The late Lord Rolle married the last of that branch of the Waldron family. The house remains about ten miles west of Lyme. The sugar-loaf was charged at a high rate, considering the greater value of money in Queen Mary's reign. This article began to be highly prized. The sugar-cane, which had been grown from the year 1148 in Sicily, had been imported into Madeira A.D. 1419. About the year 1503 the art of refining sugar, before called "blanch powdre," was discovered by a Venetian; before which the juice, when selected instead of honey for sweetening, was used as it came from the cane. Only twenty-seven years from this date, in 1526, it was imported from St. Lucar in Spain by Bristol merchants. Let not the present of the Mayor of Lyme be considered as a cheap article produced in abundance in the islands of the West Indies. The sugar-cane was not imported thither into Barbadoes from the Brazils till the year 1641. How surprising the result of official inquiries in the year 1853 into the consumption of sugar! It amounted to 7,523,187 cwts., or 30 lbs. each individual of the United Kingdom.
SUSPENSION BRIDGES AT FREYBOURG.
There are two suspension bridges in Freybourg; one remarkable for its great length, the other for its extreme beauty. The latter connects the top of two mountains, swinging over a frightful gulf that makes one dizzy to look down into. There are no buttresses or masonwork in sight at a little distance; shafts are sunk in the solid rock of the mountains, down which the wires that sustain it are dropped. There it stretches, a mere black line, nearly three hundred feet in the heavens, from summit to summit. It looks like a spider's web flung across a chasm; its delicate tracery showing clear and distinct against the sky. While you are looking at the fairy creation suspended in mid-heaven, almost expecting the next breeze will waft it away, you see a heavy waggon driven on it; you shrink back with horror at the rashness that could trust so frail a structure at that dizzy height; but the air-hung cobweb sustains the pressure, and the vehicle passes in safety. Indeed, weight steadies it; while the wind, as it sweeps down the gulf, makes it swing under you. The large suspension bridge is supported on four cables of iron wire, each one composed of one thousand and fifty-six wires. As the Menai bridge of Wales is often said to be longer than this, I give the dimensions of both as I find them in Mr. Murray:—Freybourg: length, nine hundred and five feet; height, one hundred and seventy-four feet; breadth, twenty eight feet. Menai: length, five hundred and eighty feet; height, one hundred and thirty feet; breadth, twenty-five feet. A span of nine hundred and five feet, without any intermediate pier, seems impossible at first, and one needs the testimony of his own eyes before he can fully believe it.
WONDERFUL CLOCK.
Towards the end of the last century, a clock was constructed by a Genevan mechanic named Droz, capable of performing a variety of surprising movements, which were effected by the figures of a negro, a shepherd, and a dog. When the clock struck, the shepherd played six tunes on his flute, and the dog approached and fawned upon him. This clock was exhibited to the King of Spain, who was highly delighted with the ingenuity of the artist. The king, at the request of Droz, took an apple from the shepherd's basket, when the dog started up and barked so loud that the king's dog, which was in the same room, began to bark also. We are moreover informed that the negro, on being asked what hour it was, answered the question in French, so that he could be understood by those present.
MANDRIN THE SMUGGLER, 1757.
Mandrin was the son of a peasant in Dauphiny who dealt in cattle. His first employment was buying and selling horses, by which he subsisted several years. But having on some occasion committed a murder, he was obliged to fly from justice, and in his absence was condemned by the Parliament of Grenoble to be broken on the wheel. Being now a fugitive, and destitute of employment, he learned to counterfeit money, and by this fraud made considerable gain, till, being discovered, the officers of the Mint at Lyons issued a warrant for apprehending him, and he was again obliged to quit the country. While he was wandering about from place to place, and hiding himself in caves and woods, he became acquainted with a gang of smugglers, and associating with them was, after some time, made their captain. As this gang was very numerous, he was less cautious of being seen, and having at length lost his sense of fear by habitual danger, he frequently entered towns and cities, raised contributions on the king's officers by force, and spread the same terror among others that others had brought upon him. But in proportion as he became more formidable he was, in fact, less secure; for the Government found it necessary to detach after him such a force as he could not resist, and the Farmers-General offered 48,000 livres reward for taking him. After many times attacking his party in a running fight, in which several were cut off, Mandrin, with eight of his men, took shelter in a castle on the frontiers of Savoy. They were closely pursued by several detachments, under the command of Colonel de Molière, who entered the King of Sardinia's territory after him, without having first obtained leave. Molière was immediately opposed by a great number of peasants: whether they were instigated by Mandrin, or whether they were jealous of their privilege, is not known; but all his expostulations being fruitless, and being determined not to relinquish his prey, for whom he hoped to receive so considerable a reward, he forced his way against them, killing twelve and wounding many others. Mandrin waited the issue of this contest in his castle, where he was soon besieged by 150 men, who attacked the place with great vigour. Mandrin and his partisans defended themselves like men who had nothing to fear in a battle equal to being taken alive; and after several of them were killed, and the castle gates burst open, they retreated, fighting from chamber to chamber, and from story to story, till, reaching the garret, and being able to proceed no further, they were at last overpowered by numbers, having killed twenty of their adversaries, and spent all their ammunition. Mandrin, with those that survived of his little party, were carried prisoners to Valence in Dauphiny. * * * Mandrin was examined every day from the 13th of May to the 25th, in order to discover his accomplices. In the mean time several of his associates were put to the torture to discover what they knew of him, and were afterwards broken on the wheel, that death might give a sanction to their testimony.
He himself was subjected to torture, but without eliciting anything further than he had previously revealed. Throughout he steadfastly refused to betray his comrades, and conducted himself with much dignity and heroism. On the day of his execution he received absolution from Father Gasperini, a Jesuit, who had administered to him the consolations of religion during his confinement.
Before he was led out of the prison, his shoes and stockings were taken from him; but, though barefooted, he walked along with great firmness and a good grace. When he came to the cathedral to perform the amende honorable, he asked forgiveness of the monks and priests for his want of respect to their order, and was then conducted to the scaffold. He mounted with great composure, and addressed himself in a short and pathetic exhortation to the spectators, especially the young persons of both sexes; he then sat down on the nave of the wheel, and loosened the buttons of his shirt-sleeves himself. Then he entreated pardon of the custom-house officers, whom he had so often and so grossly injured; and turning to the penitents who surrounded the scaffold—with his confessor and two other eminent persons of his order—he earnestly recommended himself as the object of their prayer, and immediately delivered himself up to the executioner. He received eight blows on his arms and legs, and one on his stomach, and was intended to have been left to expire of the wounds; but as the executioner was going down from the scaffold, an order came to strangle him; the bishop and all the considerable persons at Valence having interceded for this mitigation of his punishment. Mandrin was twenty-nine years of age, about five feet five inches high, well made, had a long visage, blue eyes, and sandy chesnut hair; he had something rough in his countenance, and a strong robust port; he was perpetually smoking tobacco, with which he drank plentifully of any liquor that was at hand, and ate till the last with a good appetite.
SUDDEN RECOVERY FROM MADNESS.