Star.
London, England, 1821-12-28 00:00:00

CHRISTMAS GAMBOLS.

A BURNING SHAME!
Yesterday morning early, a dustman having been found by
some of his comrades in bed with another dustman's wife, he
was immediately taken, sans cereatonie, to a neighbouring public-
house, and, before a whole bench of the fraternity, found guilty,
and the usual sentence of the burning show was passed on him,
and put in execution in the following manner :—The offender
was placed astride on a small ladder, called " a Jacob," such as
is used by nightmeti in their necessary avocation, with a coal-
, sack for a saddle ; there was a bunch of Christmas in his hat,
and two large carrots, with their small ends upwards, in the
front, to represent horns. In this manner he was mounted on
the brawny shoulders of four of his companions, preceded by
another dustman with a bell, proclaiming the crime he was
guilty of: then followed eight mere of the dingy fraternity, two
and two, their hats ornamented with bunches of holly, and a
burning candle in front of each hat. Then came the culprit, as
before-mentioned. He had a pot of porter in one hand, and a
pipe of tobacco in the other, which he " ever and anon" stooped
forward to light by one of the candles in the hats of his two
front carriers. The rear of this ludicrous procession was brought
up by a strong poise of other dustmen and coalheavert, with their
&ilia, whose heads were Icsnfully decorated with the kiss-in-
citing misletoe. The procession set out from (harles-street,
down Drury-lane, Great Queen-street, Wild-street, round Clare-
market, &c. followed by an immense crowd, which rendered
the streets nearly impassable. There were two collectors, one
on each side of the street, very active in collecting contributions
among the spectators, to defray the expenses of the skew. They
stopped at most of the public-houses in their way, where they
quaffed off oceans of beer, ale, and gin, end then returned to
their head-quarters in Charles-street, where the offence was
drowned in•drink, and the parties passed the remainder of the
day as happily as beer, gin, and tobacco could make them.
BOXING.
The last of the four boxing matches on Wednesday, and which
for manhood never was exceeded, took play in Frampton pa-
rish, on Epping Forest, the basks having driven the cavalcade '
from Farefield, Herts. This match was for 30 guineas, between
U'. Cu, a sawyer, and Hurry Miller, a coachman. The seconds
were Appleby for Cox, and Mason for the :oachman. Seven
' tremendous rounds were fought in 26 minutes, as follows.:
In the first round, on loosing each other's hands, the men im-
nsediately turned to for mischief, and excharged many heavy
brows upon the head and body. Cox lost two teeth in the rally,
and Millers right ogle was nearly closed. They separated and
then renewed another mischievous rally at equal fighting, when
both went down, weak.
2. A short rally, and Cox was floored by a right-handed blow
on the side.-5 to 4on Miller.
3. The claret flew in streams from the heads of each, and the
seconds wore the crimson hue; give and take was again the will
of both, and another slaughtering round was fought, until both
went down from distress.
4. In a short rally Miller was dropped by a hit on the breast, I
which produced a loud groan, and the rattling of the hit was
heard throughout the ring.
5. A minute elapsed in attituding, until some wind was fetched
to relieve the )Wiping of both. The men at length turned to, and
fought the best round in the battle; it laved eight minutes; and
at least half-a-dozen hits were exchanged upon the head, and
Cox was thrown. Miller's eye was closed, and the features of
both were nearly invisible, as their heads were truly rrclargisereti.
6. A gay round in favour of Cox, whose adversary was too
blind to hnd his object. He, however, floored him by a blow
on the jaw.
T. This round won Cox the fight, by placin. a left-handed
hi: be:ow his adversary's chest, which double: him up, mil he
could not come to time.
With the heavy rain and the loss of blosil, the ring was in
reality a slaughter-house in appearance. Sach a battle has very
,rattly been witnessed.

