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world, nor he his Lucy for the fairest girl iu America!’ ‘Never!’ exclaimed Clifton— ‘ you are dearer to me than any other human being!’ * W-h-e-w !!’ was ‘Unci* Joshua’s’ re ply, in a prolonged sort of whistle, while his eyes opened in the profoundest wonder, and his whole countenance was expressive of the most. ludicrous astonishment— ’ w-h e-w!!’ THE JOYFUL SURPRISE ; OR, TIIE DALOHTER AND IIER FATHER. On the morning of the first tiny of the late election, (says the Rochester, N. Y., Daily Advocate,) an interesting scene might have been witnessed in a low, dilapidated dwel ling, somewhere in this goodly city. At the place and time mentioned, there might have been seen, sitting at a scantily furnished breakfast table, a man with good phrenolo gical developements, prepossessing physical appearance, but with a countenance moody and irresistible. On his right sat a woman, his wife, little if any past the meridian of life, but exhibiting traces of the premature fading of a face and figure still mildly beau tiful. At his left sat his daughter—a yet unblighted copy of her patient and sorrow stricken mother; in all the healthfulness of incipient womanhood. In this young wo man’s eyes tears were gathering, and she turned her timid face towards her moody father, they might have been glistening like the pearly drops a summer morning, as the first beams of the sun glances on their crys tal surface. Her heart was full, and her voice tremu lous as she at length gained courage stifii ciently to ejaculate “Father - !” The moody man started a3 though t v c sound of long for gotten melody echoed in his ears. He bent his gaze inquiringly on histrembling child, and in accents unusually soft for him, said, •Well, Bell, what would you V •Beil’ felt emboldened, arid dressing her face in a sweet, pleading smile, replied, ‘ I would, father, that you would not go to the election to-day.’ The frown-re appeared—it was stern and bitter, as he asked sharply, ‘Why not!’ Shu seemed anxious to escape from the angry gaze of a father, whom but a mo ment before, she hoped to conciliate. She was about to withdraw, when a voice of startling fierceness said to her, ‘Girl, look on your father! You, but a child, presume to counsel him as to wh it he should do. and in this yon doubtless act as the agent of your mother. I could have borne to have been called a drunkard—aye, a drunkard!' —and a shiver passed over him—‘but,’ continued he, ‘to have it insinuated by a child, is too much; I shall go to the election. So, bring me my hat.*’ No word of remonstrance wa3 beard, and the miserable man rushed from his dwelling. That day bitter tears were shed around the hearth-stone of Powell P Noon came, but so did not the father of the grief stricken .Isabel. Night too, with its dark some loneliness, drew its curtains around, but no signs of the infatuated, fallen father and husband. Tediously wore the hours of night away. Often did the mother and daughter instinctively cling to each other, ns some casual noise induced the belief that the object of their solicitude bad indeed come, but how did they dread to encoun ter the frowns—mayhap the inebriate cur ses of him who was the cause of their vigils! At length the hour of midnight sounded, and as its echoes died away, the footsteps of the expected one were heard. Mow wild ly beat the hearts of a mother and daughter as Powell P entered the door so long and eagerly watched !—He was there be fore them, but not noisy, not harsh—for he was sober, calm, and collected. So great was the joy of wife and daughter, that nei ther could give utterance to the wild emo tions that played around their hearts; but they would not have spoken them for worlds, lest the echo of a voice should have dispel • led what seemed a pleasing illusion. ‘ Mabel! Isabel!’ were the first words that greeted their ears, and in a moment both were crying for joy on his bosom. \Ve need not detail the affecting conversation which followed, nor the joy of surprise w ith which the mother and daughter heard his resolves and hopes. It will be sufficiently understood from a single expression of Powell I* as his daughter was about to retire to rest. They were the sweetest words her ears had heard for many a long, long day. They were— ‘ Good night, my child, and may God ever bless you: you have saved your father!’ The father had been to the election; lie went pre-determined to drink ; to get drunk but as he-was about to raise the first dram to bis mouth, the pleading countenance of his daughter seemed to rise before him! His good genius prevailed—the glass was replaced, untasted, on the counter; he left the place, and with a high moral purpose, hastened to enroll himself among the advo cates of Temperance. The pledge has been religiously kept— the visage of his mild mid amiable wife is fast losing its care-worn expression—‘Bell’ is a joyous creature, and Powell I* is fast regaining all bis former vigor and nobleness. Often do these contented beings talk over past scenes, while the amiable ‘Mabel’ fails not to designate the night of which we have spoken, as that of “ The Joyous Surprise.” Dangerous consequences of Yawning. —A day or two ago Mary Ann Nicholson, about 35 years of age, Iho wife of a respectable mechanic, was brought into Westminister Hospital with dislocation of the jawbone on both sides of the neck, winch it appeared had suddenly occurred to her a short time previously, while indulging in the full luxu ry of an unequivocal yawn, on her awaking in the morning. With considerable difficul ty the joint was replaced on one side, but up to Friday the other had not been effected. Pleasure is but a shadow; wealth is van ity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is extatic in enjoyment—perennial in fame —unlimited in space; and infinite in dura tion. In the performance of its sacred of fee, it fears no danger—spares no expense —omits no exertion. It scales the mountain —looks into the volcano—dives into the ocean—perforates the earth ; enriches the globe; explores tho sea and land ; contem plates the distance ; ascends to the sublime : o place is too exalted for its regch. From the New York Sunday Mercury. SHORT PATENT SERMON. BV DOW, JR. My text for this occasion may he found in a poem by S. F. Streeter, entitled‘Swear Not:’ An ! swear not Vy thy own weak name ! Fur tlinu art but n slave Ct’ sorrow, tin ami slinnir, Ot glory ami ilia grave, Toy lnMxted body is but clay, Born of ilie tins! you trend ; Ami toon a swift approaching day biiall lay thee wiih the dead. My hearers—profane sweating is prac ticed to u great extent, not only in this com munity but all over the world. There is no doubt in my mind but we can gel along without half so much of it; and 1 am not certain that society would suffer materially were we to dispense with the practice alto gether. Pushing badinage aside, and to come out as blunt as a beetle, I assert my fi tends, lliiil a habit of swearing, hide ounce of that holy injunction which says, “Swear not at all,” is worse than that cf chewing to bacco or drinking nun ; as no divine prohi bition is placed upon the two latter, neither are they recommended by the Almighty, nor by men of sense and soberness. A man will never get fat by feasting upon my ad miration whose veracity is so weak as re quires lobe fortified with innumerable oaths. If he wishes to put forth a declaration in a strong and effective manner, there are sure ly legitimate words enough in the lexicon of knowledge sufficiently expressive for his purpose without having recourse to such as contaminate the atmosphere of decency, and sink worse in iho nostrils of Heaven, limn a dead horse on the top of Mount Ar rnrat. Sc,me deluded, simple minded sons of sin may think it fashionable to swrnr ; but it is more respectable to be seen with a dirty shirt on one’s back and a clean moral reputation beneath it, than with an oath stained character wrapped up in broadcloth. My friends, and fellow companions in ini quity ! There are more sins already saddled upon ns tlinn we can safely carry into eter nity without taking upon our shoulders that heaviest of all sins, profane swearing. In our pilgrimage through life let us go us lightly ladened us possible, lest when we get to be old and decrepid, our loads become too weighty to be borne, arid the recollec tion of former follies and vices sit as solid upon our consciences ns raw turnips on a ; dyspeptic’s stomach. “Take not my name in vain,” said Ho, in whose hands are held the reins of our destinies, and in whoso grasp, we puny pigmies, are of no more ac count than a pitiful mouse in the paw of a Numidian lion. How dare man then laugh his Maker to scorn and insult him with mockery ! I don’t know—arid yet there are thousands who have the pluck and presump tion to try it on. Finding it fits pretty well, I suppose —in as much us they are not immediately swept from the surface of the globe by a blast of Omnipotent lire—they grow holder and bolder iri their wickedness, till they become callous of divine fear or favor, and finally go swearing out ( f i! e world like a regiment of troopers ! W in; a sad picture of human temerity ! Swear not, O man nf vanity, by the lioly lleavc,n ! for it is the throne of the King of kings: 1 .! often, of an autumn sunset, are d:.