MISCELLANEOUS.

North Otago Times, Volume VII, Issue 149, 26 October 1866, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

A French paper gravely tells its readers that " Lord P." went to the office of the Atlantic telegraph and demanded to send a message. Refused at first, he urged his point, and by a payment of 200 guineas, argent comptant, succeeded. Ho was furnished with paper and ink, and wrote, " Send me the strongest spark you can. Lord P." Waiting a moment while the message was sent, he took out a cigar and held it to the end of the wire. The spark came, the cipar was lighted, and " Lord P." went out smoking. This is not told as a joke, but is given amongst the news. It was recently stated in a French journal that it is a Parliamentary train that conveys English Members of Parliament up to town and back again at night. The English language sscms likely to be amplified, if not improved, by the luxuriant imagination of our American cousins. An American paper gives the following specimens of the last things in New York slang. A fast young man when thirsty — and fast young men are always thirsty — asks for " a wash ;" when he eats he " wrestles his hash ;" when he is drunk he is " swipsey ;" when he gambles he "slings the pasteboards ;" when he sleeps he is " under the blinks ;" on.l when he Bteals he " goes through somebody." His friends are " gayducks," " no slouches," " bully boys," and "bricks. His enemies are ''hits" and " suckers." A clever writcr'is said to " sling a nasty pen," a good dancer to throw herself into a " dangerous" attitude. A man is " nibs," and a woman a "he^." A Paris correspondent states that the medical faculty of that city has made an agreeable discovery. It appears that the brewers of London send to Paris every year for a fabulous quantity of strychnine, which wholesome material gives the exact amount of bitter which is considered to impart to beer a pleasant flavor. The Society proposes, says the writer, to draw up a report on this subject, which will be duly transmitted to the Medical Union of London. The serious consideration is that people drink an immense amount of English pale ale, stout, double X, &c, and that evidently the consumers are in imminent danger of attaining immortality by the unpleasant process of slow poison. Rumors have reached England relative to the Crown Princess of Prussia, whose health is said to be in an unsatisfactory state. The loss of a child, the infant Prince Sigismund, immediately before the war, and the anxiety for her husband's safety during a time in which he was unceasingly exposed to all its dangers, are said to have produced some serious mental and physical results. In reference to the statement as to the proposed sale of Burns' natal cottage, the " Inverness Courier" 6tt y B : _« The cottage— literally a clay-built, thatched hut — remains in much tbe same condition in which it was left by the poet'B father, built with Ids own hands in December, 1757, thirteen months before the birth of his illustrious son ; but since that time two rooms and a large hall have been added, communicating with the cottage. The elder Burns had seven acres of land adjoining the houke, as he intended carrying on business as anursery-man ; but after nine years' occupation he sold the property for L120. The land is now curtailed to five acres, and L3000is asked for the whole. The rent is nominally L70 a year, but the last two tenants were, we believe, both bank-

rupt. One tonaut went deranged and another shot himself. For about 60 years the cottage has been kept as an alehouse. Curran, the Irish orator, visited it in 1810. • We found,' he says, ' the keeper of it tipsy. He pointed to the corner on one side of the fire, and, with a most tnal-a-propos laugh, observed, " That's the Tery place vrhero Eobort Burns was born." The genius and the fate of the man were already heavy on my heart ; but the drunken laugh of the landlord gave me such a view of the rock on which he foundered, I could not stand it, but burst into tears.' We should be glad to see this classic little property fall into the hands of some respectable person, instead of being continued aa a low tipplinghouse, to the disgust of the neighborhood and of all strangers visiting a spot hallowed by so many intoresting and affecting associations. Some persons, we hear, are willing to give about L2000 for the house and land, in order that they may be kept in a creditable manner, and that the cottage of the pious father of the ' Cottar's Saturday Night' may bo saved from further degradation. England has lately secured for the present age and for posterity the birthplace of Shakespeare; could not hcotlaiid do thr eaine for Burns ? The banks of the Avon are not holier ground than the banks of the Ayr or Doon."