Miscellancous.

Colonist, Issue 13, 4 December 1857, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

A PEEP INTO THE BANK OF ENGLAND. THKBank of England mustbe seen on the inside as well as out, and to get into the interior of this remarkable building, to observe the operation of an institution that exerts more moral and political power than any sovereign in Europe, you must- have an order from the Governor, of the Bank. The building occupies an irregu'ar area of eight acres of ground—an edifice of no architectural beauty with not one window towards the street, beinglighted altogether from the roof of the inclosed area. I was led, on presenting my card of admission, into a private room; where, after a delay of a few moments, a messenger came and conducted me through the mighty and mysterious building. Down we went into a room where the notes of the Bank received the day before were now examined, compared with the.entries in the books, and stored away. The Bank of England' never issues the same note the second time. It receives in the ordinary course of-business, about 80,000 Z. or 4,000,000 dollars daily v in.. notes; these are putup into parcels according to:the denomination, boxed up with the date of their.reception, and are kept ten years; at the expiration of which period they are taken out and ground .up in the-mill-which I saw running, and made again into papsr. If, in the course of ten years, any dispute in business or law suit should arise concerning the payment of any note, the bank can produce the identical bill. ,

To meet the demand for notes so constantly used up, the bank has its own paper makers, printers and engravers, all at work under the same roof, and it even makes the machinery by which the most of its work is done. A complicated and beautiful operation is a register, extending from the printing office to the banking offices, which marks every sheet of paper that is struck off from the press so that the printers cannot manufacture a single sheet of blank notes that is not recorded in the bank. On the same principle of exactness, a shaft is made to pass from one apartment to another, connecting a clock in sixteen business wings of the establishment, and regulating them with such precision that the whole of them are always pointing to the same second of time.- In another room was a machine, exceedingly simple, for detecting light gold coins; A row of them dropped one by one upon a spring scale. If the piece of gold was of the standard weight, the scales rose to a certain height, and the coin slid off upon the side of the box; if less than the standard it rose a little higher and the coin slid off" upon the other side.

I asked the weigher what was the average "number of light coins that came into his hands, and; strange enough, he said it was a question that he was not allowed to answer. .

The next room I entered was that in which are ready for issue; "We have thirty-two millions of pounds sterling in this room," the officer remarked to me: " will you take a little of it? " t told him it would be' vastly agreeable, and he handed me a million (five mi lions of dollars) which I received with many thanks for his liberality, but lie insisted on my depositing it with him again, as it would be hardly safe to carry so much money into the street; I very much fear that I shall never eae the money again.- In the vault

beneath the door was a director and the cashier counting the bags of gold, which men were pitching down to them, each bag containing a thousand pounds sterling just from the mint. This world of money seemed to rea'ize the fable of Eastern wealth, and gave me new and strong impressions of the magnitude of busir ness clone here, and the extent of this one institution to the commerce of the world.

Antiquity of Table-Tunning.—The London JVdtes dnd Queries copies the following extract from M. Maimbourgh'ri "History of Arianism." It wil prove interesting in connection with the accounts of the niodern phenomena, in which the newspapers of the day abound: While Valens (the Eoman Emper6r,) was at Antioch, in his third consulship, in the year 870, several pagans of distinction, with the philosophers who were in so great reputation under Julian, not being able to bear that the empire slioxild continue in the hiuids of the Christiana, consulted privately the demons, by the means of conjurations, in order to know the destiny of the emperor, and who should be his successor, persuading themselves that the oracle would name a person who would restore the worship of the gods; For this purpose they made a three footed stool of laurel in" imitation of the tripod at Delphos, upon which having laid a basin of divers metals, they placed the twenty-four letters of the alphabet round it; then one of these philosophers, who was a magician, being wrapped up in a large mantle, and his head covered; holding in one hand vervain, and iii the other a ring, which hung at the end of a siriall thread, pronounced some execrable conjurations in, order to invoke the devils; at which the three-footed stod! turning round, and tli3 ring moving of itself, and turning from one hide to the other over the letters, it..caused theni to fa 1 upon the table and place themselves near each other, while the parsons who were j ])resent set down the iike letters in their tablebooks, till their answer was delivered in heroic verse, which foretold them that their criminal inquiry would cost them their lives, and that the Furies were waiting for the emperor, (he was subsequently burned alive by the Goths) at Mimas, where he was to die a horrid kind of death; after which the enchanted ring turning about again over the letters, in older to express the name of him who should succeed the emperor, formed first of all these three characters, THE O;then having added a D to form TH E 0 D the. ring stopped, and was not seen to move any more; at which one ef the assistants cried out in a transport Of joy, " We must not doubt any longer of it, Theodorus is the person whom the gods appoint for emperor." [Theodoras was a patron of idolatry ; it was not he, however, but Theodosius who ascended the throne after the dreadful end of Valens.] * * * The conspiracy was discovered-by one of the accomplices, and Valens ordered them all to be put to death. And that cursed race of false sages, who under the color of philosophy, exercised the detestable art of infernal magic, particularly from the time of Julian, w?,s almost entirely destroyed, with their magic books, which were strictly inquired after, and pub icly burned in large parcels.

