ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1343, 6 March 1868, Page 4

ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

Among the articles of freight which reached Albany recently, was a ease containing a child born at Montreal, and brought to this country for exhibition for the benefit of its parents, who are very poor. The child was dead and properly arranged for exhibition. It had one head and two faces, one front and rear. There was but i one body, yet four distinct legs. James Chapman, of London, has in the press Travels in the Interior of South Africa, a pair of volumes, which will comprise 15 years of the hunting and trading experiences of the writer, an account of his journeys across the continent from Natal to Walwieh Bay, and visits to Take Ntrami and the Victoria Falls. They will be illustrated with maps and engravings. The most successful and popular German novelist of the present day is Fritz Keutcr, who writes his books only in the Mecklenburg patois. His novel In the Year 1813 has been translated into nine languages. Heuter did not write anything until he was 40 years old. Up to that time he had hardly been able to make a living by giving private lessons. The London Spectator has an exhaustive article on beards. While it admits that radicalism is the cause of the display of these hirsute appendages, it asserts that the effect of a beard on the mind of the wearer is, so far as it goes, conservative. A beard illustrates the grave constitutional theory that it is possible to destroy in a moment what you may repent at your leisure, and cannot reconstruct without painful and protracted sufferings. Against the beard may be argued its inconvenience at meal times. Particles of food dropped from the fork, instead of falling on the floor, as is the case with the beardless, are caught on the beard's surface, and unless a man be frequent and ready with his napkin, there those particles remain, to the disgust of all beholders, a disgust aggravated when the deposit is liquid—say of soup. A beard also diminishes by one-half the refreshment derived by a well-regulated mind from the act of washing the face.

Thomas Carlylesaysof the literature of fiction: "In 50 years, 1 should guess, all really serious souls will have quitted that mad province left to the roaring populaces; and for any noble-man. or useful person it will be a credit rather to de•clare ' I never tried literature; believe me.' " A fearful accident occurred on the Cleveland and Lake Shore Railroad, near Angola, York. The express train was behind time and running tit a high rate of speed. From some cause unknown, the two rear coaches were thrown from the track with great violence. The rear car ■went over tho embankment 50 feet and was set on fire. Of 50 passengers only two escaped alive. The rest were crushed or burned to death. A mass of blackened charred remains was only left. Tennyson's works has. been translated into French and has a great sale in Paris. An enterprising tradesman in London has attracted considerable notice to an assortment of revolvers exhibited in his window, owing to his having a printed card directing attention to the weapons in these terms : '■ Suitable for the Fenian season." One of the English comic journals suggests names for several new novels. To the author of " Cometh up as a flower," it recommends " Goeth down like an oysterto the author of " More than a Match," it advises a work on "Less than a Lucifer;" and "Never Flirt" it regards as a proper title for a sequel to " Hever ■Court."

The frequency of incendiary fires in New York has at length stirred up the Board of Fire Underwriters to a more vigorous effort to ferret •out the offenders There lias been for some time a standing reward of §1,000 offered by the Fire Commissioners for the conviction of an incendiary, but that sum seems to be totally inadequate to prevent the evil. The Underwriters have now appropriated the sum of §50,000 to the same purpose, limiting the amount to be paid in any one case to $5,000. The fact that of the incendiary fires that are daily and nightly occurring in the city, nine-tenths of them take place in dwelling houses, rum-shops, work-shops, and huckster stores, occupied by foreigners, is really alarming, and may well call forth such a demonstration as the insurance offices have at length made.. These fires, of course, never occur in places that are uninsured, save in cases where revenge is the prompting motive.

Disraeli talks of writing a new political novel after the style of Coningsby, much to the suprise of his friends, who supposed he had bidden an eternal farewell to the field of romance.'

