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THE EXAMINER.-----
for example, a lady of noble birth, who marries a man not of that caste, at
once loses all title and distinction, and becomes simple Madam Schmidt or
Madam Schneider; but in England, where foreign nobility is not legally
recognized, a Captain Smith or a Rev. Mr. Tomlinson, who has married
a countess or baroness abroad, announces his wife by the title she had lost
in her own country! Englishwomen of late years have been frequently
guilty of (and almost as frequently punished for) a worse practice, to
gratify the passion for title—I mean sinfully giving away of their
pretty faces and handsome fortunes in marriage, in order to become
marchesas, comtesses, etc. An old Irish gentleman, in allusion to this
anti-national propensity, assured me, with tears in his eyes, that he had
witnessed twenty-six instances of it, and that the united fortunes of the
brides (£10,000 being the minimum in any case) might be computed at
half a million sterling—all lost to the country and gone or going for the
most part to the gaming table, old debts, and opera dancers. S.
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NOTABILIA.
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The Duke of Wellington's Last Fall.—The Duke of Wellington
has a great talent for falling. We question whether any man, more
accustomed to riding than John Gilpin, has had so many equestrian reverses.
On Saturday, the 19th, the newspapers announced his Grace's last tumble.
The Duke varies these casualties; sometimes he falls, and sometimes the
horse comes down under him, which last mishap occurs surprisingly often
to a person who rides good horses, and implies marvelous lack of skill.
Burning in Surrey.—A short time since, a barn upon the farm in the
occupation of Mr. Maynard, at Reigate, was totally destroyed by fire. Mr.
Maynard filled some parochial office, and had been applied to by a pauper
for money on the evening of the conflagration. This had been refused;
and in little more than an hour afterwards the barn was discovered to be in
flames, which consumed the building, as well as the stock of grain which it
contained. The latter only was insured. The pauper was taken up and
examined, but no proof was obtained that he had bee the destroyer of the
property. If, as there is every reason to believe, the mischief was
produced designedly from a feeling of disappointment, it affords a most striking
example of the operation of the blind spirit of vengeance by which the
ignorant peasantry have of late been guided. The property destroyed
does not belong to the farmer, who, as it is supposed, was the individual
marked out to be the sufferer, but to Dr. Fellowes, who will thus be
subjected to an outlay of several hundred pounds for the rebuilding of the
barn.—[The highly respectable Country Paper from which we have copied
this account proceeds in a strain of praise of Dr. Fellowes, which gives the
finishing stroke to the vexatious circumstance it recounts. The destruction
of the property is a trifle compared to the annoyance of the incense
that has smoked upon the occasion of it. To one of the character of the
party concerned, the burning of the barn was hardly felt to be a misfortune
till the paragraphing of his virtues followed upon it.]
Suspension of Animal Life while Organic Life remains.—
In the second of his present course of lectures on physiology, given at the
London University, Dr. Southwood Smith, after having explained the
interesting distinction between animal and organic life, observed that
animal life may be wholly suspended, or may absolutely die, while the
organic life may continue to exist in almost unimpaired vigour. Apoplexy,
said he, may suddenly reduce to the most driveling fatuity the most
exalted intellect, and render powerless muscles of the most gigantic strength.
And catalepsy, that extraordinary disease, in which the senses are
abolished, the intellectual faculties suspended, the power of voluntary
motion destroyed, while the body remains immoveably fixed in whatever
attitude it may happen to be at the moment of attack, illustrates in a still
more striking manner the utter abolition of animal life while the heart
beats, and the blood circulated, and the respiration goes on, and secretion,
and excretion, and the entire circle of the organic functions continue with their
usual regularity, though not, indeed, with their usual vigour. My patient, says
Dr. Jebb, in giving an account of a young lady who was the subject of this
singular disorder, was seized with an attack just as I was announced. At
that moment she was employed in netting: she was in the act of passing
the needle through the mesh: in that position she became immoveably rigid,
exhibiting, in a very pleasing form, a figure of death-like sleep, beyond the
power of art to imitate, or the imigination to conceive. The paleness of her colour,
and her breathing, which at a distance was scarcely perceptible, operated in
rendering the similitude to marble more exact and striking. The position
of her fingers, hands, and arms, was altered with difficulty, but preserved
every form of flexure they acquired; nor were the muscles of the neck
exempted from this law, her head maintaining every situation in which the
hand could place it, as firmly as her limbs. In this case, all the senses
were locked in a death-like sleep, and the patient was as insensible as she
was motionless. But sometimes the abolition of the animal life is only partial,
sensibility being destroyed while contractility remains, in the power of motion
being lost while sensation is unaffected. An example of this kind is on
record in which a female lay in complete possession of her intellectual
faculties, but deprived of the power of moving a muscle of the body. She
was in the distressing condition of finding herself given up by her attendants
as dead: she was laid out; her toes were bound together; her chin
was tied up' she heard the arrangements for her funeral discussed—
and yet she was unable to make the slightest sign that she was still in the
possession of sense, feeling, and life.
Tithes.—The Rev. Mr. Beresford has instituted twenty-four actions,
in the Court of Exchequer, against the parishioners of At. Andrew's,
Holborn, from whom he claims tithe on inhabited houses. The parishioners, at
a meeting, resolved to persist in defending the actions.—Moral Reformer.
Turkish Musical Gusto.—A modern traveler informs us, that the
band of an English Ambassador at Constantinople once performed a
concert for the entertainment of the Sultan and his Court. At the conclusion
it was asked which of the pieces he preferred? He replied, the first, which
was accordingly recommenced, but stopped as not being the right one.
Others were tried with as little success, until at length the band, almost
in despair of discovering the favourite air, began tuning their instruments,
when his Highness instantly exclaimed, "Inshallah, Heaven be praised,
that is it!" The Turkish Prince may be excused, when it is known that
at the commemoration of Handel, in 1784, Dr. Burney thought the mere
tuning of that host of instruments more gratifying than the ordinary
performances to which he had been accustomed.—Harmonicon for Feb. 1.
Protection against Marsh Effluvia and Gaseous Poisons.—
However medical men may differ in opinion as to the origin and nature of
malaria, all agree that it always travels in combination with moisture.
This opinion has lately been confirmed by Professor Chapman, of the
United States, in his valuable Practical Treatise on Epidemics; and our
countryman, Dr. Ferguson, asserts, that, however distinct the poison and
the vapour may be, they are always found in company. Wherever vapour
is most copiously produced, miasmata are generated. Vapour, it seems,
does not dilute the poison: for when it is most abundant, as in the morning
and evening, in the form of dew and fog, malaria is most active. They
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the examiner / sunday, february 27, 1831 / no. 1204 |
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