Miscillaneons.

Colonist, Issue 12, 1 December 1857, Page 3

Miscillaneons.

A Melancholy Story.—The Court of. Common Pleas, in London, brought to light, on Monday last, the melancholy story of an illassorted marriage between pardes connected with Inverness. It appears that, on the 7th October, 1847, a retired f iu'ian solicitor, named Armitage, was married to Miss Annie Macdoi-ald, .daughter of the late Mrs. Macdonald, of the Royal Hotel, Inverness. He was an elderly gentleman, who had practised for about fifteen years in India as an attorney ; hs pretty bride was barely seventeen, and an engagement appears to have subsisted between the parties for at least a. couple of years b*fjre their union.. Though not fully brought out in evidence, it was suggested in the course of the proceedings, that Miss Ma-.'.donaUl unwillingly yielded to the counsel of her. friends in accepting Mr. Armitage as a suitor; and he seems to have been instrumental in seuding her for several years to a fashionable boarding school in Edinburgh. The marriage proved am< st unfortunate one. From the first day the lady refused to live with her husband on the usual footing of man a;jd wife; and, indeed told him by letter that she would ' beg her bread or die first.' He appears to have acted with generosity towards her, and his wife frequently expressed herself grateful for his kindness, but no more. When they separated, she retired to Fort Augustus, and her husband supplied her with all that she asked for, sending even such articles as a ridinghabit, hat, and Mechlin lace veil. In 1850 Mrs Arraitage agreed to go back to her husband, but whether she did so or not does not. appear from the report of the proceedings in court; She left Fort Augustus, however, and from 1851 no trace of her could be 'discovered for a long time.' Now and then she was; seen for a moment in London, and her portrait was hung:in.the exhibition, but successively eluded pursuit, and it wa3 nut for several years that it was known that her affections had been bestowed up*on the Hon. Colonel Macdonald, brother of. Lord Macdonald, and aide-de-camp to H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge. In March, 1854, Colonel Macdonald was ordered to thfi Crimea, and Mrs. Armitage -was seen on the platform of the South-western, bidding him farewell. Their parting was tender and affection ite: he took her up, fuidod her in his arms, and kissed her. As he got into a sa'.om carriage, in which was bis distinguished cumnanding officer (the Duke of Cambridge), she threw her hankerchief to him, and said, 'There, Jamie,-their is my wedding handkerchief.' It was wet with tears. In 1855 the defendant returned, and the intimacy with Mrs. Armit-.ige was renewed. The result is that Mr. Armitage has brought an action against Colonel.Maedonald, preliminary to suing for a divorce, and as the jury, had no. doubt, of the propriety of the claim, they awarded damages; to the amount of <£ 100.'— Liverpool Albion.

Grasp of the Human Mind.—Our earth, as is well known, has the f-xrrn'of a spheroid, a little flattened towards the poles/ Its'radius is about 1500 leagues. The highest mountains do not rise to more than two leagues above the level of the sea, and there are but; few tracts naturally situated below that level; and the greatest depths which have been reached by digging in the quarries, and m.>re especially in the mines, do not exceed 1800 feet. The.inequalities of the soil, then, are very trifling, when compared with the whole mass of the terrestrial spheroid; and if the depths of the pits dug from, the surface strike us with awe—if the elevation of the mountains/whose summits we perceive to- be lost in the clouds, confound us with astonishment, .it is. only because we judge of them by comparison with. the.extreme smallness of the objects which surround us. The eavth, the superficies of which seems so unequal and ruggedj would offer to theeye of an individual, capable of embracing, the- outline at a glance, only the smooth appearance of one of our artificial globes, at the instant when it" comes from the hands of the workman who has polished it-. Let us suppose the terrestrial spheroid to be repreeented by a ball three inches in diameter. If we wished upon this ball to figure, in relief, the inequalities which are seen on the surface of the earth, the slightest pretuberances, almost invisible to the eye, assisted by a microscope, would represent the highest mountains ; the slightest scratch which could be made on its surface would be deepor, in relation to its diameter, than are'the greatest artificial cavities in proportion to that of the earth; and the vapours which a single breath would cause to be condensed,, would, perhaps ,be too thick to represent the atmosphere, even to the height at which ctoiuis are formed. For us, imperceptible atoms, who vegetate in this . slight stratum of humid air, there is no expression to describe our littleness, and the weakness of our means, when we employ them to act upon the globe. Nevertheless, this puny atom has measured the earth, the dimensions of which crush' him to nothing; ho has measured the sun, a million times greater than the earth ; he has calculated the distance which separates it from that orb whose brilliance his feebla gaze cannot sustain; he has recognised in the myriads of stars which sparkle in the firmament, s^ many other suns spread through the immensity of the universe, around which revolve their respective systems of opaque globes all of whose movements they regulate. Capable in his disminutivencss, of raising his ideas to'an expanse without bounds, the earth is no more to his enlarged conceptions than a grain of sand lost in the infinity of space. Is there not, in all this, matter for much reflection on the superiority of fche human mind, which enables it to comprehend objects of such magnitude, though nature-seems to have .condemned It to vegetate within so narrow a circle? — Berlrand's Revo lutions of the Globe

British Passion for the Sea.—We are sea-dogs from our birth. It.isin'our rapebred in the blood.. Even : the most inland and bucolic youth takes spontaneously, to. tt|e water, as an element he is born to rule. The winds carry ocean-murmurs, far in the inland valleys and awaken the old ; pirate instincts of Norsemen. Boys hear them, and although they never saw a ship in their lives, those murmurs make their heart unquiet; and to run away from.home,. c : c togo ; to sea," is the inevitable result. Place a Londoner in a turnip field, and the chances are that he will not know it from a 'field of mangel-wurzeh ; Place him, unfamiliar with .pigskin, on a.';' fresh " horse, and, he

will not make a majestic figure. But take this same youth, and fling him into a boat, how readily he learns to feather an oar t Nay, even when he is sea-sick—as unhappily the Briton will sometimes be—he goes through it with a certain careless grace a manly haughtiness, or at the lowest, .a certain " official reserve," not observable iri the foreigner. What can be a more abject picture than a Frenchman suffering from sea-sickness, unless it be a German under the same hideous circumstances?. Before getting out of harbour he was radiant,arrogant, self-centred : only half an hour is passed, and he is green, cadaverous, dank* prostrate, the manhood seemingly spunged out of him. N. B.—ln this respect lam a Frenchman.— rJflackyjootfs Magazine*