The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-15 00:00:00

THE EARTHQUAKE IN BENGAL.

The Indian papers just received contain details of the
earthquake that had visited Silchar, Cachar, Assam and
the surrounding districts on the 10th January. The
Englishman says:—" The earthquake was felt most
severely throughout Assam. At Kurseong, tear Darjeeling,
it was felt very severely. So alarming were the shocks that
many of the inhabitants darted out of their houses, fearing
every moment they would be overthrown. A gentleman
returning home saw the trees around him rolling from side
to side in the most extraordinary manner. The natives gave
vent to the terror which filled them, in shrieks of Huree-bol!
and Ram ! Ram ! But the effect of the undulatory motion
on terrestrial objects was still more wonderful at Chittagong.
A gentleman then at Kussilong, in the hills some ninety
miles from Chittagong, states that the earthquake burst
upon them with tremendous force. It was travelling appa-
rently eastward and slightly north. The undulations were
very severe, andlasted nearly two minutes. It seemed as if
some mighty wave were sweeping on under the earth, and as it
passed the solid earth rose and fell with a motion distinctly
visible along the banks of the river and on the hills beyond.
From the spot where this gentleman was standing he could
see the ground rolling wave-like, the hills reeling, and the
trees waving to and fro. The spectacle was wonderful
and fearful, and one which once seen could never be for-
gotten. In Cachar, where the earthquake was severest,
the shocks had not ceased on the 14th, and the earth still
continued to crack and heave."

THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY. —We hear
that 29,000 volumes were added last year to the Printed
Book Department of the British Museum. The Museum
Library is now far the finest in the world, and is every
year becoming worthier of its pride of place. English.
men generally do not know either its extent or its merits.
Has any reader of ours ever heard one of his countrymen,
when bewailing the inferiority of our Art collections to
those of Venice, Dresden, Munich, or Paris, console him.
self with the reflection that in the more valuable treasure
of books our Museum is superior to the national library
of any other city—any two or three of them put together
we may say ?—Athencettm.

INCAUTIOUS RIFLE PRACTICE.—On Friday and
Saturday, before the Norwich magistrates, Mr. Charles
Travers Fisher was charged with feloniously killing and
slaying one Joseph Rudd. The prisoner is a lodger at the
Rev. Mr. Cooke's, of Thorpe Hamlet, and on the sth inst.
he amused himself by firing off a needle-gun with ball
cartridge. At the same time the deceased Rudd was
walking in a road hard by, and he was shot in one of his
arms, the wound sustained resulting in gangrenous inflam, mation and death. The only matter of uncertainty in the
case is that Mr. Fisher, who is an assistant in the Nor-
wich branch of the Provincial Banking Corporation
(Limited), was accompanied when out shooting on the sth
by a youth, who may possibly also have discharged
the needle-gun. Anyhow, the case shews great reckless-
ness on' the part of young Fisher in practising rifle-
shooting so near a public thoroughfare. After a con-
siderable amount of evidence, all tending to shew that
the sad occurrence wp,s purely aecidcutal, the prison!! was