The Philadelphia papers . are yet chuckling over an ingenious " trap " laid by them to catch one of the newspapers in that city, outside of the Association, that has for some time been pirating the Press despatches, particularly the cable news. The Philadelphia editors, who pay liberally for their news, hud tried in vain to stop the leak. The editor of the piratical sheet had friends in the office of a leading New York daily. It teas suspected that his wire connected with "that office; but no amount of vigilanee could detect the exact source of his news. The story goes that Simonron concocted a bogus despatch, apparently received by the Cable to the effect that . Garibaldi had escaped from the custody of,his captors, and that guards were scouring the country in pursuit, and were everywhere met with jeers and hisses by the populace. This was sent to the suspected office in New York, along with other despatches ; but just before the time for going to press it was recalled, so as net to compromise that paper. The recall was at so late au hour that it was impossible to send word to Philadelphia, as the. telegraph office was closed. The next morning the Philadelphia outsider contained the despatch slightly altered, to produce the appearance of originality, introduced with flaming headings, and commended to.the notice of its readers by a special editorial. The trap was successful, and the damage to the enterprising news thief irreparable. Its aspiring wings were cut, and it became the laughing-stock of its contemporaries and the public. This experience stopped the leak. >i

Mining Accidents in Great Britain.—The Inspectors' reports just issued show the following facts: —l,4B4 men lost their lives by violence in and about the 3,192 collieries of Sreat Britain last year. In 1865 the number of lives lost was 984 showing an increase of 500 deaths in 1566. For every 97.877 tons of coal raised a life was sacrificed. Tlie number of men employed in the collieries ofGreatßritain was 32,063. Taking the several group ,of inspectors' districts into which the coal-fields of the country, are divided, the returns show the following results, for each.of the years 1865 and 1866 respectively: To one death, the number of miners employed •was 636, and 83 in Yorkshire; 403 and 112 in North Stafford, Chester, and Salop; 238 and 200 in West and North. Wales ; 182 and 243 in South Wales ; 296 and 248 in South Stafford and'Worces^er; 258 and 259 in Northumberland, Qumberland, and North Durham; 414 and 310| in South Durham,; ,325 and 321 in. Monmouth, Gloucester, Somerset, and Devon'; ■ 356 and 36S in iSorih arid Kast Lancaster33o and 467 in Derby, Nottingham, "Leicester, and Warwick ; 340 and 445 in the western districts, of Scotland, and 450 and 662 inthe eastern districts of Scotland.: Out of the 1,484 deaths in 1866, 651 occHrfed ' from explosions of-fire-damp. The deaths from cause alone in Great Britain, in'the. 10 'years, 1855 to 1865, were 2,019. The total number of deaths from all violent causes "jn. ,the '10 years was 9,916, about, : 2o r per cent, of which was caused.-by firedam]} explosions. The number of deatlis from falls in accidents in shafts, 162 ;i. from accidentsunderground, 203 ; and from accidents "above" ground, '107. Of the deaths from fire-damp, 361 occurred in the Oaks Colliery, 91 at Talk-o'-th'-Hill Colliery, and 38 inthe Victoria Colliery, in Dokinfield.

Both Miss Braddon and her first publisher Mr. Tinsley, made a fortune out of Lady Audlcy's Secret. A new printing machine has been invented in the States, which will print 50,000 papers per hour.

The people of New Orleans are going to establish co-operative kitchens, to rid themselves of servant-girl nuisances. A sum of £600 and a silver salver have been presented to Mr. J. Jackson, chief constable of Sheffield, as a recognition of his services in connection with the Trades Outrages Commission. . Upwards of twenty editors hare been, swept off" by the yellow fever in New Orleans and the West Indies. The following is the comparative averago of paper used for printing purposes by the countries named :—England uses about 230, France 198, and America 450 millions of pounds annually. From 500 to 690 of the Irish Eoman Catholics resident at Woolwich have held a meeting under the presidency of their priest, and passed resolutions denouncing Fenianism. In consequence of the great excitement which prevails in the town with regard to the Fenians, it has been deemed advisable to send some soldiers to Whitehaven. Two companies of the 70th Kegimeut have arrived. The Irish newspapers publish prominently an ample statement as to negotiations between the Koberts and Savage sections of the Fenian Brotherhood in America for a union of the two branches of the organization. The posting of inflammatory placards at Dunmanway, County Cork, and the excited and expectant condition of some of the populace in and about Mitchelstown, have led to the sending of drafts of troops in that district. Parties of the 65tli and 81st Tfegiments have been sent to spots in the neighbourhood of Cork and Queenstown, which appeared to be open to attack, aud the forts on Dublin Bay, and along tho coast near Belfast, have been strengthened.