Price of "Machines" foe the Mouth. —In the Court of Common Pleas, lately, Mr, -NichfllJs, surgeon dentist, Sloane-street, Chelsea,- sued a Mr. Russell, who is connected with the theatrical profession. The action was brought to recover a sum claimed as the balance clue for a set of artificial teeth supplied to Russell, the defendant. The plaintiff's case was that on the previous occasions he had made the defendant" machines" for his mouth but had not been paid for them. Ori .the' 20th of August, 1855, the defendant agairiapplied to him.for another "machine" arid witness, agreed to make him. a set of teeth upon the condition that he should be' paid for it. Witness was t<s charge what he pleased for the job so long as he enabled the defendant to continue his profession as an elocutionist; Witness, after three weeks' attention to the defendant's mouth, extracting teeth, removing obstructions, and getting his mouth into a fit .state to receive the teeth, made the set of teeth, and charged his usual price—4o guineas; As was usual,when a person began to wear a set of artificial teethjthedefendantdisturbed the spring/ and witness supplied a pair of riew springs, the price of which was two guineas; .About Christmas time defendant, played Shylock at the Strand theatre, and afterwards" told witness that his voice had never been in a more satisfactory state than on that occasion. The defendant on that occasion wore the set of teeth supplied by plaintiff. The defendant had paid £15 on account, and the balance due was £29 2s. For the defence it was asserted positively that the price agreed upon for the set of teeth was.3o guineas. Defendant also stated that the teeth did not suit him, that they hurt his mouth, interfered with his voice, and he could not eat with them. A deduction of £1 2s. was also claimed for the gold, which the defendant had had handed him in the shape of the frame of the old teeth. Evidencewas also given that the sum of 30 guineas was a full price for a set of teeth, the usual price being 25 guineas The Jury found a verdit for plaintiff for £15.

The Giant of the Would —Miles Dakden. —Some weeks ago we gave a few facts in reg.-ird to the weight and dimensions of this extraordinary man, and promised oxvc readers, through the courtesy of a friend in Hendersoa county, further itemns of interest. The friend we referred to was the R'V. John Bro >ks, whose veracity, we believe, has never been questioned by any one. He writes a % s follows : —" Mr. Darden was born in North Carolina, in the year 1798, and departed this life at his residence, in.Henderson county, Tennessee, on the 23rd of January, 1857, in the 59th year of his age. He joined the Baptist church in early life, and shortly after emigrated to Tennessee, where he connected himself with what is called the Christian church, but had not been a member of' any church for years past, butt was moral, and fond of conversation oil religious subjects. He was an obliging and kind neighbour, and fond of company. About fifteen years ago lie joined the order of Masons. He was twice married. His children are very large, but probably, none of them will ever be more than half the Weight of their father. He was quite active and lively, and laboured until about four years ago, when he became so .fleshy that he was compelled to stay at home, or to be hauled about in a two-horse waggon. In 1849 he made a contract with a tailor to furnish him a suit of clothes for 50 dollars—the cloth was to cost 5 dollars per yard. Upon measnrement, it took twelve yards of cloth. So the tailor lo3t 10 dollars and the making. The tailor states that three men, each weighing over 200 pounds, put the coat on, and buttoned it around them, and walked across the square to Lexington. In 1850 it took 13-| yards of flax cloth, yard wule,: to make him a coat. It took 16 yards of cambric for his shroud ; 24 yards of black velvet to cover the sides and lid of his coffiu ; 125 feet of plank tcmake his coffin. His coffin was 8 feet long; across the breast, 32 inches; across the head, 18 inches ; across the foot, 14 inches; he weighed, in 1845, 871 pounds ! his height, 7 feet 5 inches. Ilk weight when he died, as nearly as could be ascertained, was a fraction over 1000 pounds --^Jackson (Tennessee) Whig.