Variety

The Abuse of Ether. - A late number of the London Times publishes n letter from a philanthropic correspondent, denouncing a fatal habit which it seems hns sprung up in the Great Metropolis of using the new agent of ether in the same way that the drug opium has been taken - for the purpose of pleasant exhilaration - to all intents intoxication. This writer remarks as follows: " Entering a druggust shop the other day, I observed a nurse come in for four ounces of ether. As the chemist poured it out he said to me, 'This is all the go now - it is used for anihalation.' A sn.all apparatus has been inTentod for lndies. So delightful are the sensations it produces that persons who have used it for the relief of pain continue to use it for the pleasure it affords. On a forme r occasion I had warned a chemist of the dunger of yielding to a habit which would become his master. The warning was npglected, the habit has gained the mastery, and the man of talent nnd energy has become the imbecile drivelling idiot." So much for the debasing use to which the new agent may be applied. Prices. - An illüstrntion ot the fluctuation in prices of breadstuffs, is told as follows by the Albany Statesman, of Saturday morning: On 'Change, yesterday morning, a Western farmer, who had been tempted bevond the safe nnd quiet confines of his br ad and productive acres into the uncertain Whirlpool of thegrain market, offered a lot of 6,000 bushels of handsome Western flat Corn. During the rule of the high prices of May nnd June, he purchased this property at 91 to 93 cis. per bushel. Now he asked but 54 to 55 ets., and was offered, as the. very highest figure, 52 to 53 cents. At this he probably sold, and if so, lost in the decline of price, independent of all the other expenses of traveling, freight, &c, 39 to 40 ets. per bushel. At one time, net long since, the same kind of corn sold reaJily at$l, 12è. The amount collected in the United States for the suffering in Ireland, is thus far about $400,000. This is set down as a glorious fact ; and who doubls its being soï We expended just oneliundred times that amount in a slave hunt in Florida. - What sort of a fact is this? - Chronotype. More Troops for the War. - It is stated that the unfavorable intelligence received from Mexico, was the cause of the President's recall to Washington, and that immediate mensures are to be taken, so rar as he has the power to provide more troops for the prosecution of the war. Orders have already been issued to increase batlalions of volunteers previously raised, and endeavors will be made to re-form several companies recently raised, whose services were declined by the Secretary of War. (ET01 In Paris, lately, a couple of rival vegetable venders, male and female, gol nto a quarrel, and undertook to outscold each other. Tlie man bawled, the Woman yelled, the man whooped, the woman screeched, the man screamed, the woman shrieked; at length ihe man won the victory by a mighty effort which burst his lungs, and he feil dead. Öy Gen. Toylor m ïy ne said emphatcally to be a man oí letters, as he has already written a half dozen in relation to his being a candidato for the Presidency. The largest bell ever cast in England is on board one of the British ships below Quebec. It is frora the foundry of Messrs. Mears, While Chapel, London, and weighs twenty-five tons. It is for the new Cathedral at London. "Priponer of War." - A Pinnsyluania volunteer on his return from Mexico, brought home as a irophy of one of his victories, a beautiful Mexican girl, to whom he has been married. We hope he wi:l never have cause to regret the days " he went soldiering." Luther's M arriage. - Catherine Von Bora was a benutiful girl, of noble birth, wlio having fallen in love with a poor student of N uremburg,had been condemned1 by her pnrenls lo the cloisier. Escaping, with eight of her compnnions, afler some years she took refuge at Wiitenburg. Here Lüther became attached to her. Yet, with a sense of juslice lather unusual in a lover, he wrote to the Nuremburg student - 'If you desire to obtain your Catherine Von Bora, make haste before she is given to another, whase she almost is. Still she hns nat yet overeóme her love for you. For my parf, I should be delighted to see you united.' The student not responding to this offer, Luther married her. Jn this union he was most happy - the details of his domestic üfe are full of sweetness and tenderness. James N. Buffum of Lyftn, a well known Abalitionist, happening to live in a slreet through Which Mr. Polk and suite were to pass in making their entree into tliat place, caused a flag, on which was inscribed ir largo letters, 'jVo union Icith Slaveholders,'' to be attached to nis chimI ney, stretuhed aoross the strest and fastened to the opposite huue. - Tribune. Ii.i.im.ts Convention. - Negboes - The Sangamon Journal conlains full reports of the debates and