EXTRAORDINARY SLEEPER.

M. Brady, Physician to Prince Charles of Lorraine, gives the following particulars of an extraordinary sleeper :

"A woman, named Elizabeth Alton, of a healthful strong constitution, who had been servant to the curate of St. Guilain, near the town of Mons, about the beginning of the year 1738, when she was about thirtysix years of age grew extremely restless and melancholy. In the month of August, in the same year, she fell into a sleep which held four days, notwithstanding all possible endeavours to awake her. At length she awoke naturally, but became more restless and uneasy than before; for six or seven days, however, she resumed her usual employments, until she fell asleep again, which continued eighteen hours. From that time to the year 1753, which is fifteen years, she fell asleep daily about three o'clock in the morning, without waking until about eight or nine at night. In 1754 indeed her sleep returned to the natural periods for four months, and, in 1748, a tertian ague prevented her sleeping for three weeks. On February 20, 1755, M. Brady, with a surgeon, went to see her. About five o'clock in the evening, they found her pulse extremely regular; on taking hold of her arm it was so rigid, that it was not bent without much trouble. They then attempted to lift up her head, but her neck and back were as stiff as her arms. He hallooed in her ear as loud as his voice could reach; he thrust a needle into her flesh up to the bone; he put a piece of rag to her nose flaming with spirits of wine, and let it burn some time, yet all without being able to disturb her in the least. At length, in about six hours and a half, her limbs began to relax; in eight hours she turned herself in the bed, and then suddenly raised herself up, sat down by the fire, eat heartily, and began to spin. At other times, they whipped her till the blood came; they rubbed her back with honey, and then exposed it to the stings of bees; they thrust nails under her finger-nails; and it seems these triers of experiments consulted more the gratifying their own curiosity than the recovery of the unhappy object of the malady.

A FAT ENGLISHMAN.

Keysler, in his travels, speaks of a corpulent Englishman, who in passing through Savoy, was obliged to make use of twelve chairmen. He is said to have weighed five hundred and fifty pounds, or thirty-nine stone four pounds.

A HAPPY FAMILY.

A gentleman travelling through Mecklenburgh, some years since, witnessed a singular association of incongruous animals. After dinner, the landlord of the inn placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and gave a loud whistle. Immediately there came into the room a mastiff, an Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about its neck. They all four went to the dish, and, without disturbing each other, fed together; after which the dog, cat, and rat, lay before the fire, while the raven hopped about the room. The landlord, after accounting for the familiarity of these animals, informed his guest

that the rat was the most useful of the four; for the noise he made had completely freed his house from the rats and mice with which it was before infested.

ANCIENT FIRE-ARMS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON ARMORY.

We have just now before us a drawing of an old piece of ordnance, formed of bars of iron, strongly hooped with the same material, which forms a striking contrast with the finely-wrought cannons which may be seen in store at Woolwich Arsenal, and elsewhere, at the present day. The exact date and manner of the introduction of cannon is a matter which has caused much dispute. The earliest mention of the use of cannon on shipboard is in Rymer's "Fœdera." It is an order to Henry Somer, Keeper of the Private Wardrobe in the Tower, to deliver to Mr. Goveney, Treasurer to Queen Philippa, Queen of Sweeden, Denmark, and Norway, (who was then sent by her uncle, Henry the Fourth, to her husband, in the ship called the Queen's Hall,) the following military stores: 11 guns, 40 petras pro gunnes, 40 tumpers, 4 torches, 1 mallet, 2 fire-pans, 40 pavys, 24 bows, 40 sheaves of arrows.

After the old cannon composed of bars of iron, hooped together, had been some time in use, hand-cannon, a simple tube fixed on a straight stake, was used in warfare, charged with gunpowder and an iron bullet. This was made with trunnions and casabel precisely like the large cannon. In course of time, the touch-hole was improved, and the barrel cast in brass. This, fixed to a rod, had much the appearance of a large skyrocket. What is now called the stock was originally called the frame of the gun.

This

Various improvements were from time to time made in the hand-gun, amongst which was a pan fixed for containing the touch-powder. In rainy weather, this became a receptacle for water; to obviate which, a small piece of brass made to turn on a pin was placed as a cover. done, there was a difficulty in preserving the aim in consequence of the liability of the eye to be diverted from the sight by the motion of the right hand when conveying the lighted match to the priming. This was, to a certain extent, prevented by a piece of brass being fixed to the breech and perforated. The improved plan for holding the lighted match for firing the hand-guns is shown in the engraving of the Buckler and Pistol; it consists of a thin piece of metal something in shape of an S reversed, the upper part slit to hold the match, the lower pushed up by the hand when entended to ignite the powder.