-close ! in till their splendor, the crimson, the t urple, and tlie gold that surrounded it, while the Star of Evening, the brightest diamond in the Crown of crowns, adds glory unspeaka ble—showing bow dull and sombre is the magnificence that surrounds the earth’s em perors to the gorgeousness that glows in tho boundless hall of Heaven. Swear not by Earth, for it belongs to God—it is the foot stool of l.i s power. lie gave it birth in ilie beginning, and he can obliterate it with a breath. When thou svvearest, old Ocean rolls out a loud rebuke “ Swear not!” the little birds of the air say, “Sing praises to heaven, rather than swear,” and beasts of the field say it is better to be dumb than op en their mouths in profanity. Oh, significant man! swear not by thy own weak name ! for, remember, thou art but an abject slave ot thy heavenly Master —“that t!,c feathers of sorrow and shame are often fastened upon dice—that thou art in clined to sow the seeds of sin in thy own bosom, and made to partake of the bitter fruits that spring therefrom—that while hastening ambitiously onward in the path that leads to glory, you tnny fall into the monstrous mouth of Death, who lies, with his jaws extended, by the wayside, waiting to catch such insects as we are, even as the alligator lielli upon a log, waiting for bugs and lliea to make themselves familiar. Frail son of earth ! That body of which you say is susceptible of no improvement whatever, is but a parcel of paltry clay after all. Born of the dust you tread, a weak, powerless creature, without a shield to protect you from the foils of Fate, you are daily, nay hourly, in danger of being crushed,’ like a worm, back into your native dust, to crawl no more along the paths ofambition, honor, I and—misery. Yes, the day will soon come j that is to lay thee with the departed dead— with those whose hopes and fears are hush- j ed in the silent sepulchre—tlieliglit of whose ! smiles is extinguished in the darkness of the tomb, and whose tours are forever ab sorbed by the clod that covers their carcases. You are bound to come up to the scratch, as well as they ; ajul notwithstanding you may do your prettiest to-Jiick all found the buck- ’ et, you will be compelled to hit it a dig at last. You would not date at the awful mo- : merit, to curse God, and cpiit the world with : half u dozen oaths stuck in your gullet. No, I I know you wouldn’t. Then swear not at all; for to-day’s sun may shine upon your death lied, and the cold earth receive you to-morrow with the soul’s garments wholly unwashed, and as dirty ns the blanket of a journeyman tjiirnney sweep, My friends—lie careful how you shape your conversation for the sake of the rising generation. Children having hereditary sin in their little gizzards, are naturally prone to evil, inasmuch as they are always inclined to adopt the vices and discard the virtues of adults ; but, for all this they are flexible and pliant—and if their young ten drils are directed to cling to praiseworthy objects, they w ll hold on with firmness, and climb up as steep places to fame as ever were gained by older and more mature am bition. Then set them no bad examples, neither by word or by action. I preach to man and not to woman ; for the lips of the latter are comparatively free from the stain of profanity. None but the wretched few who wander at midnight, homeless ami un befriended without the gnte of virtuous so ciety, every indulge in these horrid impre cations which the nobler and wickeder sex have so generally had the rashness to as sume. To see a beautiful piece of feminine frailty whose once pure.breath lias become tainted with vice and redolent with oaths, is a melancholy if not a disgusting sight. It shows how far into the mire of hate and do test a lovely object descends, when it sud denly falls from the highest eminence of ad miration. But, my friends, profane swear ing in either male or female, is highly re prehensible, and ought to be put down. If, you are determined to swear your way through life, you may go the end of the journey before you aro aware <<f it; and, when you come to rummage round for a few crumbs of hope and com flirt, you will find hardly enough left to swear by. Let your thoughts he pure, your rivulet of words be limped—let your heart be virtuous, and your deeds will be moral, your days will be hap py', and if your days be happy, your deaths