votes. Mr. Bond, on the 24ih uit., oflered a resoluiion providing a separate article, forever prohibting free colored porsons from settling in the State, and preventing owners of alavés from setling then free in Illinois, under effective pcnalties. Mr. Broekman said that the colored people wouïd have no rights in common with the citizens of Illinois. Mr. Adamstried to get rid of the resolution, by moving ihat the Legislature should have no power to pass laws to oppose the co'iored people. Mr. Pinckney declared ihat some of the reCftnlly passed State laws agamst the negro race would be a disgrace to any people claiming to be free, enlightened and humane. Mr. Norton said tliat thus to exclude free negroes was an infringement of the United States Constitution, they being citizens. Mr. Kinney said that free persons of color were a great pest to society. Mr. .Davis had been born and reared in a slave State, had owned slaves, and yet regarded slavery as an evil. He was opposed to Mr. Bond's resolution. - Mr. Singleton would nol have Illinois made a receptacle of nll the worthless, superannuated negroes that slave owners might choose to send. Mr. Geddes liked the resolution to exclude negroes, but the people might not like it - it might endanger the adoption of the Constitution. If they were 'nero as a Legislative body, he would vote for such a proposition. [In that case, the people would have to bear it, having no veto!] Many other members delivered their sentiment?, and the resolution was laid on the table for the present- 80 to 55. - N. Y. Tribune. A Lato for the Poor Man.- The Connecticut Legislature has passed a law securing from attachtnent fordebt, the poor man's homestead to the value of $300. - This presents a pleasing contrast wuh the many enactments of our various State Legislatures in which the comforts and rights of the poor are overlooked in the desiie to benefit the capitahsts, to make the rich richer. - Biigle. A 'Youno Idea' Lkarning 'How to Shoot.'- The Editor of the Monthly Rose tells a good story of a young whaler in Nantucket, whom he saw through the half-open door of anout-of-the-way house while he stopped far a glass of water. The litlle urchin, some six yeard old had fastened a fork to the end of a bailo yarn which his mother was holding which he very dexterously aimed at an old black cat quietly doziny in the corn er. Puss no sooner feit t he sharp prick of the fork than she darted off in ajiffy while the experimenter sung out in high glee, "Pay oult molhtr, pay out; there she gocs, Ihroiigh the window." Dn. Judson's House Burnfjj. - A letter fïom Dr. Judson, dated Rangoon, March 2d, 1847, states that the house in Maulmain in wbich his effects were left, had been set on fire nnd burned to ashes. His clothes nnd his wife's, all their American prcsents and every article of value, have been consumed. He is al lowed to remain at Rangoo as a ministe of a foreign religión, but is strictly pro hibited from making proselytes. Th succession of the King's son has produc ed no change for the better. A Specimen op Western Deemocra cy. - On the lst instant, an act of the General Assembly of the pretended Democracy of Missouri went into operation, which forbids all persons to keep school to teach any negro, whether free or slave, or mulatto, to read or wnte, in ihat State - forbids any assemblage of negroes or mulattoes for rdigioue Worship, where the services are performcd by negroes, unless a Sheriff, Marshall, or Justice of the Peace be present, to prevent seditious gpeeches - foi-bids all free negroes ar mulattoes from immigrating, under any pretext, into Missouri, from any other State. Penalty for violation of the provisions of the above pretended Democratie act, $500 fine and six months iniprisonment. The durability of oak may be known from the facl thal the throne of Edward the Confessor is 800 years old; and the oldest wooden bridge of which we have any account is oak - and which existed 400 years before Christ. A Norwegian newspaper is to be established in the town of Norway, Racine county, Wisconsin. The Milwaukie Sentiiiel, in making the announcement says: "The Norwegian setilementa in the West are allready unmerous and growing rapidly. There are now ín Wigconsin, Illinois,and Iowa twenty such settlemants, and sixteen of them within the limits of thisTerrito-y.They embrace a population of from fifteen to iwenly thuusand frugal, inüustfious, honest, law-loving, and lawabiding citizens. The priaci)nl settlement is on the Koskonong prarie, where there are nearly a thousand Norwegian families," The King of Holland has strongly recoinmended the Emperor of Japan to j throw open his country to Ëuropeans, so j as to Wot un the risk of being bombaided into civilization ike the Chinese. The papers announce the denth of Joseph C. Neal, the nuthor of the Charcoal Sketches. He died at Philadelphia, on the 18th instant, after a few hours illness.