MISCELLANY.
The English, a Foreign Tongue.—We extract the following from a French paper:
"An etymologist has lately published the following analysis of the English language. Its vocabulary, he says, is composed of 6621 words of Latin origin, 4361 of French, 2068 of Saxon, 1288 of Greek, 660 of Dutch, 229 of Italian, 117 of German, 11 of Gaelic, 83 of Spanish, 81 of Danish, 18 of Arabic, besides many others of ancient Teutonic, Hebrew, Swedish, Portuguese, Flemish, Russian, Egyptian, Persian, Cimbrian, and Chinese!! The same etymologist pretends, that in Shakspeare, Pope, Swift, and Milton, there are not many more than a hundred words purely English!"
So that it would appear, that when we meet an acquaintance in the street, and accost him with "How do you do this morning?" and he replies "pretty well, I thank you," we are probably speaking half a dozen languages at once. What "learned Thebans" we must be! In this way a man who has a tolerable understanding of Dilworth's spelling book must be no inconsiderable linguist while one, who can read Johnson at sight, must be a perfect Polyglot. The poor Burgeois gentilhomme was quite amazed to find, that he had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it; and we are no less astonished on discovering that we had been talking Russian, Egyptian, Persian, Cimbrian, Teutonic, and Chinese, for years, without having ever dreamed of it. There have been great controversies among the learned as to what was that formidable dialect, which arose at Babel, out of the confusion of tongues, but after this discovery we can have no doubt that it is that very English which we all speak, and instead of High Dutch, which some have supposed was the language used by Adam in Paradise, we do now verily believe, that it was that pure English, of which so few traces have been left!—Lou. Adv.
"A Stitch in time, saves nine."—A celebrated French writer on political economy, M Say, has this story:—'Being in the country, I had an example of one of those small losses which a family is exposed to through negligence. For the want of a latchet of small value, the wicket of a barn yard looking to the fields, was often left open; every one who went through, drew the door to; but having no means to fasten it, it remained flapping: the poultry escaped, and were lost. One day a fine pig got out and ran into the woods. Immediately all the world was after it; the gardener, the cook, the dairy-maid, all run to recover the swine. The gardener got sight of him first,—and jumping over the ditch to stop him, he sprained his ancle, and was confined a fortnight to the house.—The cook, on her return, found all the linen she had left to dry by the fire, burned; and the dairy-maid having run off before she had tied up the cows, one of them broke the leg of a colt in the stable. The gardener's lost time was worth twenty crowns, valuing the pain at nothing; the linen burned, and the colt spoiled, were worth as much more. Here a loss of forty crowns and much pain, trouble, vexation, and inconvenience, for want of a latch, which would not cost three pence, and all through careless neglect.'
Rats.—The following curious mode of catching rats is extracted from the works of Muller, an apothecary of Weringerode, in Germany:—
Procure a large cask, and place it in the vicinity of places infested with rats. During the first week, this vessel is employed only to allure the rats to visit the solid top of the cask, by means of boards or planks arranged in a sloping direction to the floor, which are to be strewed with oatmeal daily, or any other food grateful to the palate.—Being thus lulled into security, and accustomed to find a regular supply for their meals, a skin of parchment is substituted for the wooden top of the cask, and the former is cut for several inches in the centre in transverse directions, so as to yield on the slightest pressure. At the same time, a few gallons of water, to the depth of six or seven inches, are poured into the empty cask, in the middle of which a brick or stone is placed, so as to project one or two inches above the fluid, and afford to one rat a place of refuge. These measures being taken, the top of the cask should be furnished with the proper baits, in order to induce the marauders to repeat their visits. No sooner does one plunge through the section of the parchment into the vessel, than it retreats to the brick or stone, and commences its lamentations for relief. Others follow, and share the same fate. A dreadful conflict then commences to obtain possession of the dry assylum. Battles follow in rapid succession, attended with such loud and noisy shrieks, that all the rats in the neighbourhood hasten to the fatal spot, where they experience similar disasters. Thus, hundreds may be caught by stratagem, which might be greatly facilitated by exposing a living rat taken in a trap, or purchased from a professional rat catcher.
Important to Millers.—A very valuable machine has lately been invented (and is now in operation) by Richard French, of Morrisville, (Pa.) for cleansing all kinds of grain and grass seeds. This machine cleanses the grain completely of the white cap, and at the same time rubs off the dust that always adheres to grain, and is the cause of specks in flour. The grain at the same time receives a fine polish. It operates equally on rye and buckwheat, cleansing it from all the dust and fuz which darken and cause grit in the flour, and are so liable to fret the bolting cloth. It is the opinion of a number of millers, that one barrel of flour may be obtained more from every hundred bushels of wheat, cleaned by this machine, than from the same quantity in the usual way. This machine will remain at Morrisville, for public inspection, a few weeks, after which it will be removed to Brandywine. Millers and others, who wish to make more and better flour, as there is no loss of grain, are invited to call and see the machine in operation. I believe they will not regret the time and trouble of so doing.
[Trenton paper.
Rhode Island.—The thrifty little state of Rhode Island is, at this time, the most prosperous of any in the Union, notwithstanding the multitude of small banking institutions that abound there, from the force of domestic industry applied to manufactures; which, in despite of every obstacle, is in a condition that must be considered a happy one, compared with that of most other places; a most rigid economy, in some measure, supplying the want of public protection, except in the people themselves—who chiefly consume the products of their respective neighbourhoods.—The balance of trade is generally in favour of the state, and the want of specie is not felt by those who have a right to demand it, for the banks are in a very comfortable state.