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Otago Daily Times, Issue 206, 6 August 1862, Page 6

I will confess, however, that my first inquiry on thj top of a new pass is neither what is there to see, nor what is the pass to be called, but—what is there to eat ! — J'caks, Pauses, and (ilaeiers. Edited by Edward Shirley Kennedy, M.A.,F.J'.(/..5. Tu'roi'-d our oi' School. —They put you in the way of Avhat is useful to read, help you to write Greek and Latin, and are extremely useful in " keeping A'ou totrether" in what you learn. — A Few Xoten /rom Fad Life-. 181S-1832. liy the JUv. Franch Trench, M.A., Rector of Islip. Oir/ord. Amkuicam Lads anp Lasses.—American lads'and lass s are all \.ah: Men at thirty and Avomen nt twenty-five have had all semblance of youth baked out of them. Infants even are :ot rosy, and the only shades known on the cheeks of children firetho.se composed of brown, yellow, and white. All this comes of those ,fkuunahle hot-air pipes with whicli every tenement in America is infested. "We cannot do without them," they say. " Our cold is so intense that we must heat our hous< r throughout. Open fire-places iv a few rooms Avould not keep our toes and tinkers from the frost." — Xorth America. By Anthony Trolloye. A FniGiiri'UL SPKCTAcr.K.—A lelter from Shanghai, China, dated Feb. 2-1, thus describes the decapitation of one thousand Taepingirebeis : —" When all was ready, they Avere brought down one by one from the gallery, and knelt before the mandarin, who readout to each his sentence. The upper part of their bodies were stripped, their hands Avere tbd behind their bodies with a piece of rough cord, and they knelt do-.vn one after another in the court. One poor fellow was the veriest picture of de-pair I ever Avitnesoied. His face bore the most ghastly expression, his eyes were starting from their sockets, and deep involuntary groans proceeded from his heaving chest. One poor wretch cried aloud for mercy, and one powerfully built man walked out, bound, from the judgment seat, with_a smile upon his countenance, and commenced talking iv an affable manner Avith tho man who was so shortly about to butcher him. When they were all bound they Avere hurried out into the square, an executioner to each man. They were placed in a kneeling position, with- j out any reference to order; and one mau taking hold ofthe hands, and another of the tail of his victim, the executioner commenced hacking away in, his own time. There was only one man whose head \Aa; severed at a blow. The rest underwent, some of them half a dozen, some as. many as a dozen blows. The swords Avere most of them like pieces of old iron, which the rust had eaten Avell into, and they did not ■ cut more than an inch deep at a time. The executioners gloated over their Avork, and quarrelled for their victims, and when one man had fiuished his own task, he rushed to have a go in at another. It avus the most frightful spectacle I ever saw in ujy life." Mr. William Fairbairn, in a lecture at the Royal Institution, London, admitted that Sir William Armstrong bad fairly beaten the li-obplate Commission with his 300-pounder. The Commissioners will, however, he said, try again, though .Sir AViiliam threatened to keep ahead of them with ordnance more powerful than we have yet seen tested.