A MONSTER.
It is almost incredible that such a monster, as the one we are about to describe should have been allowed to continue his wicked career for some years, in a civilized country like France, little more than a hundred years ago, but the following paragraph is copied from a Paris journal of that period—1755, January the 17th—and there is every reason to believe that it is strictly correct. "What was his fate we do not know, but can hardly doubt.—The Marquis de Plumartin, whose execrable crimes are known over all France, has at last been taken in his castle, by 300 men of the King's Own regiment of foot, and carried to Poitiers, loaded with irons. The king is going to appoint a commission to try him. This monster turned away his wife some years ago, and became the terror of Poitou. Neither woman nor man durst appear in the neighbourhood. Having one day lost a cause in one of the king's courts, he caused the usher and his man, who came to intimate the sentence to him, to be burnt alive. Some days after, having drawn six of his creditors into his castle, where he had shut himself up with several of his crew, he ordered some of his people to drag them into a pond, tied to the tails of horses, and afterwards fastened them to a stake near a great fire, where three expired, and the other three died a few days after. Thirty of the Marshalsea guards, who were sent to apprehend him, having beset his castle, he barricaded the doors and fired on them from the garret window, killing the commanding officer and five others. After which he left the kingdom, but absurdly imagining that his crimes were forgot, he lately returned."
PERSEVERANCE REWARDED BY FORTUNE.
We have copied the following paragraph from the pages of a local historian, because it gives us a striking instance of what perseverance and good fortune will accomplish, in raising a man to comparative distinction from the humblest walks of life.
August 26, 1691—Sir John Duck, bart., departed this life, being Wednesday at night, and was buried upon the Monday after, being the 31st of August. The wealthiest burgess on the civic annals of Durham. Of Sir John's birth, parentage, and education, the two first have hitherto remained veiled in impenetrable obscurity; as to the third, he was bred a butcher under John Heslop, in defiance of the trade and mystery of butchers, in whose books a record still exists, warning John Heslop that he forbear to sett John Ducke on worke in the trade of a butcher. John Duck however grew rich, married the daughter of his benefactor, and was created a baronet by James II. He built a splendid mansion in Silver-street, where a panel still exists recording his happy rise to fortune. The baronet, then humble Duck, cast out by the butchers, stands near a bridge in an attitude of despondency; in the air is seen a raven bearing in his bill a piece of silver, which according to tradition fell at the feet of the lucky John, and was naturally calculated to make a strong impression on his mind. He bought a calf, which calf became a cow, and which cow being sold enabled John to make further purchases in cattle, and from such slender beginnings, to realise a splendid fortune. On the right of the picture is a view of his mansion in Silver-street, and he seems to point at another, which is presumed to be the hospital he endowed at Lumley. He died without issue, and was buried at St. Margaret's, where his wife, Pia—— Prudens—— Felix, lies buried beside him.
On Duck the Butchers shut the door;
But Heslop's Daughter Johnny wed:
In mortgage rich, in offspring poor,
Nor son nor daughter crown'd his bed.
TRAVELLING IN THE UNITED STATES EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.