We have news from Demarara (AVest Indies) which states that a terrific fire has occurred there. The New York papers report a frightful railway accident, not far from Buffalo, on the Lake Shore line. The rear car of the New York express train went over an embankment, of 50 feet, was set on fire, and out of 50 passengers only two escaped ; the rest were burnt to death, and all that is left is a mass of blackened and charred remains. The names of only a few passengers had been ascertained.

A case is coming before the Correze Assizes which exceeds in horror any Satanic device as yet hit upon to get rid of a new-born infant. A woman, Marie Brajoiex, assisted by her mother, Marianne Feintreine, are accused of having put a new-born living infant into a soup pot, with cabbages and flour. Having boiled the child, they gave it to their pigs to devour !

Nine Men Killed by an Explosion ov Glycerine.—From New Jersey we have a story of a terrible explosion of nitro-glycerine. The foreman of a gang of men engaged in blasting, desiring to accelerate the drying of a can of the compound, thurst into it a red-hot poker. Nine men were torn to pieces—beheaded, disembowelled, &c.; several wooden buildings were twisted to splinters ; a leg was torn from a woman working in a house fifty yards from the point of the explosion.

The religious press is censuring "Ward Beecher sharply for his permission given for the dramatizing ofNoncuocl. The Baptist Examine)' says : " It is our deliberate judgment, and we express it with tha sincerest grief, that in interposing no objections to the putting of Norwood, in stage dress, Mr. Beecher has done more to weaken the restraints upon theatre-going in circles where it lias been held as demoralising and forbidden, than any other man in the country could have done."

I have got a bit of good news for the victims of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, if there happen to be any of them left. A new form of quackery has just turned up in the city —Heliopathy—and a Mr. G-. Barnes is professor. This individual advertises that, with his new path}', or God of Nature's remedy, he can remove from a man's flesh the letters with which it has been branded. He recently removed from a man's side the letter L>, which had been branded there by order of a great nation.

The London Examiner has a favorable criticism of Motley's continuation of his great work, It says : —" In liis lti.se of the Dutch Republic, Mr. Motley traced the progress of the famous and eventful struggle for liberty waged by the little race of Dutchmen against Spanish tyranny ending his story with the assassination of William the Silent. In the History of the United Netherlands, of which the second half is now published, he has carried on the stirring narrative through 25 years, fitly closing it with the truce signed at Antwerp in 1800, by which the independence of the .Republic was finally secured. As a sequel to his work, lie tells us that he is now preparing a History of the Thirty Years' War, designed to give prominence to the share therein taken by Holland, and to show how it was substantially a carrying on of the great battle for liberty which the Dutch began. He has chosen a noble theme and made it his own. A worthy successor of Prescott, he works with painstaking research, and with literary skill quite equal to Prescott's ; and in his subject he has a great advantage over his famous countryman. He details with admirable clear-

ness, and with excellent ability, the story of one of the foremost and most fruitful episodes in European history. He shows how, at a time when tyranny was everywhere the fashion, when Protestant England only adopted, in an improved form, the principles of statecraft that had been induced by long centuries of Papal thraldom, built upon precedents af Roman rule, a little nation, so small and apparently so insignificant that its claim to be mi independent nation roused the mockery of Europe, resolutely stood out for its freedom, and thereby set an example which all the best peoples have since then done little more than follow. All this he does iui simple, fervid language, telling his tale with charming simplicity, and, therefore, in tfye most eloquent and effective way that is possible."

