EARTHQUAKE AT NOTTINGHAM IN 1816.
Earthquakes are providentially occurrences of great rarity in England. The one which took place on the 17th of March, 1816, was one of the most dangerous that has ever been experienced in this kingdom. It extended over a vast area of country, and in some localities its effects were felt very severely. As a proof of this, we have copied the following paragraph from a Nottingham paper of the day:—
Nottingham, in common with a great part of the North Midland district, experienced a smart shock of an earthquake. It was felt at half-past twelve p.m., and as Divine service, it being Sunday, was not over at the churches, great alarm was expressed by the congregations. At St. Peter's and St. Nicholas's, the consternation was so great, that service had to be suspended for a few seconds, and one lady was borne out in a state of insensibility. The pillars supporting St. Mary's tower shook very visibly, but, fortunately, the attention of the crowded congregation was so engrossed by the eloquence of the sheriff's chaplain, and the presence of the Judge and his retinue, that the alarm was but slight, or the rush and loss of life might have been great. In various parts of the town and neighbourhood, glasses were shaken off of shelves, articles of domestic use displaced, window-casements thrown open, and other indications manifest of the influence of the subterranean movement.
SINGULAR STATE OF PRESERVATION OF A DEAD BODY.
According to a statement in Holinshed, in 1495, while digging for a foundation for the church of St. Mary-at-hill, in London, the body of Alice Hackney was discovered. It had been buried 175 years, and yet the skin was whole, and the joint pliable. It was kept above ground four days without annoyance, and then re-interred.
ASYLUM FOR DESTITUTE CATS.
Of all the curious charitable institutions in the world, the most curious probably is the Cat Asylum at Aleppo, which is attached to one of the mosques there, and was founded by a misanthropic old Turk, who being possessed of large granaries, was much annoyed by rats and mice, to rid himself of which he employed a legion of cats, who so effectually rendered him service, that in return he left them a sum in the Turkish funds, with strict injunctions that all destitute and sickly cats should be provided for, till such time as they took themselves off again. In 1845, when a famine was ravaging in all North Syria—when scores of poor people were dropping down in the streets from sheer exhaustion and want, and dying there by dozens per diem before the eyes of their well-to-do fellow creatures, men might daily be encountered carrying away sack loads of cats to be fed up and feasted on the proceeds of the last will and testament of that vagabond old Turk, whilst fellow creatures were permitted to perish.
TOMB OF SAINT GEORGE.