will be glorious. So mote it be ! PRINTERS. The following just remarks me copied from the “Savannah Georgian:” “There seems a natural affinity between printing and learning. Most of the early printers were men of great erudition, and acknowledged abilities; the lights of the ago iii which they lived, and who, through the medium of their presses, did much to scat ter the darkness of the middle ages in Eu rope. Erhard, Bodolt, of Augsburgli, Ul di ick Han, of Rome, Vandelin de Spurn, and Aldus Mauritius, of Venice, Goring, of ■ Paris, Anthony Kebtirgar, of Nurenburgh, I Uliric Telof Cologne, Tarotus. of Milan, j Caxton, in England, with many others, weie ‘eminent as men of learning; the associates of the great; respected and honored by kings and princes. “ The Stephens, Robert and Henry, wore two of the most distinguished printers and scholars of the sixteenth century. Their services in the cause of classic literature cannot be overrated; they were giants in learning. “Many instances might be cited corrobo rative of the fact, that there is an intimate connection Iwtweeri printing and knowledge, and that printers have frequently been cele brated as authors and have risen from the maniiel labor of the press, to the most ele vated rank in society and letteis. ‘‘Bayle mentions a printer who printed a book from his bead, setting up the types as fast as he composed his sentences, without the intervention cf manuscript, or commit ting his thoughts to paper. Sir William Blackstoue, the eminent jurist and commen tator on English laws, was a printer by trade. Franklin was brought up to the same art! and George 3d, King of England, was so pleased with it, that lie partially learned the trade and frequently set up types after lie had ascended the throne. In the United States, tho memory of almost every man who lias moved much in society will furnish him instances in which practical printers have risen to great eminence in the church, at the bar, in the halls of legislation, and in the cabinet of the Executive. “ The art of printing is a noble art, and every little type which the compositor ar ranges, seems like a ray of knowledge sent out to dissipate ignorance. So by reflex influence, they enlighten his own mind, in spire a thirst for knowledge, while at the same time they furnish the only living wa ters which can satisfy his desires.” THE OLDEN TIME. We take from tlie History of Saco and Biddleford, by Geo. Folsom, the substance • of a few of the many curious facts with ; which that volume abounds: 1 Description of New England by the frit Discoverer .—The first discoverer of New England was Bartholomew Gosnold. He landed in 1602, on what he afterwards na med Elizabeth Island, near the month of Buzzard's Bay, and which name it bears to this day. Here he built a storehouse and fort, the remains of which, Belknap says, may now be seen. Several ofthe adventurers published glowing descriptions ofthe fertil ity and delightful aspect of these northern shores. S “From the Island,” says one of them, “we went right over to the Mayne, where we stood awhile, as ravished at the bcatie and delicacy ofthe sweetness, besides divers clear lakes whereof we saw no end, and meadows very large and full of green grass es.” They affirm that they sowed seed which in “11 dayssprunge up 9 inches,” and found “ground nuts as big as eggs, as good as potatoes, and 40 on a string, but two in ches under ground.” Philosophy of Smoking. —Ladies, who j love your lords, do not repine at their ad ! diction to the pipe!—Men who smoke, sel j dotn get into a passion; it causes the most irritable to “draw it mild;” it renders them, j dear ladies, ns smooth .as a flat iron does your muslin kerchiefs. I Even the ugliest Turk, with the most harem-srarem countenance in the world, be ’ comes, as his lips kiss the soft amber of his j mind-soothing cbibouqe, as amicable and • composed as a tortoise shell Tom on a j hearth-rug, purring, as bass, to the tenor of I a copper tea-kettle! And the softest sighs may then waft him to and fro, and you will find him as yielding to your slightest breath as the cloud lie blows. In Spain the love of the Indian weed is so “levelling” that the lowest tatterdemalion approaches a grandee ofthe first rank, and presenting his cigar, asks him for a light, for the. man who smokes is considered equal to any man who smokes; and the proud Hidalgo, still pre serving all his dignity, promptly offers the glowing tip of his best llavan&. How gra cious is tins sympathy to the high and migh ty, which illuminates the low and humble, without loosing the tithe of their dignity.