The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1870-02-15 00:00:00

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FRENCH 134 Ne NOree.— The life of a French
bank-note ia said to average two or three years, and
does not terminate until it. condition is very shaky
indeed crimpled, pierced with pin-holes, corner
Crease' torn, soft, tarnished, decrepit while quite
young. Some have been half-burned; one has been
found half-digested in the stomach of a goat, and
OLe boiled in a waistcoat pocket by • laundress. No
matter, the cubicr at the bank will try to decipher
it; he will, iudeei, take an Me:silty of trouble to put
together the ashes of a burned note, and will give
tie owner a new note or the value in coin if satin
fled of the integrity of the old one. The bank autho,
rities preserve specimecs of this kind as curiosities,
minute fragments gummed in their proper position
on a sheet of paper. Very few of the notes are so.
tuady and irrecoverably loot. During the last 67
years, 24,000 bank-notes of I,ooof. each have been
issued, and of tiaio number 23,058 have been return-
ed to the bank by the mouth df January last; leav-
ing only 42 unaocounted for. Whether these 42 are
still in existence, or have been burned into uncol-
lected 'whey are at the bottom of the sea, or else-
where' is not known. Of 500-franc notes, 24,034
have been returned oat of 24,000.—Chanieferes JUN,

Aerlettralf oe FRE TOWen. Set against the
Tower of Lot/due—with its eight hundred years of
historical life, it, nineteen hundred years of tea fi-
tment fame—all other palaces and prisons appear
like things of an hour. 'Fhe oldest bit of palace in
Europe, that of the west front of the Burg in Virtu.
is of the time of Henry the Third. The Krem-
lin iu Moscow, the Doge's Palazzo in Venice, are of
the toorteeutii c •titury. The S Tagil° in Stamboul
was built by Mohammed the Second. The oldest
part of the Vatican was commenced by Borgia whose
name it bears. The oil Liam, was commenced in
the reign of Henry the Eighth; the Tuileries in that
no Elizabeth. lu the time of our Civil War Ver-
sailles was yet a swamp. San Souci and the &ICU-
rial belong to the eighteenth century. The Serail of
J. modem is a Turkish edifice. The palaces of Athens,
ot Cairo; of Teheran, are all of modern date. Neither
can the prisons which remain in fact as well as in
history and drama—with the one exception of the
Castle of St. Angelo in Route—compare against the
Tower. The Statile is gone, the Bargello has be-
come a museum; the Piombi are removed from the
Doge's roof. Vincennes, Spandau, Spilberg, Magde-
burg, are all modern in comparison with • jail from
which Ralph Fiambard escaped so long ago as the
year 1100, the date of the first crude.—" Her Ma-
jesty's Tearer," by Hepworth Dixon.
GARNET THE JRJEWIT.—Benry Garnet, Prefect of
the English Jenuits, was • square, bluff man, of middle
age, mach worn by care, if not by drink, and look-
ing ten years older than he was, had a string of dif-
ferent names. In Flanders he was known as Father
Greene, Father Whalley/ and Father Roberts. In
England he passed under the priestly names of Father
Garnet, Father Derck:llnel Father Whalley; under
the lay names of Mr. r and Mr. Mew, Ile had
as many homes as names; not to speak of the houses
of his penitent. and pupils, which were to him as
homes. lie had • house cal ed White Webbs, in the
Enfield Chase; a lodging in Thames- tract, near
Q leeullithe; • secluded residence on Wandsworth
Common; an old manor at Erith, which he noel for
the coming and going of his agents by the Thames.
This man of many names and domicike is said to
have kept • merry table. Ile was accused of a fond-
hes+ for female society which ill became a priest, and
the name of Helen Brooksby was coupled with his
hint of frailty, eveu more than that of her sister
Ann Your. Most of his days mid night, were 'spent
in evading spies, in studying tricks and masks, in
passing under fare colours, in conducting spurious
busiuess. One day he was a rich merchant from the
city, next day a poor soldier from the wars; here a
married man, there a single one, now a tavern-rut-
tier, with rapier ready on We thigh; anon a starving
curate/ full of ardour for hid queen. Each day was
to him • fight for liberty and dfojewp'a
Tower, ir Hepworth 1N.4 OR.
