyuious letter to the Criminal Court drew attention to her case, and, when the authorities visited the nunuery, they found the uufortuaate woman in a filthy den, without light, fire, or table, bed, or chair. In 1848, a doctor, who died the same year, ordered her to be confined on account of unsounduess of mind, and his successor, who attended the convent for the last seven years, never saw or heard of her. Curiously enough, the confessor of the nunnery, who betrayed the secret when in a state of intoxication, died suddenly,' and of course he is supposed to have been made away with. The nuns have since been dispersed, and a commissiou has been appointed by the Austrian Government to draw up a bill for the -pEoper surveillance of convents.