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Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 20, 15 June 1872, Page 3

One day when we were in New York I turned into the Fifth Avenue Hotel, on tho prowl lor something for the inner man, and, feeling the gregarious instincts strong upon me, went, and sat. down by the only occupant of the saloon, a long cadaverous Yankee, jusfc that sort that Tonnicl always puis into his cartoons, with stripy trousers and a stany shirt to typify cousin Jonathan. I had come across a good 'many' strange vegetables since we landed in the .States, but a dij>h of reddish somethings, which my gaunt neighbour was devouring with apparent relish, struck me at once as a novelty. " May I ask what they are?" lied peppers —try them." Innocently I accepted the invitation, and the moment f bit one of these things, felt—how I describe the sensation? —well, as if a 'red-Lot' poker had been laid upon my tongue. Luckily, just, before screaming out, T caught the eye of my' adaverous enemy fixed upon me with a queer, amused, halt-malicious look, that told its tale in a moment, fie was bent on teaching tho benighted Britisher a lesi-ony.find it was the benighted Britisher's bounden duty to refuse him that satisfaction. So, by a severe muscular effort, I strangled all outward facial signs of pain, and slowly chewed the agonising mouthful before my tormentor's eyes, till it was fairly swallowed. At. last l e said, rather impatiently, '"Tlow do you find tho peppers, sir?" "A little warm,'.' I answered, calmly ; "but (lorgive me the fib) a nice kind of vegetable,.decidedly"You needn't be afraid of the next world then," he jerked out, and though evidently disappointed, treated me with decided: respect frora that moment. The " Times" publishes a letter from a refugee Communist giving an account of his sufferings. On May '29,15?1, afterfour days of hideous suffering oil the plain.l of during which 60 prisoners died from the severity of the weather, he was sent with GOO others in cattle-trucks to'Lorient, where he was confined on board tiri old man-of-war. without bed or covering except ten old" rug' fall of insects, and here he remained ninemonths, fed 011 rations sd' small that many died of starvation, and 'the were attacked with scurvy. At lasfctilie writsr-Vra£ sent to Paris, and thence, after a^stay-of;-fivef houre, dismissed to Boulogne, 4irhe*e-4i« wafc thrust on boavd a steamer for Folkstoue, where licarri ved absolutely;, destitute, - 'I