Miscellaneous.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XIII, Issue 1370, 18 September 1858, Page 4

Miscellaneous.

Danokrs Attbndieg RailwayTravblling. —The London Press says Two years ago, when garotting was first introduced, it was practised with some degree of openness, and no more violence than was necessary. There was a novelty, too, about the act and its open practice which reconciled you to any trifling inconvenience you might have suffered. You were generally seized from behind, your hat knocked over your eyes, your throat squeezed and your pocket picked, and there was an end of it; for if it was broad daylight you never saw a policeman, and if night, it was not prudent to wait for one. But in the present day all this is changed. Pimlico by day and Westminster by night have given place to a first-class carriage in a dark tunnel at any time. The art of garotting, elevated into a science, has lost its simplicity. It is no longer a harmless affair of your watch-chain, but it is the complete and deliberate abstraction of every valuable you possess. To attain this desirable result, the garotter fits himself out with a bottle of chloroform, purchases a first-class ticket, and starts upon an economical railway tour, which is to combine pleasure with employment and profit. If he is so fortunate as to meet with a single fellow.passenger for any part of the journey, before he has been twenty minutes in this traveller’s company he kicks him faint, knocks him senseless, and then having thoroughly stupefied him by the application of chloroform, robs him

leisurely of everything valuable he possesses, and at the first station placidly gets out, taking care to shut the carriage door behind him. This peculiar crime appears to be on the increase ; several cases have occurred recently, and rarely have the offenders been captured. Last week one of the first was caught, tried, and convicted at Liverpool before Air. Baron AJartin, who sentenced the prisoner to penal servitude for life. The Learned Judge, in passing sentence, remarked that if these atrocious crimes were not most severely punished, “no man would be safe in railway carriages but with greater sagacity the Learned Baron hit the bolt of our railway organisation—“ Persons might be robbed and murdered, without any means of communicating with the guard.” This is precisely the one thing wanting to prevent such atrocious assaults being committed by professional ruffians upon inoffensive travellers. This principle of communication with the guard has long been agitated. We may permit ourselves to be roasted, boiled.or destroyed, in any legitimate manner, without insisting upon a principle being carried out ; but if when we travel by train we are to run the additional risk of brutal ill-treatment, garotting, stupefaction, and robbery, for want of some communication with the guard, it is obvious that the sooner that communication is established the better. We recommend the subject-matter of the learned Baron’s remark to the attention of the travelling public. ’ ” A Brussels letter says': —■“ We have had four days of the hottest weather on record. The thermometer has averaged 90 degrees in the shade. The crops, especially wheat, look magnificent. Rye is unusually lengthy in stalk, but not over promising in ear. Colza is scanty and oil keeps up at a high figure.” The Leviathan. —The Eastern Steam Navigation propose to raise the £220.000 required for the completion of the Leviathan, bv granting annuities of £5, terminable in eight year.-, for a payment of £2O. They have also decided that the vessel shall be permanently employed in the traffic between England and America. Portland, in the state of Maine, whence there is direct communication with all the principal railways of the United States and Canada, is to be the American port, and Holyhead or Liverpool will be selected on this side. The passage is hoped to be regularly accomplished in seven days, and it is considered that seven or eight voyages out and home may be performed yearly. An estimate is put forward of probable earnings, showing a net profit £17,700 per

voyage. In this it is assumed the number of passengers each way will be 2100, and that the fares should be £2l, £l2, and £6, for first, second, and third class.

The French Government is arming the Mediterranean coasts of France, especially the ports in the Gulf of La Crotat and Cassis. Heavy guns are to be placed on the batteries, and those which were disarmed in 1813 have been repaired and remounted. The same has been done with the Marseilles batteries. French Liberty op the Subject. —When Dr. Bernard was in prison a countryman and townsman wrote him a friendly letter, offering him pecuniary or other assistance, if required. The letter was given to Mr. Leverson, as solicitor for Bernard, who knew the name of the writer, but not the handwriting, and in consequence sent the letter to Paris for information, On Bernard's acquittal, his friend the writer of the letter, was ordered to quit Paris in 94 hours. On asking for explanation he was told that he had no visible means of living ; but it being proved that he possessed a yearly income of £5OO, he was told that it was solely owing to the influence of a friend that he had not been sent to Cavenne.