manner:
" We are not disposed to rest the claims of the sci-
ence of Conchology to public favour, altogether on
the grounds which we have now stated their great
beauty]. As objects of utility to man, shells are emi-
nently worthy of our notice. To the savage, shells
furnish some of his most important instruments.
They often answer all the purposes of a knife, and
are extensively employed as a substitute for 'iron :
with pieces of the more- solid bivalves he points his
arrows, and forms his fish-hooks. The blue and white
belts of the Indians of North America, as symbols
of peace and amity in opposition to the war-hatchet,
and by which the fate of nations is so often decided,
are made of the Venus mercenaria • and the gorget
of the chieftain's war-dress is formed of the pearl-
bearing muscle (mytilus margaritiferus). The mili-
tary horn of many African tribes is the murex Tri.
tonis ' • the rare variety of which, with the volutions
reversed, is held sacred; and is used only by the high
priests. The highest order of dignity, among the
Friendly Islands, is the permission to wear the cypress
aurantium, or orange cowry. And Lister relates that
the inhabitants of Nicaragua fasten the ostreu vir-
ginica to a handle of wood, and use it as a spade to
dig up the ground. Even when further advanced in
civilization, the cznaliculated univalves sometimes
constitute.the rustic lamp, while the larger scallops
are employed by the dairy-maid to skim her milk and
slice her butter. From the mother-of-pearl shell
many useful and ornamental articles are fabricated;
and calcined shells were formerly esteemed by phy-
sicians as absorbents; and are still regarded by the
farmer as furnishing a valuable manure. The greater
part of the lime used in America, for agricultural
and architectural purposes, is made of calcined shells :
the public streets of Christianstadt and Santa Crux
are paved with the strombas gig as, or great screw-
shell ; and the town of Conchylion is entirely built
of marine shells. The cyprera moncta, or money
cowry, forms the current coin of many nations of
India and Africa; and this covering or coat of an
inconsiderable worm, stands at this day as the me-
dium of barter for the liberty of man ; a certain
weight of them being given in exchange for a slave.
The scholar needs not the reminiscence, that the suf-
frages of the ancient Athenians were delivered in,
marked upon a shell:
lie whom ungrateful Athens could expel,
At all times just but when he signed the shell.' Pore.
the record of which is still commemorated on the
derivation of our terms testament and attestation.
The word testae), or shell, is used for a musical in-
strument in poetry, the first lyre being said to have
been made by straining strings over the shell of a
tortoise.
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that Fla,
That'spoke so sweetly.'
"The Hennes, or Mercury of the Egyptians, sur-
named Trismegiaus, or thrice illustrious, is reported
by Apollodorus to have been the inventor of music,
under the following circumstances :—The Nile hav-
ing overflowed its banks, and inundated the whole
country of Egypt, on its return to its customary
bounds left on the shores various dead animals, and
among the rest a tortoise, the flesh of which being
dried and wasted by the sun, nothing remained within
the shell but nerves and cartilages, and these being
tightened and'constricted by the drying heat, became
sonorous. Mercury, walking along the banks of the
river, happened to strike his foot against this shell,
and was so pleased with the sound produced, that
the idea of the lyre suggested itself to his imagina-
tion. The first instrument he constructed was in the
form of a tortoise, and was strung with the dried
sinews of dead animals. There is something beauti-
ful in this allegory, which leads us into a conception
of the energetic powers of the human mind in the
early ages of the world, thus directed to a discovery
of the capabilities of Nature by the fingers of OM-
NIPOTENCE in the form of accident. this fanciful
mode of accounting. for the origin of music is thus
curiously alluded to in Brewer's Lingua :
The lute was first devised
In imitation of a tortoise' back,
Whose sinews, parched by Apollo's beams,
Echoed about the concave of the shell ;
And seeing the shortest and smallest gave shrillest sound,
They found out frets, where sweet diversity,
Well touched by the skilful learned fingers,
Roused so strange a multitude of chords.
And the opinion many do confirm,
Because testauto signifies a lute.'
" Shells, as one of the agents of decomposition and
gradual dissolution, will afford material assistance to
the geologist when he examines into their rapid and
astonishing powers of perforating and disuniting rocks
of calcareous sandstone, limestone, marble, and even
the hardest masses of granite and porphyry, wherever
they come in contact with the ocean ; and by a com-
parative examination of the different stratifications
of marine testaceous depositions, he mny eventually
be led to some important conclusions as to the pro-
bable elevation of the waters of the general deluge.
" From what has been adduced, it must now be
obvious to our readers that shells are of considerable
importance in the arts of life; but the animals con-
tained in these shells are of far greater value. As
articles of food, shell-fish are extensively employed
by the poor, and even hold a conspicuous place at
the tables of the rich. In many places, they, in a
great measure, support the children of our maritime
population; and in the Western and Northern Islands
of Scotland, have, in years of scarcity, prevented
the death of thousands : besides affording employ-
ment to several thousands of persons, who are con-
stantly engaged in searching for shell-fish and bring-
ing them to market. Independently of the food which
we thus obtain from testaceous bodies, they afford

Dimwit.

