MISCELLANEOUS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 287, 24 March 1877, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

a aaKACix or stenography. Here is an ere-opener for New Zealand ! shorthand writers :—" Mrs. Amelia Berrian, a phonographic writer of New York, wrote the other day the extraordinary number of 1054 words in four minutes, an average of 263 i words a minute. She wrote3o7 words"m one minute of the four." POPf LATION OP SAN FRANCISCO. San Francisco now claims a population of 272,000, an increase in the past year of about 42,000. This estimate gives San Francisco rank with New Orleans, Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Boston. Its trade has increased at a rate even greater than its population, and owing to the vast grain crop shipped thence every year, it has become a leading American city in export trade. EXTRAORDINARY/. At the lakes in Gipps Land, Victoria, a few weeks ago, an island suddenly made its appearance, which is one hundred . yards long, fifteen broad, stands six feet '. above the water, and has about twelve j feet of water around it. It has the apI pearance of having been suddenly forced up from below, with no vegetation on it , whatever. The Btrange phenomenon has t surprised the inhabitants considerably. A NOVEL EXCUSE. The Southland Times says:—"A man ' named Belchambers who was to attend an inquest held at Appleby on Monday afternoon, gave as an excuse for not serving on J j the jury that he had been drinking since being summoned. He afterwards said ' | tnat h* was not the worse of liquor, and '' \ he had only said so with the view of get- ! I ting his services dispensed with. Mr. ' \ M'Cullncli remarked Chat if either of the E man's statements were true he had with \ j his own mouth proved himself guilty of \ contempt of Court. The man was ordered ; to quit the Court, and was told that he would be dealt with when the inquest ' i was over. It was afterwards found t' at Beteltaflibera had walked away without waiting to be committed or reprimanded." FATAL RESCXT OF A PBACfiCAL. Dyeing a man may be a practical joke, ' hut when it ends in death the dyers may • very justly be tried for manslaughter, i I This is what has just happened in a dye- ■ ing establishment at Muromme, in the Seine-fnferieure. An old workman named Amedee Brouet, aged 61, had h»ng been the butt of his comrade*, chiefly on account of his drunken habits. The other i day, white the worse for drink, two of dyers caught hold of him and ducked him ' twice in a tank containing a mixture of ' indigo and sulphate of iron. Of course ' he came oat blue, and great wa3 the ' laughter of the people as he was turned " out into the street, but their laughter i changed to weeping when they saw him fall down dead. The practical jokers have been arrested, and will b? tried, not for . dyeing, bat killing him.— Home Papzr. CREMATION. Cremation has iust been tried in the United States under somewhat extraordinary circumstances. Last May the Baron de Pa.hu died, and left instructions that his body should be burned. It was embatraed and dried, ami kept in that state white a cremator}* furnace wca bung built in the small town of Washington, Pennsylvania. More than six months after death the process of incineration took place. The body was wrapped in a shroud that had been steeped in alum, so as to avoid the objection that the fire had destroyed the shroud and left the body naked. As the corpse passed into the furnace the laurel wreath around the head wus the first thing to light, and as it burned it seemed like a crown of glory for the dead. As the heat became more intense the flesh was first consumed, and then the bones, until at last the pelvis gave way, and nil became a heap of ashes. After the fit mace had cooled—s» process occupying not far short of 30 hours—the ashes were placed in an Indian urn. The direct cost of cremation was, in this case, about seven dollars. Forty bushels of coke were consumed, but of course the »an:e furnace might have sufficed for several bodies. IfR WAS f»*f,Y A CHINAMAN. We were apprised the other day that a Chinaman, named Ah Wong, having hung himself tti Otngo, the jury returned a verdict of f*h* «/c #k. Deceased left behind him an explanation, which ran as follows :—"Canie to the Colony 17 years ago, hut had no tuck and did not make any money. Owed too much money. Having no money will hang myself and die. My parents brought me tip as big as I am now. and I can't go home to see them. If I remain in Dunedin, I am afraid every day, and would sooner be a devil than a man. I owe people money and can't give it to them back. I owe it i this time, but next time I live I will pay ; it. To die is nothing. I have a brother j in China, to whom I would like this sent." !On this philosophical and business-like statement the jury concluded that deceased was t f sound mind. And yet, it is , almost certain that if any European had followed Ah Wong's mode of temporarily giving his creditors the slip, and left behind him a similar epistle, the same jury would unhesitatingly, on the evidence of such a letter, have returned a verdict to the effect that deceased eontmittcij suicide vthih of unsound mind. That which is regarded as proof of the Chinaman's sanity, would be regarded as equally convincing proof of madness in a person of European race. Could a greater compliment be paid to Chinese philosophy, or a stronger belUf in its genuine and coolheaded character, ss contrasted with some other systems, be expressed |li2n {hnt contained in the verdict upon th'ut simple Chinaman, w.io preferred to be a devil rather than be plagued by Dunedin duns 1 CiiirisiKfaiAn'h jS(<tf 0