NOTES.
A Turkish paper gives an account of a curious forced emigration which has recently produced great excitement on classic ground. On the European banks of the Hellespont stands the city of Gallipoli, interesting as the first possession of the Turks in Europe in 1357; and nearly opposite to it is Lamsaki, a village long renowned for the vineyards in its neighborhood, and situated near the site of the celebrated Lampsacus of classic times. During the autumn the authorities of Gallipoli came to the conclusion that there were in that town—as where are there not?—too many owner-less dogs about; and instead of issuing death-warrants against these vagrants, they took the extraordinary course of exporting them to their opposite neighbors across the Hellespont, who were already plentifully provided with canine treasures. On the arrival of these two thousand immigrants, who were very unruly on the passage, they started, in quest of food it may be supposed, to the mountains, but not finding anything to suit their palates, returned to the town. Here the tug of war commenced. The Lamsakian canines, on recognizing the situation, turned out to a dog, and a frightful conflict, with terrible howlings and barkings, ensued for four hours. At the end of that time the foreign foe was worsted, and, beating a retreat, endeavored to allay the pangs of hunger by eating the grapes, and thus doing really serious damage. The people then had to turn out: two hundred dogs were killed, and the rest retreated, but of course only to return. The Djeridéi Havadis concludes the account by mildly saying that the Lamsakians are much disgusted by the eccentric conduct of the Gallipoli magistrates, who ought of course to have sent their canine emigrants to a desert island. But how thankful would Philadelphians be if somebody, imitating the Gallipoli magistrates, would but deport two thousand of the cats which make night-life hideous—to the New Jersey shore, say!
The pie is almost an "institution" in America. A single New York bakery claims that it produces nine hundred pies an hour from one of its ten capacious ovens, and a total of fifty thousand pies daily, the year round, forcing the supply occasionally up to sixty-five thousand—probably on Fourths of July or other festal occasions. Let the reader busy himself with imagining the total production of pies by this and all other bakeries of the country during a twelve-month! Nevertheless, these facilities would be inadequate to popular demand were the majority of our countrymen of a stomach as unbounded as that of the Dundee laborer whom a Scotch journal commemorates. This extraordinary person, having not long since eaten nine large twopenny pies at a Dundee pie-shop within fourteen and a half minutes, announced his purpose to eat on the following Monday twelve pies within twenty-five minutes; and in fact, when the delicacies were put before him in the shape of a six-pound pile, fourteen inches high, he consumed half a dozen in five minutes, the next three at the end of eleven minutes, and the last three in six minutes more, having ended his repast eight minutes sooner than he had designed—possibly owing to the pangs of hunger, since he expressed a willingness to occupy the spare moments with devouring another half dozen pies.
With this item of news in fresh remembrance we chanced to read in a very old English newspaper the supper eaten, many years ago, by Mr. Oakley of Stanton, Derbyshire—a repast which makes the Scotchman's, just recorded, rather frugal by comparison. His first dish, says the report, was two quarts of milk, thirty eggs, half a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar, three penny loaves, a quantity of ginger and nutmeg and an ounce of mustard, all boiled together; his second course was "apiece of cheese and a pound of bread to it;" the third was half a pound of bacon, a penny loaf and a quart of ale, followed by three halfpennies' worth of ginger-bread and a pint of ale; his fourth dish was a custard of two pounds, an ounce of mustard, some black pepper, a pint of milk and three pints of ale to it. This banquet he finished in an hour, and then ungratefully complained of not having had enough; so, after running three hundred yards by way of appetizer, he sat down with the rest of the company, who had witnessed his prowess, and drank pretty freely. Yet even this exploit is hardly equal to the marvel in digestion reported in the same ancient newspaper of a Truro porter, who, for a bet of five shillings, ate two pairs of worsted stockings fried in train oil, and half a pound of yellow soap into the bargain. The losers of this wager might have been more cautious had they known that the same atrocious glutton once undertook to eat as much tripe as would make himself a jacket with sleeves, and was accordingly measured by a tailor, who regularly cut out the materials, when, to general surprise, the voracious fellow ate up the whole in twenty minutes. Compared with these performances some of the current prodigies of gormandism which the papers so often report are surely as trifling in amount as they are tame and uninventive in the character of their details.
The strange accident of Albertacce brought to general notice an obscure Corsican custom which singularly contrasts with the ordinary funeral ceremonies of Christendom. The vocero, as this rite is styled, is palpably an inheritance from the classical conquerors of the island, now preserved only in some of the interior villages. When the head of a family dies, the body, after being robed in its handsomest garments, is laid in state on a table in the largest room, surrounded with lights. Then, five or six hours before the burial, all the women of the village and the district, clothed in black and with bare heads, assemble around the corpse, the mother and sisters of the dead at the feet, the nearest relations next, and so on. When this assemblage is formed the most renowned poetesses or singers of their number, with hair disheveled and bleeding faces, and a white handkerchief waving in the hand, chant in verse the history, virtues and destiny of the dead. The mournful cadence, the profuse weeping and the dramatic gestures of the ceremony are striking. The chief mourner amid her wailing sometimes raises the head or the arm of the corpse, and plucks out her own hair or freshly tears at her face till the blood pours again from the wounded skin, while the half-stifled sobbing of the whole company adds to the effect. When at length the priest arrives, all is hushed, but the women follow the corpse in procession to the church, where the ceremony sometimes lasts several hours. Such, at least, is the account of the vocero given by a correspondent of the XIX'e Siècle, who visited the scene of the Albertacce accident, where a roomful of celebrants were suddenly precipitated into the cellar by the giving way of the floor. The mere mention of the accident came by telegraph, but it appears that twenty dead and fourteen mangled women were taken from the wreck of the house where they had been singing their mournful vocero.