After the invention of the hand-cannon, its use became general in a very short space of time in most parts of the civilized world.

Philip de Comines, in his account of the battle of Morat, in 1476, says he encountered in the conferate army 10,000 arquebusiers.

The arquebusiers in Hans Burgmain's plates of the "Triumph of Maximilian the First," have suspended from their necks large powder flasks or horns, a bullet bag on the right hip, and a sword on the left, while they carry the match-lock in their hands.

Henry the Eighth's Walking-stick, as the Yeomen of Guard at the Tower call it, is a short spiked mace, in the head of which are three

short guns or pistols, which may be fired at very primitive touch-holes by a match.

The Revolver has four barrels, and although clumsy in construction, is not very different in principles from those recently introduced.

1. Henry the Eighth's Walking-stick. 2. A Revolver of the Fifteenth century. 3. Buckler, with Pistol inserted.

The use of the pistol inserted inside the buckler is obvious as the latter offords protection to the person while using the former.

WIGS.

In 1772 the Maccaronies, as the exquisites of that time were called, wore wigs similar to 1, 2, 3, with a large toupee, noticed as early as 1731, in the play of the Modern Husband: "I meet with nothing but a parcel of toupet coxcombs, who plaster up their brains upon their periwigs," alluding to the pomatum with which they were covered. Those worn by the ladies in 1772 are given as 4, showing the rows of curls

A & A

1.

2.

at the sides. The pig-tails were worn hanging down the back, or tied up in a knot behind, as in 5. About 1780 the hair which formed it was allowed to stream in a long lock down the back, as in 6, and soon afterwards was turned up in a knot behind. Towards the end of the century, the wig, as a general and indispensable article of attire to young and old, went out of fashion.

A FALSE FIND.

At Falmouth, some years ago, the sexton found coal in digging a grave; he concluded it must be a mine, and ran with the news and the specimen to the clergyman. The surgeon explained that they had stolen a French prisoner who died, and filled his coffin with coal that the bearers might not discover its emptiness.

BELLS.

As far back as the Anglo-Saxon times, before the conclusion of the seventh century, bells had been in use in the churches of this country, particularly in the monastic societies of Northumbria; and were, therefore, in use from the first erection of parish churches among us. Those of France and England appear to have been furnished with several bells. In the time of Clothaire II., King of France, and in the year 610, the army of that king was frightened from the siege of the city of Sens, by ringing the bells of St. Stephen's Church. They were sometimes composed of iron in France; and in England, as formerly at Rome, they were frequently made of bass. And as early as the ninth century many were cast of a large size and deep note.

Weever, in his work on funeral monuments, says" In the little sanctuary at Westminster, King Edward III., erected a clochier, and placed therein three bells, for the use of St. Stephen's Chapel. About the biggest of them were cast in the metal these words :

"King Edward made mee thirty thousand weight and three; Take me down and wey mee, and more you shall find mee.' "But these bells being taken down in the reign of Henry VIII., one wrote underneath with a coal:

"But Henry the Eight,

Will bait me of my weight."

This last distich alludes to a fact mentioned by Stow, in his survey of London-ward of Farringdon Within to wit-that near to St. Paul's School stood a clochier, in which were four bells, called Jesus' bells, the greatest in all England, against which Sir Miles Partridge staked an hundred pounds, and won them of Henry VIII., at a cast of dice.

Matthew Paris observes, that anciently the use of bells was prohibited in time of mourning. Mabillon adds, that it was an old practice to ring the bells for persons about to expire, to advertise the people to pray for them--whence our passing-bell. The passing-bell, indeed, was anciently for two purposes-one to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other to drive away the evil spirits who were supposed to stand at the bed's foot.

This dislike of spirits to bells is mentioned in the Golden Legend, by Wynkyn de Worde. "It is said, evill spirytes that ben in the regyon of thayre, doubte moche when they here the belles rongen; and this is the cause why the belles ben rongen when it thondreth, and when grete tempeste and outrages of wether happen; to the ende that the fiends and wycked spirytes shold be abashed and flee, and cease of the movynge of tempeste.' Another author observes, that the custom of ringing bells at the approach of thunder is of some antiquity; but that the design was not so much to shake the air, and so dissipate the thunder, as to call the people to church, to pray that the parish might be preserved from the terrible effect of lightning.

Warner, in his history of Hampshire, enumerates the virtues of a bell, by translating the lines from the Helpe to Discourse :—