Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1866-02-03 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

MELANCHOLY SUICIDE OP A GENTLEMAN. —The village of Caversham and the town of Reading were thrown into a painful etate of excitement on Monday evening by the report that Mr G. H. Montagu, of Caversharn-hillhouse, a gentleman extensively known in fashionable circles and highly respected, had committed suicide. It appears some months ago Mr Montagu had an attack of paralysis, which affected one aide, rendered him almost speechless' and injuring likewise the brain. With careful medical attention he had so much improved as to take airings in his carriage, and also exercise in his grounds, accompanied either by his sister or some other friend. On Monday aft,rnoon he had arranged for a walk in his park, and a lady in the house intended accompanying him, lie appears to have been just ready, and was asked to wait a few minutes, when he should have company. He replied, as usual, in a very kind manner, that he would walk alone, and should not be long gone A very abort time after his absence a person went to look for him, and was astonished to find Mr Montagu lying in the pond in the park. He had contrived to undress himself, and then plunged into the water. Ho was rescued from his perilous position with as little delay as possible, and removed to his house. Mr May, the family medical adviser, was soon in attendance, and everything done to restore animation, but without effect, death following in a short time. Mr Montagu was for some years master of the South Berke Hunt. HOESEB AND Aurisous.—Whyte Melville certainly understands a horse, and writes of him like a man who does so. Equally, too, Mr Surttes, the author of Soapy Sponge, and other works of that order; he hits off the salient points of each particular style of a horse in a way that no mere conventional knowledge could supply. You see that the man has ridden; but the majority of fiction. writers display the sort of ignorance that would set a group of stable-boys in a convulsion of laughter. The fact is, the author is not usually a horseman, or rather the horseman is not usually a writer. Your man of letters may bestride his stout fourteen.hand cob, and jog over the Downs at Brighton, or perhaps may steal along Rotton-row on a daisy-cutting canterer, with a good character not CO "shy ;" but to mount a strong. booed, square-jointed, three-quarter bred, with a light head and a powerful quarter, fully equal to fourteen stone, and fast in any country, and do him credit over a five-and-forty minutes' "fast thing," you'll not hear of him at the Garrick, take my word for it. You'll find some gardeners, a stray cricketer, now and then • very tolerable boating-man amongst the Writers; but there is a combination of qualities in the rider—l mean here the real horseman—not akin to the daily life and habits of the penman. Let no one quete Byron to me—he was a downright bad rider; he rode mere backs, highly trained, and he rode them without judgment, and ill. Scott sauntered about on a Highland pony, and never pretended to ride. I forbear to talk of my contemporaries ; but what a list of ineapables could 1 give, if I only threw off my reserve.—Blarkwoorra Magazine. Tux origin of the mysterious term "barbarian," so generally used by the Chinese, when referring to the English, is curiously revealed in the following extract. Messrs Joseph Travers & Sons, the eminent colonial merchants, is one of their recent circulars to the London and Country grocery trade, write :—"Some may not be aware of the fact that the tea-shrub is a single species, and that from the same tree black or green might be made. The difference between the two, black andgreen, depends solely on the manipulation and the processes to which the leaves are subjected during the period of manufacture. In the ease of Mack tea, the leaves are allowed to lie and ferment for ten or twelve hours to darken them: they are then highly fired. Those leaves which are intended to be converted into green teas are roasted slightly immediately after they are gathered, and quickly dried after they have undergone the rolling process. In order to have green tea uniform in appearance, and of a particular bluish hue, a colouring composed of finely powdered gypsum and Prussian blue i laid on the leaves, during the last process of roasting. This adulteration the Chinese do no: hesitate to carry. out on a systematic plan, and on a moot extensive scale, During this part of the operation,' says Mr Fortune, in his description of the process, 'the hands of the workmen are quit, blue. I could not help thinking that if any green tea drinkers had been present during the operation, their taste would have been corrected, and, I may be allowed to add improved. It seems perfectly ridiculous that a civilised people should prefer these dyed teas to those of a natural green. No wonder that the Chinese consider the natives of the West to be a race of barbarians.' " Mr Fortune says, "that half-a-pound of paint or colouring material is mixed with each hundred pounds of green tea. The Chinese readily acknowledge the superiority of green, uncoloured, but plead in excuse for their adulterations, the wilful preference of the foreign merchant; we need hardly add that the Chinese are far too sensible to touch these dyed teas for their Own consumption."