The late Mademoiselle Rachel.—Mademoiselle Sarah Felix, the sister of the late Mademoiselle Rachel, yestereay brought an action before the Civil Tribunal against Madame O Connell, the well-known artist, to obtain damages for having pirated a design belonging to her. Mademoiselle Sarah, it appeared, on the death of her sister at Cannas, on the 3rd of January last, caused a photographer to take a likeness of her on her deathbed. He obtained one remarkable for its exactitude, but it was, as was said, “ horrible to witness,” inasmuch as it represented her features as they were contracted in the agony of death. As Mademoiselle Sarah’s object in having the photograph taken was to preserve a memorial of the deceased for her family and a few friends she saw that it would not be possible to Offer them anything so disagreeable to look at, and she accordingly employed a photographer of Paris, named Ghemar, to soften it down. She made both the photographers sign agreements, by which they bound themselves to take all possible precautions to prevent either the original photograph or the modification of it from getting into the hands of the public. But Ghemar imprudently allowed Madame O'Connell to take a copy of it, and she having made some alterations in it, caused ALM. Goupil, the well-known print-ellers, to offer copies of it for sale. Mademoiselle Sarah protested against this proceeding, andshecaused aseizure to be made of the copies unsold. In support of her action certificates were produced, from the Count de Nieuwerkerke, Director-General of the Imperial museums, and from other artistic authorities, to the effect that Madame O’Connell’s photograph was undoubtedly a piracy, and it was contended that the original photograph was not only the exclusive property of Mademoiselle Sarah, but that in law no persons except the members of Rachel’s own family had the right to represent her on her death-bed, inasmuch as though she had been a public performer, all that regarded her private life was as sacred as that of any other person. It was added that Mademoiselle Sarah’s intention was to give to the poor anv damages the tribunal might award her, her object in bringing the action being to prevent pictures of Rachel on her deathbed from being sold to the public. On the part of Aladame O’Connell it was admitted that she had seen the photograph in the hands of Ghemar, and had to a certain extent been inspired by it; but it was contended that her work was so different in many respects that it must be considered orginal. It was also insisted that Madame O’Connell had the right to produce portraits of Rachel, living or dead, as from Rachel's artistic eminence she was public property. It was accordingly demanded, not only that the action should be dismissed, but that 5,000 f. damages should be awarded to her for the wrong done her in bringing it, and by the seizure. After hearing the public prosecutor, who declared himself in favour of Mademoiselle Sarah’s action, the tribunal postponed judgment for a week.— Galignani,

Extraordinary Robbery.—-A most audacious and ingenious robbery has just been committed at the residence of Miss Constance Brown, the lady who was so skilfully personated a short time since on the occasion of therobbery of jewels from Messrs. Hunt and Roskell. A few days since a person presented himself at the house in which Miss Brown resided when in Dawlish, who, on being shown to the proprietor of the house,

