Star.
London, England, 1830-10-13 00:00:00

SCINTILLAL

ALARMING TO THE MALTHUSIANS.—No less than 17
weddings took place at Waloot Church during the last week !
In the Danish Islands the Moravian congregations con-
tain nearly 10,000, in Antigua nearly 150,000,111renitt's above
5,000, in Jamaica and Berbadoes about 4,000, and in &wham above
2,000 • In all above $6,000 Negroes : in South Africa about 2,400
Hotteitots ; in North America, Labrada, and Greenland, about 2,700
natives. Total, about 41,000 souls.
A TENDER Wrsz.—At Hereford, Mary Wright was
aoudad se the sessions, for want of ball, for dreadfully beating with a
rolling pie her sick husband, who was unable to regime himself, and
bad it met hem for the timely interference of his oslghlmers her rio.
lake might hove proved fatal, for she bad got hips across a wheelbar.
row, and bed en au In be band when they seised her !
A HiavY CHARGII.—A fellow being brought before a
Jostles on a charge of steeling bed. the Magistrate shook his bead,
looked at the culprit, and etteklmsd—" This is a ham charge, in.
deed !"—Glasgow Fm Press.
IMPORTATION OF CATTLE FROM IRELAND.--The
following are the numbers of cattle, sheep, pigs, Ilte. imported into
Bristol from the Ist July to the end of September, as reported in the
Bristol Pressniewnt r—Cows end calves. 6,338; pigs, 10,001; sheep
and lambs, 11,048 ; bones, 72. Total nur.ther imported since the let
January lest:—Cows and calves, 4,068; pigs 51,858 ; sheep and
lambs, 15,134; homes, 240; mules, IS.
FLYING. —A mountebank announced to the people of
Plymouth, the other day, that he would fly from Prince Island to the
opposite shore. The flying, as it was celled, was merely slipping along
a to which he was attached by a ring; a feat which has often been
cif Unluckily, in the present ease, the rope was not sufficiently
tight; so that when he reached the middle, the poor flyer was soused
into the water; and being unable to extricate himself, he would have
been drowned, bad not a boat gone to his rescue.
A COSTLY VIOLIN.—COUIM Von Trautmannsdorf, mas-
ter of the home in Bohemia to the Emperor Charles VI. purchased a
risks mode by Jacob Stainer on the following conditions:—To pat
down= ; to give him annually a gold4aced coat, and daily a good
dinner, with a quart of wine, besides two maks of beer per annum for
coma us
bss:o provide him with lodging, feel. and light; to pay him
a month; and in case he shoed take a wife unto
= Mere him twelve bushels of butt every ear, besides sir
beads 'flak for his old nurse so long N she should live, and as many
boss as blonde's call for. The seller need le years after the purchase,
ad the viola Net the purchaser, in consequence, a sum of no less than
MIL le. IL The instrument k now in the possession of M. Frasseel,
smith de smart, at Manbeim.—.4lthenentn.
Dr. Heylin, in his Cosmography, tobserves " that the
people of the island of Zante were very poor when first the English re.
sorted to trade thither for their currants (about the year 1530) and that
those islands:6 much wondered to what end they actually brought away
such quantities, akin the English whether they used theft currants to
dye clothes, or fatten heir bogs."
PRINTING IN AMERICA.—In 1689 the first printing-
press was erected at Cambridge. Mr. Glover, at whose expense it was
to be established, died 'upon his passage, and the printer's name was
Days. The first work printed was the Freeman's Oath; the second
was en Ala:snack, calculated for New England, by Pierce, a season.
The third was the Psalms of David, newly turned into metre. Such
were the beginnings of literature among the Anglo-Americans, sod its
progress has neither been rapid nor extensive. No work of any dig.
tlmiselsod meth has been the production of the western soil. Dr.
's History of America is one of the best, but its merits are only
of an inferior elan. The Life of Washington is ill-proportioned and
111.thecuted. Their drama is in such a barren state as Is calculated to
reconcile us to that of our own.

BURNING OF Till HUNAN BOOT BT HABITUAL
Dan nazuxes.....ilary Clues, aged UN was much addicted to intoxi.
cation. Her propensity to this was such that, for about a year, scarcely
a dayssamed in which mks iii not drink at least half a pint of rum or
water. Her had& minimally declined; she was attacked with
*mike, and was mins* is her bed : she still condoned her old habit
efideldem. One morning she fell on the Hoar, and, her weakness
hentag pringnisi herctinstrashe remained so till some one entered
end put her se lei. night she wished to be left alone.
The woman, en citing hes, put coal on the fire, and placed a
Uglit en a at the heel dile bed. At live in the morning smoke
was ease lawatag theingh the wledlow, and, the doge being broken open,
same unto which wets in the ream were soon ex iabed. Between
the bed ad the chimney were hand the remains of the unfortunate
(hiss one leg and a thigh were still entire, but there remained nothing
of the skin, the muds', or the viscera. The bones of the cranium, the
lamest, the spins, and the upper wren:like were entirely calcined ; the
fuenitute had emendeei little injury. The aide of the bed next the
Wenner bed NOW mat; the wood of it was slightly burnt, but the
imam, &d m, end covering, were cafe; nothing except the body
exhibited any Wrong tram of fire.—Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia.