— Ladies’ Daily Gazette, N. Y. He who measures his felicity with other men’s opinions, is either a fool ora coward. DREAM. The Medora. —The man who professes to he a believer in dreams and other extra ordinary argnries of coming events, is sure to be regarded by nine tenths of mankind as a simpleton, if not a stark idiot: yet that the most calamitous events have often been indicated by such premonitions, is an indis putable fact; and it is equally certain that such events have in some cases been con trolled by a strict attention to the warnings thus mysteriously given. It is unnecessary for us to specify instances ofsuch warnings, as they must he familiar to most readers ot historical records. But there is or.e con nected with the recent melancholy event of the blowing npofthe Medora. which remains to he recorded, and which we class among the most remarkable which have fallen with iin our notice. Three weeks before it oc i enrred, the sad catastrophe was distinctly • represented in a dream to the mate of the j Jewess, (one of the line of steamers for ] which the Medora was intended.) lie saw i her making trial of her machinery—saw her j blow up —saw the hapless victims of the : explosion in the water round her struggling ! for life—saw the boat sink, and indentified Capt. Sutton (her commanner) clad in a white dress. He told his dream afterwards; and was laughed at! The Jewess, it will he remembered, left here for Baltimore on Thursday night, (after the explosion) and passed in the bay, the next morning, the Steamer Georgia, on her way down to Nor fold—and when perceiving the Georgia’s flags half mast, he exclaimed in a tone of grief—“ There! my dream is out —the Me dora is blown up!”—The boats passed each other too far assunder to hail, and it was not known to those on board the Jewess, until her arrival at Baltimore, that such was indeed the melancholy fact.— Norfolk Her ald. Manor;/. —It is strange —perhaps the strangest of all the mind’s intricacies—the sudden, the instantaneous manner in which memory by a single signal, casts wide the doors of one of those dark store-houses in which long past events have been shut up for years. That signal, he it a look, a tone, an odor, a single sentence, is the cabalistic wand of the Arabian tale, at the patent ma gic of which the dooi of the cave of the rob ber Forgetfulness, is cast suddenly wide, and all the treasures that he had concealed displayed. Upon the memory of the travel ler rushed up hv the visions of his youthful days; the sports of boyhood, the transient cares, the pains which passed away like summer clouds; the pure, sweet joys of youth, and innocence, and ignorance of ill, that never return when once passed away. Atmosphere. —God has given an atmos phere to the earth which, possessing a cer tain degree of gravity perfectly suited to the necessities ofall animals, plants, vegetables, and fluids, is the cause, in his hand, of pre serving animal and vegetable life through the creation; for by it the blood circulates in the veins of animals, and the juices in the tubs of vegetables. Without this pressure of the atmosphere, there could ho no respi ration; and the elasticity of the particles of air included in animal and vegetable bodies, without this superincumbent pressure, would i rupture the vessels in which they arc con tained, and destroy both kinds of life. So exactly is this weight of the wind or at mos pheric air proportioned to the necessities of the globe, that we find it in the mean neith er too light to prevent the undue expansion nfanimal and vegetable tubes, nor too heavy to compress them so as to prevent due cir culation. Hew. —Dew is a dense moist vapour, found on the earth in Spring and Summer mornings, in the form of a mizzling tain. Dr. Hutton defines it “a thin, light, insensi ble mist orraiu, descending with a slow mo tion, and falling while the sun is below the horrizon. Its origin and matter are doubt less from the vapours and exhalations that rise from the earth and water.” Various experiments have been instituted to ascer tain whether dew arises from the earth, 01 descends from the atmosphere, and those pro and cun have alternately preponderated. —The question is not yet decided, neither has Dr. Clarke’s inquiry been answered— “is it water deposited from the atmosphere, when the surface of the ground is colder than the air!” Evaporation. —Providence has exactly proportioned the aqueous surface of the earth to the terrene parts; so that there shall be an adequate surface to produce, by evap oration, moisture