DOLPHIN Flained.--The best bait for the d010..1a
ma long strip of shark's flesh. I think it generally
prefers it to the semblance of a flying fish, which,
indeed, it dose not often seize unless when the ship
is under weigh, and it is made to rise to the surface.
There are timee, however, when hunger and the &b-
-ermes of their nand food will induce the dolphins to
dash at any mart of bait; and I have seen some caught
by means of • ;decoct white linen fastened to a hook.
Their appetite is as keen as that of the vulture; and
when a good opportunity emirs they gorge them-
selves to ant+ • degree that they become an (any prey
to their enemies, the balaconda and the bottle-nosed
rernoiee. One that had been brained while lazily
swimming immediately under the earn of our ship was
found to have its stomach crammed with flying fish,
al regularly di.posed side by side, with their tails
downwards, which suggests that the dolphin swallows
its prey tail foremost. They looks I, in fact, like so
many salted herrings packed in • box, and were, to
th e number of twenty-two, each six or seven inches
in length. The usual length of the dolphin in the Gulf
of Mericois about three feet, and I saw none that ex.
cee led four feet. The weight of one of the latter size
was only eighteen pounds,for this fish is extremely nar-
row in proportion to its length, although rathur deep
In it s form. When just caught, the upper fin, which
reaches from the furehad to within a short distance
of the tail, is of • fine dark blue. The upper part or
the body through its whole length is astir*, and the
lower parts are of a golden hue, mottled irregn-
lady with deep Woe spots. One day several small
birds, after alighting on the spars, betook themse.ves
to the deck. One of them, a female rice bunting,
chew our attention more particularly, for, • few mo-
ments after her arrival, there came down, emit it were
in her wake, a beautiful "eregrine falcon. The plun-
derer hovered about for awhile, then stationed him-
self on the end of one of the yard-arms, and suddenly
p ,uucing on the little gleaner of the meadows,
catched her and carried her off in exultation. I was
astonished to me the falcon feeding on the finch while
on the wing with the same ease as a Mississippi kite
slaws while devourii.g, high in air, a red-throated
lizard, swept from one of the trees of the Louisiana
woods. One afternoon we caught two sharks. In
one of them we found ten young ones alive, arid quite
capable of streaming, is we proved by experiment;
for on casting one of them into the sea it immediately
made off, as if it had been accustomed to shift for
itself. Of another that had been cut in two, the head
half swam out of our sight. The rest were cut in
Metres as was the old shark, as bait for the dolphins,
whirl. I have already said, are fond of such food. Our
captain who was intent on amusing me, informed
me that the rudder-fishes were p.entifol astern, and
immediately set to dressing hooks forth. 'Tarpons of
catching them. There was now some air hbove us,
the sails aloft filled, the ship moved through the
water, and the captain and I repaired to the cabin
window. I was furnished with a fine hook, a thread
lone, and some small bits of bacon, as was the captain,
and we dropped our bait among the myriad. of deli.
cats little fishes below. Up they came one after an-
other, so fast in succession that according to my jour-
nal, we caught three hundred and seventy in about
two hours! What a meal! and how delicious when
roasted! if ever lam again becalmed in the Gulf of
slexic , I shall not forget the rudder-fish. The little
things scarcely messnred three inches in length; they
were thin and eeep in form, and afforded excellent
eatng. It was carious to see them keep to the lee
of tie rudder in • compact body, an I so voracious
were they that they leaped out of the waves at the
shght of the bait. But the very instaht that the ship
became stid they dispersed around her sides, and
would no longer bite.—Life aid dldaasturts itf JMN
Jume• dadotews.