.An extraordinary and frightful accident happened a day or two ago at the Sandiacre Starch Works, near .Nottingham. It appears that two men were playing on tlie premises, wlien one of them, named Thomas Attenborough, said ho would put his companion in a tub of boiling liquid which stood close by. A short time after he took hold of him, apparently intending to do so, and they stood close by the tub. While in the deceased accidentally let his fellow workman slip in, and, seeing his fearful plight, he himself jumped inslso to get him out. They both managed to crawl up to the top, and ran to the canal, which runs near for relief. Both, however, were in a dreadful condition, and had to be conveyed home, where on Friday night, Dec. 20, Attenborough died. The other man remains in a most precarious state, being past recoverv. At Hankow, China, on Wednesday, November 20, at 10 a.m., three tremendous shocks wore felt, caused by explosions of'gunpowder on the opposite side of the river. Windows, lamps, and crockery'in almost all the foreign houses on the Bund were' damaged or smashed to pieces ; and, the consternation of everyone was almost inconceivable. The scene of disaster proved to be at Wuchang, and beyond Shay Shan, or " Serpent liidge," For. some (distance around tho powd/u--factory, named. Paog&u-Eeub, or " Eest-Securing Depot," and the magazine called" " Yung-Grin-JK.ook," or ".Eternal Rest Store," the streets. Were impassable, and dead Wdies of hundreds of Chinese were seen lying 'ahbtit among tlie rumV-of the.houses; It is impossible to conjecture the loss of life and destruction of property.

After a lapse of more than twelve months, there is now some prospect of the Oaks Colliery being gradually cleared, and the remains of the men and boys, to the number of more than 260, brought to light. A Countess Poisoned by a Young Baboness. —The Countess Chorinsky, whose husband liolds a high post at Vienna, was found dead in an apartment in a furnished hotel at Munich a few days ago, and a post mortem, examination of the body proved that deafcli had been by prussic acid. The Baroness Julia jD .Rbergenyi was taken into custody on a charge of having poisoned the Countess. She made a full acknowledgement of her guilt. Hippophagy seems going up in the world, and we should not be surprised if theie were persons who insist, next Christmas, on having Christmas horse or Christmas pony instead of Christmas beef. A man writes to the Times to say he gave a dinner off a grey pony, aged 18, on which he had ridden six miles on the previous Saturday (he need not have mentioned, its colour when alivs, or his ride upon it—it needlessly increases the aversion to horse), and that it was quite equal to beef. Moreover, one of the invited who dined off it, as we may say impartially, and without prepossession in its favour, if also without prejudice against it, gives evidence in favour of this pony-dinner. Indeeds ho writes with a vivacity of epicurims which excite his host's censure, for the latter assures the Times that he had not provided the entertainment to gratify epicures with a new flavour, but to save 2,000,0001b. of cheap and excellent horse food which are annually wasted through a senseless prejudice. Still, wc are bound to bear witness that the guest did find an exquisite flavour in the grey jpony which epicures would appreciate. '' Take the flavour of butchers meat and of game as your two extreme points of comparison,—the flavour of horseflesh will occupy the mean between them," —a scientifically phrased, but yet, wo submit, far from clear definition. What butchers' meat, and what game ? Is the mean to be -J- (veal plus partridge) or-J-(mutton plus wild-duck) or what? We confess to having no more distinct idea of the taste of " butchers' meat" than of the smell of •' flowers."