sufficient to he treasured up in the atmosphere for the irrigation of the earth, so that it may produce grass for cattle, and corn for the service of man. It has been found, by a pretty exact calcula tion, that the aqueous surface of the globe, is to the terrene parts as three to one; of that three-fourths of the surface ot the globe is water, and about one-fourth earth. And other experiments on evaporation, or the quantity of vapours which arise from a given space in a given time, show that it requires such a proportion of aqueous surface to af ford moisture sufficient for the other propor tion of any land. Virtue &/ Vice. —We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground; judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most, fragrant when I they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity | doth best discover vice, hut adversity doth j best discover virtue!— Lord Bacon. House-fly. —The eye of the common house-fly is fixed so as to enable its promi nent organs of vision to view accurately the objects around in every direction; it is fur nished with 8000 hexagonal faeces, all cal culated to convey perfect images to the op tic nerve, all slightly convex, all acting as so many cornea—Sooo included within a space no largerthan the head of a pin all hexago nal—all of the best possible form to prevent a waste of space! This is so wonderful, that it would stagger belief, if not vouched for by being the result of the miscroscopical re searches of such men at Lcwenhoek, and others equally emineut. PRINTER’S PROVERBS. 1. Never inquire thou of the editor for the news; for behold, it is his duty at the appointed time to give it unto thee without askinc. 2. When thou dost write for his paper never say unto him. “what thinkest thou of ( my piece!” for it may be that the truth may offend thee. _ ! 3. It is not fit that thou should ask him who is the author of any article; for his du ty requires him to keep such things unto himself. 4. When thou dost enter into a printing- j office, have a care unto thyself that thou j dost not touch the type; for thou rnuyest j cause the printer much trouble. 5. Look thou not at the copy which is in the hands of the compositors; for that is not meet in the sight of the printer. 6. Neither examine thou the proof-sheet, for it is not ready to meet thine eye, that thou mayest understand it. 7. Prefer the “Southern Miscellany” to all other other journals: subscribe immedi ately for it, and pay in advance, and it shall he well with thee and thy little ones. SINGULAR, CIRCUMSTANCE. Sir Walter Scott walking one day along the bank of Yarrow, where Mungo Park was born, saw the traveller throwing stones in the water, and anxiously watching the bubbles that succeeded. Scott inquired the object of his occupation. “I was think ing,” answered Park, “how often I had thus tried to sound the rivers in Asia by calcula ting how long a time had elapsed before the hubbies rose to the surface.” It was a slight circumstance, but the traveller’s safety fre quently depended upon it. In a watch, the main-spring forms a small portion of the woik, but it impels and governs the whole. So it is in the machinery of human life, a slight circumstance is permitted by the Divine Ruler to derange or to alter it; a .giant falls by a pebble; a girl at the door of an intwchangcs the fortune of an empire. If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, said Pascal, in.his epigrammatic and brilliant manner, the condition of the world would have been different. The Mahomedans have traditions that when their prophet concealed himself on Mount Shur, his pursuers were deceived by a spider’s web, which covered the mouth of the cave. We trace the same happy influence of slight circumstances in the history of science. Pascal was horn with a genius for mathematical discovery: no discouragement could repress his eager passion for scientific investigation; he heard a common dinner-plate ring, and immediate ly wrote a treatise on sound. While Galileo was studying medicine in the University of Pisa, the regular oscillation of a lamp, sus pended from the roof of the cathedral, at tracted his observation, and led him to con sider the vibrations of pendulums. Kepler having married the second time, and re sembling, perhaps, the great Florintiue as tronomer in his partiality to wine, determin ed to lay in a store from tiie Austin vineyard; some difference, however, arose between himself and the seller with’ respect to the measurement: and Kepler produced a trea tise, which has been placed among the “ear liest specimens of what is now called mod ern analysis.” Another slight circumstance of Newton’s observing the different refrari gibility of the rays of light, seen through a prism upon the wall, suggested the achro matic telescope, and led to the prodigious discoveries of astronomy. The motion of a speck of dust, it has been said, may illus trate causes adequate to generate a world. — Asiatic Jour. THUNDER STORMS. The distance of a thunder storm, and consequently the danger, is not difficult to he asceitained. As light travels at the rate of about 66,420 leagues in a second, nearly, 200,000 miles in one second of time, its ef fects may be considered as instantaneous within any moderate distance. Sound, on the contrary, is transmitted only at the rate of 1,142 feet in a second. By accurately ob serving, therefore, the time which intervenes between the flash of light and the beginning of the noise of the thunder which follows it, a very accurate calculation may he made of its distance, viz: when you observe the lightning, and 10 seconds elapse before you hear the thunder, you are two miles out of danger; but if you only distinguish one se cond to elapse between the lightning and thunder, then you may estimate yourself only 1,142 feet from the dangerous fluid, and the nearer to the light you hear the thunder within one second, you may count yourself in danger, by having a knowjedge of these things there is no better means of removing apprehensions. If the thunder rumbles sev en seconds, you must be aware that the c lectric fluid has passed through space from ; the atmosphere to the earth, a distance of nearly one mile and a half. Sometimes the fluid skips from one cloud to another before ! it comes to the earth. There is no danger to he apprehended from the thunder, i>ut j that operates as a warning when well ealen- ’ Ia ted.— Ch cltenh a m Chron iclc. Rights of a Bankrupt’s Wise —The deci sion of Judge Story in a recent case of bank ruptcy, touching the claims of a bankrupt’s creditors over the personal property of the wife, has only been partially stated in seve ral papers. The case and opinion as we find them noted in the Boston Atlas, are substantially these: The petition of a bank rupt set forth that lie had given his wife some years ago a watch, and that her friends had given her other articles of jewelry. All these articles the assigned claimed, for the creditors. Judge Story decided that the watch having been bought with the hus band’s money, formed a part of the person al estate, like any other personal estate she may have had previous to her marriage, and the creditors were entitled to it. But the gifts of friends, for her own use or orna ment, could not be attached by creditors. In thp case also of the sons of a bankrupt having watches for which he had paid in part only, Judge Story decided that credi tors had a claim upon them to the amount so paid by the father, and on proper notice they might sell their interests.— North A mcrican. The hoods now worn by the ladies, ere named “ kiss-mc-if-you-darc !” The Munster. —The Devil-fish, whose capture we duly chronicled, was exhibited yesterday to admiring crowds at four pence a head, children and niggers half price. It measured from the extremes of the wings 17.1 feet, and probably weighed SOOOlbs. Its tail, which was about 7 feet long, nearly the shape of a common cowskin, was at the junction with the body not over two inches in diameter. This, we suppose to ho its means of defence ; aud in truth, well laid on, would be rather troublesome;-— Char. Mercury. It is very absurd fora person to suppose, that in this world he will meet with ijo-in justice. Written for tlte “Southern Miscellany.” Mr. Editor —Sitting in company the nth-’ er day with several gentlemen of the town, our conversation turned upon the publica tion of the “ Southern Miscellany,” and learning that it was to bo published on Sa turday instead of Tuesday, as heretofore, it was proposed that each gentleman present furnish one at tide for the next number, up on whatever subject he might chose to se lect. The proposition was rejected by only one of the number—a’ilthe rest promising to contribute. As I am not much in the habit of writing upon subjects generally, and hut few in par ticular, I have found myself at a considera ble loss to know wliut to say. The fact is, that so many matters have presented them selves to my mind, that I have found myself in the same predicament I did once, when \ was younger than I am at present, if not less. I had gone out gunning, and being a pret ty good shot on the \vhnr_ At a single object,. 