stated that he was inspector Field, an officer from London, whence he had come in search for a quantity of missing plate which it was alleged, bad been stolen from Aliss Brown. He said that he wished to act as leniently as possible in the execution of his duty, but that he was determined J if possible, to find the property, and if any resistance was offered, he had with him other officers from London, who wool I, if necessary, support him in his search by force. He was Informed that all the plate in the house was marked with the crest of the owner. This assurance did not satisfy the individual, and he threa ened to clear the house of everybody if any obstacle were opposed to his making a complete search. With these threats a search was prosecuted. Among o her things examined was a dress’ng case of Miss Brown's. The pretended officer took from his pocket a bunch of keys, which he said belonged to the owner of of the case, and on finding that none of them would open the case, be declared that the lock had been tampered with, and that he would break it open. The proprietor of the house said he would go and gel a locksmith, but he was told by the robber that be could not be allowed to go out of bis sight. The case was broken open, and the pretended policeman took a ring out of it, which he said he had been looking for for the last seven years, which had belonged to Lady Campbell. The trunks ol the lady's maid of Miss Constance Briwu were next examined, corded, and sent off to the railway station by the proprietor of the bouse, at the direction of bis visitor. The family plate chest was next thoroughly overhauled, having been broken open, as the key could not be found, and the "policeman from London” threatening to give the proprietor of the house into custody if any thing were found in the chest which did not bear his name and cresi. The examination of the house and its contents having been completed, some madeira was ordered, and the pretended policeman remained till a late hour in the house, tbe female members of the family feeling grateful to their visitor for the manner in which be had performed what they felt convinced must be to him at all times a most disagreeable duty. Ou leaving Dawlish the fellow had the cool audacity to call al the police-station and request the police of the town to keep a sharp lookout on the horse which be bad just plundered, and in which he had been so generously treated. Handbills have been issued by Mr. Field, offering a reward for the apprehension of this unprincipled representative, who is staled to be well known to some of the detectives. It is believed that the same individual who visited Dawlish recently obtained from a nobleman in Portland-place, to whom be represented himself as inspector Field, and stated that his son was in extreme difficulty, a cheque for £5O. This cheque it appears, was made payable to "Air. Fieid or order,” and, when presented at tbe bankers, it was necessary that ihe cheque should be endorsed. The would-be inspector, without thinking of ihe consequences, made tbe endorsement when asked to do so, on presenting the cheque, and has thus exposed himse f to the penalties of forgery.— Liverpool Albion The Sunken Russian Fleet.—Of all the seventy vessels that were scuttled or sunk in the harbour of Sebastopol between September, 1854, and February 1855, there have been only one steamer, tbe Chersonese, and a few transports raised. Tbe result of the examination to which the others have been subjected by divers, shows them not to be worth much expense being bestowed on them. Tbe ships of the line which were sunk at tbe entrance of the harbour, had already been ten years afloat, and have now been embedded in the sand there for two winters, so that they cannot be worth much. The liners, Paris, Grossfurst, Constantine, Maria, and 'lchesma, are lying on their beam ends, and have been much injured by the lurching over of the guns, the ballast, and o her ponderous articles ; ibeChraby.Kullewtschy, and ihe steamers Vladimir, Bessarabia, Gromonessetz, Odessa, Krimea, and Turok, are described as standing upright on their keels, and it is proposed to lift them by means of the Chersonese and the transports. As regards those steamers which were among the vessels that were last sunk, considerable hopes are entertained that they may he brought into service again. Tbe parties who have undertaken the recovery of these wrecks from the bottom of the harbour, are to be paid for their trouble and outlay with one half tbe estimated value of all objects recovered, a remuneration that is thought to be in all probability very inadequate to the expenses. Tbe method proposed is to fasten on to the sides of tbe vessel to be raised sacks made air tight with tar or guita percha. In the case of a ship of the line, it is calculated that two thousand of these sacks must be used, containing fifty thousand cubic feet of air. Whether the scu tled vessels can ever be used or not, it seems to be decided that they must be lifted, and not blown to pieces, inasmuch as by the latter process the roads would be encumbered with a vast number of chains, guns, anchors, and other heavy bodies, which would for ever after obstruct the anchorage very much.— Nautical Magazine, The Army, its Use, Efficacy, and Cost. —Alluding to tbe Camp at Aldersboit, The Times says, " If any attempt was made at the beginning to accustom the troops to life in the field it has been given up, and by degrees Aldersholt has settled down to be a gigantic garrison town, very ugly, very dirty, but supplied and managed just as any other garrison town in the kingdom. It need not be said that the cost of the whole thing lias been immense. Indeed, we believe, that the House of Commons will, before long, lose all patience with both our military and naval administrations, and that a great revolution in the management of the national defences will be the result. Millions upon millions are spent, and we are told that a Channel fleet cannot be got to sea, nor an efficient army kept up on land. The sums which the War Department has squandered on Aldersboit would have made every barrack in the kingdom healthy and habitable. The cry is ever * Give, give,’ and when all is done, we are told confidentially that things are in a very bad state, and that the country has only its own * parsimony’to thank for it.”

Important Discovery.— An experiment has lately been tried in Paris, after a new system by which bides and skins of all descriptions may be dried in a few minutes, without any machinery, and in all latitudes. Skins so dried are preserved without any unpleasant smell, or diminution of weight or quality. This new process will, it is said, preserve them completely. AKnowing Doo—a Hint to Bill Discounters,—A large dog bad been accustomed to get bite of money from his master to go to a meat-stall to gtt his lunch of fresh meat. One day when change was short, the master gave the dog a piece of white paper on which was an order for tbe meat. The dog, after much urging, carried it to the meat-stall and received bis food, and for several days, when tbink'ng one piece of paperas good as another, he would pick up pieces of white paper and carry them to rhe stall without applying to bis master. By and by a long bill came from the meat-dealer, who had such confidence in the dog that he did not think of looking at the paper, and the dog himself was very fat. No arrest was made, and the dog occupies as respectable a position in society as ever.