The Athenian maidens, when they become. anxious to get
husbands, adopt the followi4 curious practice s—On the fir= =en•
ling of the new moon they put a little honey, a little salt, and a piste
of bread, on a plate, which they leave on • particular spot on the
east bank of the Miens, near the Stadium, and, muttering some an.
dent wads, to the effect that Fate* may send thesn'a handsaw young
man, return home, and long for the falfihnent of the charm. On
mentioning this circumstance to the travellers (Lord Byron and Mr.
Hobhouse) one of them intOemed me that above the spot where these
offerings arc made, a statue of Venus, according to FausauLs, for-
merly stood. It is, therefore, highly probable, that what is now a
superstitious was formerly a ridigious TlM—Gaffs Lee Brea
Extract from the " Heiress of Bruges, a tale of the
year ler, by Thomas Colley Grattan, author of " Highways and
Byways" r—" The state of Belgium at that period was one of doubt.,
danger, and confusion. The contest against Spanish tyranny had
loosened all the ties which bound society together. In the fierce struggle
for liberty, every ;prise: consideration was forgotten; and property of
all kinds was left insecure, between despotism and anarchy. The city
of Bruges, though still a place of great wealth, inhabited by many
noble families, and in many ways distinguished, was rapidly declining.
The turbulent spirit of its inhabitants, in its proud and palmy days,
when it was the emporium of Europe, had, by degrees, deprived it of
that high distinction.
Paris was evacuated by the English in 1435. The con-
vest of Bayonne, in 1445, completed their expulsion from France.
kew events could then have been deemed of more moment. Had
&esteem= been as voluminous writers as they now are, their corres-
pondence could scarcely have handled any other matters. Of these events,
thus once momentous, a well-educated man might now mistake the
date to the =Wit of tea Ot twenty years. In the very year of the eva-
cuation of Paris, as we learn from the records of the city of Strasburgra
law-suit was carried on there between John Gutenberg, a gentleman of
Menu, celebrated for mechanical ingenuity, and Driultn, a burgher of
the city, who was his partner In a copying machine, of which Guten-
berg reserved to himself the secret of the contrivance. No litigation
could seem more base and mechanical to the barbarous Barons of Sue.
bia and Alsace. But the copying machine was the printing- press,which
has changed the condition of mankind. The single and very simple
operation of Gutenberg's invention in reducing the price of books. has
augmented tenfold the mass of reason employed in human pursuits, and
multiplied, beyond the possibility °leaked/Aim, the chances of active
genius and wisdom.—Meekintosles History el England.
A Goon SUBSTITUTZ.—A very worthy grazier in the
town of Lichfield, of the name of Elwood, had intended marking a
large flock of sheep. as usual, with the first letter of his name ; but un-
luakily, a few days before, farmer E one near of kin, and a neigh-
bour, had formtalled their =meson initial, for a similar purpose ; and
to put our good man to the trumps for a mark. In this quandary,
partly between earnest and jest, the sheep-tender was applied to for his
opinion :on the subject. Announcement such as this, it must be
owned, might cause a heart-ache to say he of " shepherd kind."
Howbeit, " Ralph was not very likely to throw muck new
light on the matter ; so just shook his head, rapped out a
bard word es two, " dung it,"—(or with MOW such like phrase) and
looked down rather sheepish.—•,'Twas a hole made in his best coat."
as Master Ford would say. However 9 the meditation of
his Phis soon wore off; as if some bright Idea had dioi across his
brain, he now again looked op, and with a boldness oohing short of
one who bad just made out the longitude—or, (to use a figure a trifle
nearer home) some modern Jason who had won a Thaw —be ralel-
" Whey, seater!M moms L stand for Elwood, barring %other capi-
tal ?" " Right, right (cried the grazier, relieved from the hitch), and
taking a crown from his pocket—" put it in thine, Ralph," said he.
" and speed down to the blacksmith, and get us some branding VII
made out of hand—away ! The order was given, the brands were scot
home, and smirking commenced on the following mono. From that
day to this, the Flocks and Eine of bluster Elwood bear the impress
of an L. as suggested by honest " Ralp Top," which serves more-
over to record the simple notion Ise entertained of the moral fitness !of
things." F. F.