1 thought nothing it: motion- could escape me. 1 was trudging along down the Spring Branch below the Tan Yard, when a whole covey of partridges took wing around me, my gun was to my eye in a moment, and my finger on the trigger, hut for the life of me I could not look tit a single one long enough to take aim. The result was, that while I was pointing my gun iit the direction ot one, and another, and another, the whole concern escaped, and I was left with no game in my bag. Well, lam just about in the same sort of a fix now. i am loaded, primed, and cocked, but there is such a flock of subjects all flying through my mind, that I cannot bring my sights to hear upon a single one long enough for a true aim and a clear fire. Well, Mr. Editor, what can I do to re deem my promise ! I should like to give you something, and I should like to have it ori ginal. 1 mean by that, I should like to give you an original article, on an original sub ject. Politics and Religion you have forbid den. If I should try money, the ground has already been occupied by “Observer,” and I shall not try to cultivate his crop. So Mo ney wont do, in this case at least. Suppose- I speak of the Hard Times, and the causes producing them] Why, sir, you have had the subject before you in an article headed ‘A Complaint,’ and signed by ‘I Complain.’ I had a thought (and with me it is an origi nal one) of trying the Ladies, dear souls, and saying something in their behalf. But all endeavors upon that subject would be use less—“ Novice” has already gone forth in the defence of her sex, and wield a pen far more ready than my own. And, indeed, it is an old subject any how, Mr. Editor, and a - delicate one at best, and should he nicely handled—and I am not the man for that work. I then thought of taking a discursive view on a variety of subjects in a condensed form, rather epitimisingthe whole, and giving you a kind of fragmentary article—a real scrap gatherer—but I find myself forestalled in that department also, for there is your cor respondent “Q,” always at his post, regu larly serving up to your readers his short and pithy articles, which put one in mind of a choice ‘snack’ between meals, preparing the appetite for a regular set-to at the usu al meal. I dare not invade ‘Q.V premises— I should cotne off second best, and that is mortifying you know. Well, after this I concluded to give you an incident or an adventure or something of the sort rather in the light and fanciful way, hut as two competitors—‘Sam Parks’ and ‘Joshua Swipes’—have already appropria ted that department to their own use I have been compelled to abandon that idea with the others. Poetry was next thought of. I’ll try that, says I, only one person has yet contributed to that department of your paper, and I will certainly write some Poetry. I went seri ously to work, Mr. Editor, to fix up some i verses. I had never before tried the thing, | and I concluded it was about as easy to do j that as any thing else; all that was necessary \ was to he well fixed for it, so I got me a nice new quill, and was particular to have i it of the gray feather—a beautiful sheet of | “Ames” best letter paper—a pocket ink \ stand—and off I put. 1 had read a good deal of Poetry about ‘Old gray rocks,’ ‘smi ling lawns,’ ‘old castles,’ ‘purling streams,’ ‘tiny cascades,’ and ‘forest green and waiv ing,’ and ‘singing birds,’ and all that—so I selected a place to which I repaired. It was a mile below town, or more, where there was once an old mill. On the hill is an old house, —under the hill a fine spring, jutting out from the earth on many ‘gray rocks,’ the fields being uncultivated, and grown up with grass, or brown sedge, my position was a most glorious one, I assure you. Sea ted beside the stream upon a rock taller than the rest, I laid off my coat and hat,, drew out my [ten, ink and paper, and felt as. much a poet as Lord Byron, or‘A Lady.’ 1 fairly chuckled nt the thought of astonish ing the natives by my productions. I hnd determined to write only a few verses, but now I resolved to go a whole poein. The materials were abundant. There was the old house upon the hill, tumbling to ruins— I intended to dig up its history; there was the mill, too, gone to decay—there is al ways a good deal of romance connected with mills— some at least —if not much poetry, hut I thought I could easily make poetry of ibis one. There, too, was the tiny water fall—the silver spring—the jutting rock. I intended to make all speak, and tell their tales of love, and joy, aud sorrow. I took in