LAW OF THE MOZCAS.
A very remarkable law prevailed among the Mozcas, one of the tribes of the Nuevo Reyno de Granada. There, as among more advanced nations, the king could do no wrong; but the subordinate chiefs could. These chiefs were men, the people reasoned, like themselves; they could not be punished by their vassals, for there would be a natural unfitness in that; the king, it seems, was not expected to interfere, except in cases of state offences; the power of punishment, therefore, was vested in their wives; and a power it was, says Piedrahita, which they exercised famously whenever it fell to them to be judges of their poor husbands. The conqueror Quesada calling one morning upon the chief of a place called Suesca, found him under the hands of his nine wives, who were tying him, and having done so, proceeded, in spite of Quesada's intercession, to flog him one after the other. His offence was, that some Spaniards the night before had lodged in his house, and he had partaken too freely of their Spanish wine. Drunkenness was one of the sins which fell under the cognizance of his wives: they carried him to bed that he might sleep himself sober, and then awoke him in the morning to receive the rigour of the law.
LARGEST METAL STATUE IN THE WORLD.
Arona is an island on the Lago Maggiore, and has a strong castle. Upon an eminence is a statue of bronze to St. Charles Borromeo, from whom the hill is called, Monte di S. Carlo. The statue was erected by the Pope in 1624, in memory of the Saint, who was Archbishop of Milan. The pedestal of the statue is thirty-six feet high. It is the largest metal statue in existence; and the height of the statue itself is seventy-two feet, making a total of 108 feet. Fifteen persons may get into the saint's head, which will also accommodate four persons and a table on which they can dine. The cost is said to have been one million one hundred Milanaise livres.
THE OAK OF MAMRE.
In one remarkable instance the Jews, the Christians, and the pagan Arabs united in religious feelings. This was in their reverence for the Oak of Mamre, where the angels appeared to Abraham: for Abraham's sake the Jews held the place holy; the Arabs for the angels'; the Christians, because, in their ignorance of their Scriptures, they affirmed that the Son of God had accompanied those angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. An annual fair was held there, and every man sacrificed after the manner of his country; nor was the meeting ever disgraced by any act of intemperance or indecency. Nothing had been done to injure the venerable antiquity of the place. There was nothing but the well which Abraham had dug, and the buildings which he had inhabited, beside the oak. These remains were destroyed by order of Constantine, in abhorrence of the impious toleration exhibited there! A church was built upon the spot, and Mamre, so interesting to the poet, the philosopher, and the pious man, became a mere den of superstition.
STRANGE ADVERTISEMENT.
The following appeared in the Evening Post, May 23rd, 1730:—
"I, Elizabeth, duchess dowager of Hamilton, acknowledge I have for several months been ill in my health, but never speechless, as certain penny authors have printed; and so, to confute these said authors and their intelligence, it is thought by my most intimate friends, it is the very last thing that will happen to me. I am so good an Englishwoman, that I would not have my countrymen imposed upon by purchasing false authors; therefore, have ordered this to be printed that they may know what papers to buy and believe, that are not to be bribed by those who may have private ends for false reports. The copy of this is left in the hands of Mr. Berington, to be shown to any body who has a curiosity to see it signed with my own hand.
"E. Hamilton."