MISCELLANEOUS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 116, 25 May 1844, Page 48

MISCELLANEOUS.

Living in a Hurry. — Perhaps the most characteristic peculiarity of the social condition of England at present is the unhealthy want of repose. Travelling by railroad is merely typical of the head-long hurry with which the affairs of life are transacted. In business, men are in a hurry to get rich ; they cannot submit to the tedious process of adding one year's patient and legitimate gains to those of its predecessor, but seek by bold speculative combinations, by anticipations of intelligence received through the ordinary channels, to make or mar themselves by one bold stroke. The devotees of pleasure seek, as it were, to multiply their personal presence — not only by rattling to a dozen assemblies of a night, as has been the worshipful practice in London during the gay season for some hundred years, but by shooting in the north of Scotland and yachting in the Channel during the same week, visiting Palestine and the Pyramids during the Parliamentary recess, and other feats of celebrity. The mechanical wheels revolve with accumulated speed to correspond to the hot haste of those who impel them. The long hours of factory and milliner drudges, the gangs of night and day labourers relieving each other in printing-offices and coal-pits — all the unremitting, eager, " go-ahead " pressure of society — are but so many symptoms of the excitement which impels men to live in a hurry. It is a paradox only in form to say that we are in such a hurry to live, that we do not live at all. Life slips through our fingers, unfelt, unenjoyed, in the bustle of preparing to live. A day of business is a day of breathless haste. The duties of the toilet are hurried through ; the breakfast is gulped down without being tasted ; the newspaper is skimmed with a dim idea of its contents ; the place of business is posted to in a chariot, cab, or bus ; the day is spent in straining to overtake complicated details of business too extensive for the mind's grasp ; it costs a race to be in time for dinner ; and dinner is curtailed of its fair proportion of time, for the debate, or the committee, or the opera, or the evening party, or all of them. Even sleep is got through impatiently, with frequent starlings and consultations of the watch, lest the morning hours be lost. We snore in quicker time than our ancestors snored ; and the worst of it is, that men cannot help this railroad fashion of galloping out of life. When such a crowd as now peoples these islands are running at this headlong speed, you must run with them, or be borne down and run over and trampled to death by the mass. It is only by joining in the frantic gallop that you can keep your place and save your bones from being broken. Habit becomes so inveterate, that even when thrown out of the vortex men cannot rest. In the young societies of our colonial empire (and this is not their least recommendation) men might live more leisurely if they choose; but the gigantic bankruptcy of New South Wale* shows too clearly that even in our antipodean provinces this foolish effort to accomplish everything at once is epidemic Our very diseases partake of this contagious haste; the lingering consumption is growing less frequent — the instantaneous apoplexy and ossification of the heart are taking its place. Even the moral-

izers on this universal race, for the sake of running, hurry along with the rest, and pant on their reflections as they run. — Spectator. Crows v. Alcohol. — We extract the following article from the Peori (Illinois) Register: — " Colonel B. has one of the best farms on the Illinois River: about a hundred acres of it are now covered with waving corn. When it came up in the spring the crows seemed determined on its entire destruction. When one was killed, it seemed as though a dozen came to its funeral ; and though the sharp crack of the rifle often drove them away, they always returned with its echo. The Colonel at length became weary of throwing grass, and resolved on trying the virtue of stones. He sent to the druggist for a gallon of alcohol, in which he soaked a few quarts of corn, and scattered it over his field. The blacklegs came and partook with their usual relish, and, as usual, they were pretty well corned ; and such a cooing and cackling — such strutting and staggering! The scene was like — but I will make no invidious comparison — it was very much like . When the boys attempted to catch them, they were not a little amused at their staggering gait, and their zigzag course through the air. At length they gained the edge of the woods, and there being joined by a new recruit, which happened to be sober, they united, at the top of their voices, in haw-haw-haw-ing, and shouting either praises or curses of alcohol — it was difficult to tell which, as they rattled away without ryhme or reason, so very much like . But the colonel saved his corn. As soon as they became sober, they set their faces steadfastly against alcohol. Not another kernel would they touch in his fields, lest it should contain the accursed thing ; while they went and pulled up the corn of his neighbours. To return like a dog to his vomit — like a washed sow to the mire — like — not they. They have too much respect for their character, black as they are, again to be found drunk."

Michael Kelly and the Incomr Tax. — The following dialogue took place between Kelly and the commissioners of Pitt's income tax, and is given in his Reminiscences : — " Sir," said I, " 1 am free to confess that I have erred in my return, but vanity was the cause, and vanity was the badge of all my tribe. I have returned myself as having .£SOO per annum, when, in fact, 1 have not 500 pence of certain income." " Pray#jir," said the commissioner, " are you not stage manager at the Opera House?" "Yes, sir," said I, "there is not even a nominal salary attached to that office. I performed its duties to gratify my love qfonusic." " Well, but Mr. Kelly," continued my examiner, " you teach ?" " I do, sir," answered I, "*hut I have no pupils." " I think," observed another gentleman who had not spoken before, " that you are an oratorio and concert singer ?" " You are quite right," said I to my new antagonist, " but I have no engagement." " Well, but at all events," observed my first inquisitor, " you have a good salary at Drury-lane ?" " A very good one, indeed, sir," answered I, " but then it is never paid." " But you have, always a tine benefit, sir," said the other, who seemed to know something of theatricals. " Always, sir," was my reply, " but the expenses attending it are very great ; and whatever profit remains after defraying them is mortgaged to liquidate debts incurred by building my saloon. The fact is, sir, I am at present very like St. George's Hospital, supported by voluntary contributions, and have even less certain income than I felt sufficiently vain to return." Quebr Calculation. — Some singular genius has perpetrated the following calculations, which, we think, will do : — I have been married thirty-two years, during which time I have received Jrom the hands of my wife three cups of coffee each day, two in the morning, and one at night, making about 35,040 cups of half a pint each, or nearly 70 barrels of 30 gallons each, weighing 17,520 lbs., or nearly nine tons weight. Yet from that period I have scarcely varied myself in weight from 160 lbs. It will, therefore, be seen, that I have drunk in coffee alone 218 times my own weight. lam not much of a meat eater, yet I presume I have consumed about eight ounces a day, which makes 5,805 lbs., or about ten oxen. Of flour, I have consumed in the thirty-two years, about fifty barrels. For twenty years of this time, up to 1831, 1 have drunk two wine glasses of brandy, each day, making 900 quarts. The port wine, Madeira, whiskey, punch, &c, I am not able to count, but they are not large. In champagne I have been extremely moderate, as I find from my bills that I have paid for fifty-three baskets in the last thirteen years, which is about one bottle a week, and this not all consumed by me. When we take into the account all the vegetables in addition, such as potatoes, peas, asparagus, strawberries, cherries, apples, pears, peaches, raisins, &c., the amount consumed by an individual is most enormous. Now, my body has been renewed more than four times in thirty-two years; and taking it for granted that the water, of which I have drunk much, acts merely as a diluent, yet, all taken together, I conclude that I have consumed in thirtytwo years about the weight of 1,100 men of 160 lbs. each. — Parit paper.