Miscellanea.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 115, 23 September 1865, Page 3

Miscellanea.

Russian Trophies. — The eyes of the public of Sydney may now be gratified with the sight of the two Russian guns recently placed near the statue of (Governor Bourke. They have been very neatly painted a beautiful green, while the carnages have been painted red. It is not often that those who have been in war's alarms most of their lives have feasted their eyes on a nice green-coloured fiftysixer. The fancy must correct the eye-sight a little in this matter, for it is certain thrt a Russian artillery man, who, for a thousand times in action had placed his thumb over the vent, would never identify them as Russian guns in their present garb.

Exhibition of Insects. — An exhibition of insects is to take place in Paris. The exhibition is to be divided into two categories. The first will include :—l.: — 1. The producers of silk ; 2. The producers of honey and wax ; 3. The insects used in dyeing ; 4. Insects used for the table (one is curious to know what this class will comprise) ; and 5. Insects used in medicine. The second category is not so pleasant, consisting of all the insects that prove destructive to cereals, vineyards, orchards, forests, and woods used for building purposes.

The Pig- Box's Prater.— At a late clerical meeting at Islington, the Rev. E. Hoare adduced, as a proof of the sad and awful heathenism of Kent, the so-called hog's or pig-boy's prayer. The mystery of this supposed incantation was thus cleared up by the Secretary of the Kent Congregational Association, as explained by a friend in the country. The prayer itself — the dreadful hieroglyphics of which had so puzzled Mr. Hoare — he found to consist simply of a row of Roman numerals with a rude figure of a pigboy, whip in hand, carved at the end. The numerals ran thus :—: —

I—lI — II — III — V — I — I — IIII — II — II — III — X—l—l.X — I— l. Then comes the figure of the pig-boy. The translation of the whole is as follows : — One before two, three before five, Here one and there one, four alive ; Here two and there two, and three at the cross. Here one and there one, and Jack at the last. In explanation of this unmeaning jingle, the gentleman supplying it says: — "It was given me by a neighbour who, nearly thirty years ago, used it hundreds of times when engaged as a pig-boy, as did his grandfather before him. He resided at Wye, but he assured me he never used it as a prayer or act of devotion, and that he never heard of anyone so using it. It was merely a piece of common rhyme, popular in this class of employment, it being common to cut the figures on the end of the rude whip handles of local construction ; and it appears to me , unlikely that any hare Hied it in a devotional iraj,"