Unless the Paris postmen are more patient than those of Madrid (who were on strike a few weeks since), their temper must be ruffled by the transformations now going on in the names of streets. In France, and especially in Paris, each overthrow of a dynasty produces a corresponding revolution in the city directory, for all unpopular names must be effaced, and the streets which bore them must be rebaptized in accordance with the political favorites of the hour. Decrees have already turned the Avenue de l'Empereur into the Avenue des Lacs; the Avenue Napoléon into the Avenue de l'Opéra; the Place Napoléon into the Place de l'Opéra; the Avenue de l'Impératrice into the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne; the Boulevard Voltaire into the Boulevard de Belfort; the Rue Magnan into the Rue d'Angoulême-Saint-Honoré (its old name); the Rue Billault into the Rue de l'Oratoire-du-Roule, also its old appellation; while there has been a general effacing of those names which the Communists set up upon the streets and avenues during their brief lease of power. Scores of other old names of streets are already changed or are in train of alteration; but the preceding will suffice for examples. Now, when one reflects that at the overthrow of Charles X., and again at the overthrow of Louis Philippe, and again at the overthrow of the Second Republic, and again at the overthrow of the Second Empire, and again at the overthrow of the Commune, these alterations wept on, it is seen that the puzzle offered to Paris people in general, and to Paris postmen in particular, must be anything but amusing. Should the Third Republic perish to-morrow, a new christening of streets would have to be made; but the event only would determine whether the new names should celebrate Imperialism, or Communism, or Bourbonism, or Orleanism, or each in its turn. It is rather strange that, with such an experience, Paris should not take refuge in that tame but enduring system of street nomenclature which is based on the letters of the alphabet and the ordinal numbers.
An English magazine not long since described some of the curious theories and superstitions which prevail among devotees of the lottery and the gaming-table, regarding "lucky numbers." There are traditionally fortunate and unfortunate combinations, and there are also newer favorites, based very often on figures connected with the chronology of famous men. The career of Napoleon III. would seem to be considered by gamblers a specially successful one, for since his death they have been betting furiously on all numbers supposed to bear a relation to sundry pivotal events of his life. In Vienna, in Milan, in Rome, the newspapers notice this universal rage among regular patrons of the lottery for staking their fortunes on Napoleonic numbers; and, what is also curious, these numbers have in several instances turned out lucky. Thus, in a late Vienna paper we read that "the death of the Man of Sedan has brought good luck to the old women of this city who give themselves up with unquenchable passion to the lottery." At the last drawing, as the paper goes on to say, the numbers most eagerly seized upon were 3, for Napoleon III.; 65, for his age; 20, for his birthday, it falling on the twentieth of the month; 90, as the highest number in the lottery, hence interpreted to signify "emperor;" and finally 52, the year of his accession to the throne. To the joy of all the old lottery-gossips, the luck fell on these numbers, 3, 20, and 90. At Rome the death of Napoleon. III. has furnished new combinations for all the devotees of the lottery. At Milan the same infatuated class have "pointed a moral" of their own from the event—a moral quite different from the one extracted by sermonizers. They have been playing heavily on number 20 (a gold Napoleon being worth twenty francs), and on number 13, which latter, as the proverbially unlucky one, is interpreted to mean the ex-emperor's death. On the first drawing after his death these two numbers proved to be the lucky ones of the lottery, and it was then found that there had been a great number of winners.
Is this present year, 1873, to be, like some famous ones in history, specially fatal to crowned heads, and to heads that have once been crowned? During the whole twelve months of 1872 the only European sovereign who died was Charles XV. of Sweden, while none suffered irremediable misfortune; and in European royal families the only two losses by death were Archduke Albrecht and the duke of Guise. But within the first six weeks of 1873 no less than three persons died who had at some time worn imperial crowns, and one monarch resigned his sceptre. First died Napoleon III., on the 9th of January. Then, on the 25th, at Lisbon, died the dowager-empress Amelia, daughter of Prince Eugene, wife of Pedro I. of Brazil, and stepmother of the present emperor, Pedro II. On February 8 the empress Caroline Augusta, widow of Francis I. of Austria, and grandmother of the reigning emperor, died at Vienna. In Spain the abdication of Amadeo is an incident to be mentioned in a year opening so ominously to crowned and discrowned heads.