I am, yours,
B. Franklin.
HENRY II. STRIPT WHEN DEAD.
1189. Immediately upon his death, those that were about him applied their market so busilie in catching and filching awaie things that laie readie for them, that the king's corps laie naked a long time, till a child covered the nether parts of his body with a short cloke, and then it seemed that his surname was fulfilled that he had from his childhood, which was Shortmantell, being so called, because he was the first who brought short clokes out of Anjou into England.
TRANSPLANTATION OF HAIR.
The Signor Dottore Domenico Nardo addressed a letter to the Academy of Padua, in 1826, on the subject of the growth of hair after death, and even after its separation from the body. The latter property had been previously observed by Krafft. The Signor Nardo recounts the results of experiments made on his own person in the transplantation of hair, and relates, that by transplanting quickly a hair, with its root, from a pore of his head, into a pore of his chest, easily to be accomplished by widening the pore somewhat with the point of a needle, introducing the root with nicety, and exciting within the pore itself, by friction, a slight degree of inflammation, the hair takes root, continues to vegetate, and grows; in due season changes colour, becomes white, and falls.
ANCIENT CANNON RAISED FROM THE SEA.
A fisherman of Calais some time since, drew up a cannon, of very ancient form, from the bottom of the sea, by means of his nets. M. de Rheims has since removed the rust from it, and on taking off the breech was much surprised to find the piece still charged. Specimens of the powder have been taken, from which, of course, all the saltpetre has disappeared after a submersion of three centuries. The ball was of lead, and was not oxidized to a depth greater than that of a line.
COFFEE-HOUSE ATTRACTIONS IN 1760.
The great attraction of Don Saltero's Coffee-house was its collection of rarities, a catalogue of which was published as a guide to the visitors. It comprehends almost every description of curiosity, natural and artificial. "Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of a Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey; a piece of the true Cross; the Four Evangelists' heads cut on a cherry-stone; the King of Morocco's tobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scot's pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a tree; a frog in a tobacco-stopper;" and five hundred more odd relics! The Don had a rival, as appears by "A Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Adams's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland Road, leading from Shoreditch Church, 1756." Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment of the curious, "Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's hat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-7; Sir Walter Raleigh's tobacco-pipe; Vicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green pease with; teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden of Eden, &c., &c." These are only a few out of five hundred others equally marvellous.