Litchfield enquirer. [volume] (Litchfield, Conn.) 1829-current, 1880-08-05

The London Times Geneva correspondent
writes under date June 90 that remarkable
electrical phenomenon recently occurred at
Clarens. Heavy masses of rain-cloud hid
from view the mountains which separate
Fribourg from -Montreux, but their SUBMITS
were from time to time lit up by vivid flashes
of lightning, and heavy thunderstorm seem
ed to be raging in the valleys of the Avants
and the Alaz. No rain was falling near the
lake, and the storm still appeared far off, when
tremendous peal of thunder shook the houses
Of ClarenG and Tavel TO thuir foundations. At
the same instant magnificent cherry tree
near the cemetery, measuring metre in cir
conference, was struck by lightning. a Some
people who were working in vineyard hard by
saw the electric '1uid" play about little girl
who had been gathering cherries and was al
ready thirty PAGES from the tree. She was
literally folden in sheet of fire. The vine
dresser fed in terror from the spot. In the
cemetery six persons, separated into three
groups, none of them within $50 PAGES of the
cherry tree, were enveloved in luminous
cloud, They felt as if they were being struck
In the face with hailstones or fine gravel, and
when they touched each other sparks of cleo
tricty passed from their finger ends. At the
same time a column Of fire was seen to de-
scend in the direction of Chatelard and it is
averred that the electric fluid could be dis
tinctly heard as it ran from point to point of
the iron railing of a vault in the cemetery.
The strangest part of the story is that
neither the little girl, the people in che ceme-
terry, nor the vine-dressers appear to have been
hurt; the only Inconvenience complained of be-
ing an unpleasant sensation in the Joints, as if
they had been violently twisted, sensation
which was felt with more or less acuteness for
a few hours after. The explanation of this
phenomenon is probably to be found is Pro,
fessor Cclladon's theory of the way in which
lightning descends recently noticed in The
Tribune. The Professor contends that it falls
in shower, not in perpendicular flash, and
that it runs along branches of trees until it is
all gathered in the trunk. which it bursts or
tears open in its effort to reach the ground. In
the instance in question the trunk of the cher
ry-tree is as completely shivered as if it had
been exploded by charge of dynamite.
Mr.. Emil Gossweiler, the Arabic scholar.
of Basic, has been breaking in pieces another
of the idols of children. In his universal lee
lures upon the Arabian language and litera-
ture he found himself face to face with GER
tain Harun Arraschid, who is no other than
that favorite of the whole world Haroun al
Raschid of the arabian Nights" The learn
ed doctor says that the polished, sagacious and
and kindly potentate of the Thousand and
One Nights was by no means so pleasant wise
and amiable character in actual history as
he is taken to be by all the boys aud girls
of Christendom and Islam, who knew
him only from his panegyrical portrait in
that charming and inexhaustibe book.
The great Caliph was neither such lover of
righteousness nor so beloved by his people
as we used to fancy. He possessed to the
full the characteristic faults of those Orien-
tai despots whose humor is their only law
His far famed generosity was but the re-
versed side, like ROBIN Hoods of bound
less system of speliation and robbery. The
very slightest pretense of an insult or
an act of negligence on the part of any
of his rich subjects, was made by Haroun al
Raschid an excuse for wholesale confiscation
OF the offenders property. No Roman or
Byzantine Caesar was ever more relentless in
the execution of his arbitrary DEGREES 1t is
easy enough, however, DIR. Gossweler con-
tends, to discover the reason why his fame
ana his virtues are painted in such glowing
colors by the writers of legends Firstly, he
was the last Caliph who held the empire to-
gether through genuine mental power, and
who possessed the true genius of born ruler
Under the Caliphs who followed him every.
thing got out of joint. Secondly, he fully un.
derstoed the Importance of sanding. well with
the poets and scholars. for whom he always
had pleasant manner and an open purse
Even in the arabian Nights" however, in
spite of their panegyercal tendency, we have
a glimpse of some features of his character
which correspond with the unflattering test
mony OF history. 1t is noticeable with what
ready plability the Crown lawyers and cas-
uistical sophsts of his court explain, or try
to explain, away the law in favor of the in
clinations of the despot. London Globe.