The Spectator of the 28th December says : — " Tbe week lias been full of Fenianism. Government and the police appear to be in the constant receipt of letters, some authentic, some fictitious, describing Fenian plots, or predicting Fenian attacks. .Rumours are circulated, probably true, of attempts to arrest a Fenian Council, and others, probably false, of an intention to suspend the Habeas Corpus. The most serious alarms are felt in gas works, which the Fenians are said to intend to blow up, and in Warrington a real plot of that kind seems to have been diicovcred. Tin dockyards, of course, I are incessantly watched, the great public buildings are under special protection, and the workmen are beginning to arrest men who express Fenian sentiments for themselves. • The Home Secretary has called out the special constables in fifty boroughs, and everywhere every official and soldier is compelled to extra watchfulness. Most of the precautions adopted seem prudent, but the detective force does not yet come out of the affair with much increase of credit. In Cierkenwell it was found necessary for the police to suppress a meeting called by Mr. Finlan, to prevent disturbance, and Finlan himself was protected by constables. The examinations of the Fenians Desmond, English, Mullaney, and O'Keefe for blowing up the Clerkenwell House of Detention have not been very satisfactory. Yaughan, a deserter from H.M.'s 58th Regiment and a Fenian, is the principal witness against them, and according to him, they certainly had formed a plan to blow up the wall of the exercising yard, and one of them, just before the explosion, asked him to pray for him if he was blown up. But there is a Father O'Connor introduced into the story, the only Father O'Connor in England is paralytic, and the notion of Catholic priests joining or being permitted to join the society is a new feature in its organisation requiring proof. Eemands have been granted for further evidence, and it will be well for tbe public to suspend its full judgment until the whole of the facts are before it. How does it happen that the police cannot trace the ba r rel or the powder ? Tliirtysix gallons of gunpowder is not a quantity to be purchased incidentally for rook shooting.

SWIMMING IN SAN" FRANCISCO. As swimming is becoming a very fnshion<tblb recreation in this town, the following extract from tho >u!i Francisco Bulletin m/ty be interesting : " Ono of the most into: eating incidents of yesterday's amusements was the swimming exhibition ac Professor Wightman's Swimming Academy, up-town. There wer.; several exciting matches between somi of the pupils, who showed a wonderful degreo of proficiency in that healthful as well as useful art. but the most interesting portion of the exhibition were tho wonderful fears bv the Professor himself, many of -which it would have been deemed impossible to perform in water but for these demonstrations. The programme was follows:—1. Standing plunge of 40 feet—This was a plunge from the gallery into 7 feet of wator. 2. Back push across tho b«th, 35 feet—A single push from the side of the bath sent tho swimmer ita whole width. 3. Swimming with one Isg' out of water—ln this feat the swimmer lien upon his back, and holding ono l'g in the air in a perpendicular position, propels himself through tba water. 4. Swimming with two legs out of water— \ performance similar to the abore, but of double difficulty. 5. Swimming backwards, feet foremost—Done with some speed, and very successfully. G. Indian method of crossing rapid rivors—Very swift one-hand swimming. 7. Imitation of steamboat. 8. Swimming like a duck. 9. Swimming like, a fish. 10. Swimming like a porpoise. 11. Turning three somersets under the water. 12. Turning fire backward somersets under the water. 13. Waiking in tho water. 14. Swimming tho length of tho bath, 75 , feet, with hands and feet tioi. 15. Fast floating backward and forward. 16. Standing on heßd under water. 17. Walking on hands under water. 18. Laying at the botfcjm of the bath. 19. Motionless floating in various attitudes. 20. Revolving on tho surface of the water —A beautiful feat. The swimmor revolvcß as a child would in rolling down a hill. 20 Floating with hands and holding feet-—This is a very difficult performance. The legs are bent under the body and the liand6_ grasp the feot in this position. Mr. Wightman concluded tho exhibition by eating, drinling, and smoking under the water. Taking a piece of cako in his mouth he went under the water and ate it there. The drinking was dona from a bottle, and without allowing any of its contents to escape. Tho smoking 1 feat waß based on a similar principle, the bowl of the pipe being, of course, out the water.