MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 122, 12 March 1872, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

The cold in Paris has been great enough lately to freeze brandy.

The animal expenditure in England on pauper relief exceeds £8,000,000. A Hartford (U.S.) paper regretfully records the death of a forty-eight years' subscriber.

The total amount contributed by England to France during and after the" war' was £479,340. The United States Government made about 3,000,000d01a. out of the Chicago fire through the destruction of greenbacks. The London Punch advises Englishmen to hurry up with their subscriptions, or Chicago will be rebuilt before they can get them there.

More than .1(5,000 families, averaging five persons each, are still receiving aid in a greater or less degree from the Chicago Relief Committee.

By mail advices we learn from Vienna that it is creditably asserted that the forthcoming budget will show a surplus of twenty-one millions, instead of a deficit, as anticipated. Happy country ! Smoking is very much on the decline in England. At the Universities not one man in five now smokes, whereas a few years ago, at least four in live did. But in America it seems very much on the increase. A St. Louis paper says that all the fashionable ladies in that city smoke. An intoxicated man saw two tramway cars passing him the other evening, with red and blue lights in front raid rear. His fuddled brain at once comprehended the coloured lights, raid he was heard to say to himself, " Must he pretty sick—sickly here ; they are running chemist's shops about on \vh—wheels !" At one of the London police courts the other day a boy named Capps was sentenced to seven days' imprisonment for begging on the .streets. The boy and his mother, says the Times, on hearing the sentence, began to roar rather than to cry, and the woman, going down on her knees and lifting up her hands, prayed the Almighty to strike the magistrate dead on the bench. Banking must be very profitable in Sydney. The Commercial Bank there, at the close of last half-year, declared a dividend at the rate of 15 per cent, per annum, capped by a bonus of ss. per share, with an addition, of £IO,OOO to reserve fund, after which a larger amount was carried forward than was brought'over from previous half-year. Its £25 shares arc at £OO or thereabouts. And in illustration of the advantages of numerous moderate-sized accounts, it is stated that, a year ago, the bank had not an account in its books by which it could, by any possibility, and under the worst circumstances, lose £IO,OOO.

At the Marlborough street Police Court, London, recently, an elderly gentleman applied for a summons against his son for misconduct. Mr Newton asked what offence his son had been guilty of. The applicant said he was in the habit of lying in bed after II o'clock in the morning. The magistrate said, "Do you suppose I can grant a summons against your son for such a thing ?" The applicant replied. " 1 thought you might assist me." Mr Newton said, "Can anything he more ridiculous than for a man to come before a magistrate with such a request ? Co away." The applicant, it is stated, left the Court, "evidently displeased." The London correspondent of the Liverpool Albion writes :—"Probably 'the best abused' public man living in England at the present moment is Sir C. Dilke—that is, so far as the public organs are concerned : but I [hid a much more charitable tone adopted towards him in private society. Even in the best informed circles persons are to be met with who don't hesitate to avow'that they think he was right : and others, who do not go so far, censure him only for the manner and not for the matter of his speech. That the establishment of a republic in the place of an aucient Monarchy, is admitted to be a fairly debateable subject, must unquestionably be regarded as a ' sign of the times." "

Apropos of the liberality of the gentleman whom Mr Gladstone has thought tit to place at the head of the monetary interests of Great Britain we (South Courier) have an anecdote. The other day Mr Lowe, walking in the High street of Croydon, descried an apple-woman. Wishing to make a purchase, the Chancellor of the Exchequer crossed over to the itinerant vendor, and entered into a bargain for a punnet. After some higgling, it was arranged that Mr Lowe should become owner of a threepenny punnet for the sum of 2d. The Chancellor seemed pleased with his purchase, but he shortly returned to point out that one of the apples was bruised. The accuracy of the above we vouch for. Electricity has achieved a new triumph. Alrcadv employed to restore vigour and nimblcness to the gouty limbs of decrepit hnn ripiuitx, the recent discoveries of Dr Lender, a French physician, show electricity to be an efficient remedy for the evil cHocis of excessive drinking on the human nose.

The doctor maintains that by application of an electric currant to noses even of the most Bacchic hue, the flesh mav he made ' L to come again as the flesh of a little child." and supports his assertion by a ease performed on a female patient of his own, a woman of high rank. " Knights of the burning lamp" who have still some regard for personal appearance will appreciate Or Bonner's discovery, as it promises thorn immunity from the dreaded ofttward testimony to their pel vice. There ',.-; one danger, however, in the discoverynamely, its tendency, if confirmed, to rn--.-onvag'- i? 1 -'' 1 °' intemperance.