NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Southland Times, Issue 641, 8 March 1867, Page 2

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

« — : (Continued from our last issue J Batty Vance, the old woman who walkfrom Penzance to London and back in* the year of the first Exhibition, has just resumed the same same feat, the object this time being to see her daughter. She is 88 years old. There are now about 1000 men employed upon the Great Eastern, lying in the Mersey, She is to be thoroughly overhauled, and to receive two new boilers. On the 20th of March next she will leave to commence plying between New York and Brest, under the command of Captain Sir James Anderson. The correspondent of a Plymouth journal complains that in his previous letter, when published, " Tom Beast, the Christian Minister," was, by a typographical error, substituted for " Von Beust, the Austrian minister." The Cornish Telegraph states that an elderly woman of 72 was alone in her cottage, in Penzance, one* Sunday.morning, when the latch clicked, the door opened, and in walked a husband she had notseenfor2B years. She shrieked, rushed to a neighbor's house, and resolutely declined to see or speak to the man who, if he had not deserted her, might soon have held a golden wedding, for nearly 50 years ago they were made husband and wife in Mawgan Church. We mentioned, no names at the time, but last week, Mrs Jane Green, the wife so surprised, applied to the Penzance magistrates for an order to protect her savings against James Green, the truant and returnable husband. She declared that on the 24th March, 1818, they were wedded at Mawgan Church, and that in May, 1838, he being the butler in the service of the late Mrs Peel, of Alverton Cot, deserted her, " without reasonable cause." Since that event she has brought up a family most respectably, and the magistrates, without any hesitation, granted her protection. Li Covent-garden market, a few days ago, there were exposed for sale, some large pears (ABelle Auvigne), ticketed 18 guineas a dozen. The Richmond-hill Hotel was recently offered without reserve to public competition at the new Auction Mart, City, and was knocked down to Mr P. Tebb, at £17,000. The property cost the company between £38,000 to nearly £40,000. Colonel Lloyd Lindsay presided recently at the Freemasons' Tavern, on the 202 nd anniversary of the Scottish Hospital, when the subscriptions were annouuced at nearly £2,000. The inhabitants of Moelfra, . on the Welsh coast, continue, when the tide is favorable, to search the rocks where the Royal Charter waa wrecked, and though seven years have elapsed since that disastrous event, substantial treasure is still recovered. In March £200 was found, in May £21 10s., July £80, in September £74, and in October £36. A good illustration, says the " Lancet," occurred a few days since of the strength of the " ruling passion " even in death. An old man in his last illness was admitted into one of the metropolitan hospitals. He was without relations, friends, or apparent means of subsistence ; but when undressed and put into bed a, bag of money waa foua4 6^Bpea^4 by ft. v,w

string round his neck. To this he clung with tenacity, refusing to part with it to any one, and wearing it about him by day and night. As his end approached, the treasure became a matter of anxiety to those tending him ; for the sum was evidently large, and it was feared that it might offer temptation to some patient in case the moment of his death should be unobserved. At length the hour arrived, and when death had apparantly claimed him a nurse gently unfastened the string and removed the bag. At the same moment the old man opened his eyes, and felt instinctively for his treasure which was no longer in its place. He uttered the word " Gone !" and died. The money, which was found to amount to £174, was handed over to the hospital authorities. There is now residing at Whitfield, near Thornbury, an old woman named Hester Gough, who is in her 99th year, hale and hearty, with her faculties wonderfully good, she being able to converse freely. Recently she has walked, without much fatigue, with the assistance of a stick, from her cottage to Thornbury and back to her home, also to Upper Stone and back, a distance to each place of • more than three miles. In a nobleman's park about ten miles from Hyde-park-corner the following notice is stuck up : — " Ten shillings reward. — Any person found trespassing on these lands, or damaging these fences, on conviction will receive the above reward." Four year ago the books of the National Debt Commissioners showed less than £1,700,000 belonging to the Post-office Savings' Banks. Two years ago the amount had risen to nearly £5,000,000. At the beginning of the present month (December) it had reached the large sum of £8,155,208. In the obituary of the " Times " of Dec. 8, the deaths are recorded of five ladies and one gentlemen whose united ages amounted to 525 years, giving an average of exactly 97 years and six months to each. The ladies' ages were respectively 80, 85, 87, 92, and 94 years each; the gentlemen was 87 years of ageT A gentleman named Farmer has taken out a patent for a method of growing hops on the trellis principle. The chic feature of his plan is the employment of wire instead of string in training the bine. A communication was read at a recent meeting of the Geographical Society " on Pangong Lake, in Western Thibet," from Captain Godwin Austen. The lake lies in 34 degrees north latitude, and about 79 degrees east longitude, and is situated among the lofty mountains of Thibet, at an elevation of 13,900 feet. There is an upper and a lower lake, connected by a small stream, the former of which is 43 miles long, and the latter about 39 miles, tending in a direction from north-west to south-east. The most remarkable fact concerning these lakes is that at such an elevation, among granite mountains, they are brackish, the upper one being too salt to be drinkable ; the lower lake is less so. They are only supplied by small rills from the glaciers, and the surrounding mountains, some of which are 20,000 feet high. It was in the month of July that Captain Austen visited the lake, in making a survey of the country, and at that time the water was not frozen ; one of the lakes, indeed, contained abundance of fish resembling tench. There were no inhabitants, and the only animals were two wild asses. A fact of some importance, though nofc strictly geographical, was that at a place on the ioufce the explorers discovered a pretty girl, and at once took her portrait. Dr Bullar, son of the late venerable Mr John Bullar, of Bassett, near Southampton, has presented to the Hartley Institution, in that town, the chief portions of the valuable library of his father, consisting of nearly 1000 volumes on history, divinity, and philosophy. Dr Bullar has had the books handsomely bound, and has at his own expense fitted up a splendid book-case in the readingroom of the institute where the volumes are to be kept. The death has taken place of Henry Latimer, at his. residence, Rathkenny, county Cavan. Ireland, aged 76. He was one of the few remaining heroes of Waterloo, having been a pensioner upwards of 51 years. For his skill in husbandry he was rewarded with the estate he lived on rent free for the last 20 years of his life by the Hon. Theophilus Clements. The annual report of Major Greig, as to the police establishment and the state of crime in Liverpool, shows that the total number of discovered crimes committed in the borough during the year was 4832, being an increase of 203 on the return for the preceding year ; while the total number of persons apprehended was only 2123, being a increase of 47 as compared with the number in 1865.