The Editor of the Letters of Lady Lepel Hervey,
subjoins the following amusing note to a passage
in one. of them, relating to the consternation pro-
duced in the Metropolis in 1750, by a slight shock
of an earthquake :
" The English nation are peculiarly liable to epidemics of all
sorts ; but that this earthquake mania s..ents to have been un-
usually rabid and contagious, the following'estract from the
Newspapers of the 4th April will chew :
" ' Incredible numbers of people, being under strong apprebm.
sions that London and Westminster would be visited with ano-
ther and mere fatal earthquake, on this night, according to the
predictions of a crazy lifeguardsman, and because it would be
just four weeks front the last shock, as that was from the first,
left their houses, and walked in the fields or lay in boats all
night; many people of fashion in the neighbouring villages at li
their coaches till day-break ; others went to a greater distance;
so that the roads were never more thronged, and lodgings were
hardly to be procured at Windsor; so far, and even to their
wits' end, had their supersitious fears or their guilty consciences
driven them.'
This going to Windsor to avoid the earthquake is like that
story of the old Duchess of llolton, who, on Whiston's prophecy
of the approaching destruction of the world, prudently resolved
to go to China to escape so inconvenient an accident."
A certain Sage of the Law, whose celebrity did not
arise from his. tempeting judgment with mercy, on
leaving the town where he had left eleven out of
twelve prisoners for execution, was delayed by a
young coach horse, which he was about to purchase,
dropping down dead in the harness. " Strange acci-
dent, indeed !" exclaimed the Judge, pettishly. " Not
at all, my Lord," replied the coachman, sulkily ;
" I thought how it would be with the poor beast, .
when I was told as how your Lordship had taken
him upon trial l"
Jay D'Eseatv.—Twe Jew Brokers, talking lately
of the relative situation of this country and France,
one observed, that a change of Ministers in England
would be an excellent thing in a commercial point of
view. " How so ?'' inquired the other. " Because."
said he, " the EtAange would be in favour of this
'country."
THE RF.PLY Comerrous.—There was not much
wit, but there was sonic good humour, in the reply.
GEORGE 11. made to a Lady, who, at the first Masque-
rade his M \JESTF was present at in England, invited
him to chink a glass of wine at one of the beaufets ;
he readily complied, and the Lady filling a bumper,
said, " Here, Mask, the Pretender's health ;" then,-
filling another glass, she presented it to the KING,
who, receiving it with a smile, replied, " I chink with
iall my heart to the health of all unfortunate Princes."
LINEN.—M. NAUDE, Physician to Louts NHL
says, that the ancients, though they had no linen to
make paper, had a knowledge of hemp as an herb, but
did not apply it to that purpose. RABELAIS, at the
end of the third book, mentions hemp under the term,
Pentaguellion, as a newly discovered plant, which had
not been in use above a century. In the time of
CHARLES VII. linen made of hemp was very scarce,
and the Queen only had two shifts male of it.
ORNITHOLOGY.—Mr. R. ROBINSON, of Derby, has
a beautiful living specimen of that scarce bird, the
Great-eared Owl, which is not so much inferior in
size to the eagle.—lts head is very large, and is
adorned with two erect tufts more than two inches
long, which stand just above each eye ; its bill is
strong, and much hooked ; its eyes large and of a
bright yellow colour; the whole plumage is of a rusty
brown, finely variegated with black and yellow lines ;
its legs are remarkably strong, and covered to the
claws with a thick close down. It is a young bird,
and was taken in Russia.
WIIALES.TOCSday, the 4th of December, there
were driven ashore on the property of the Rev. Mr.
WALTER TRAIL, of Westove, island' of Saila',
Orkney, 161. whales, several of them measuring 40
feet in length.
A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.—The late Countess of
RESEOROUGH died at the same Hotel, at Florence,
and equally as sudden as the Dowager Countess of
Snaereseune, about two years back; and the re-
mains of the Countess of BEssottoucu were conveyed
to Calais in the same hearse, and
that conveyed the body of the Dowager Countess of;
SHAFTESBURY.
THE BOND Paorenvy.—The Cheltenham Chronicle.
says, " Our readers cannot have quite forgotten the
extraordinary circumstance of the immense sum of
money (1:100,000 at least) left, undevised, by Mrs.
Sarah Bond, a few months since. The natural con-
sequence of such a circumstance has been the asset.•
tion of various and very numerous claims of affinity
in several parts of the country :—but we have some,
and no small reason for believing, that the successful
claimant is at this moment a gardener, residing and
labouring in Cheltenham—his name is Evans, and if
we be not misintermed, he is now in the employment
of Tomlins, EA!. From what we have been
enabled to glean, it appears that a professional Gen-
tleman, nearly connected with the family of Bond,
of Marshfield, in endeavouring to trace the pedigree
of the branch with which he was immediately con-
cerned, discovered the relationship of Gardener Evans,
and, with a spirit which must reflect immortal hollow
on his name, has undertaken the poor man's cause its
so liberal a manner, as lb thing but the most peilect
confideace of succets could warrant. Happy shall
we be in recording that success."