It was my misfortune to be the solitary champion on one occasion, as the only remnant out of sixteen couple, the original number of the belligerents; and my prowess so charmed a celebrated amateur of the cockpit, that he purchased me from my owner for an enormous sum, with the hope of reimbursing himself by my future achievements. My wounds were so numerous and so severe that I should not have survived them, had it not been the interest of my new master that I should recover. I was treated, there fore, with such care and tenderness that, in a few months, I was again in a condition to administer to the amusement of the human monsters who frequent the cockpit. The strength and courage with which I was endued by nature enabled me to vanquish a vast number of my species, in a succession of battles at fairs and races, and my master's expectations of gain from my exploits were more than realised. A reverse of fortune was, however, at hand; and after having beaten every antagonist with whom I was brought into hostile contact, I was at last overmatched, and obliged to retreat ignominiously before the superior physical power of a formidable rival, with whom I waged a long and bloody conflict, until finding my usual strength and energy rapidly on the decline, I, for the first time in my life, sought safety in flight, which recre ant act so exasperated my master, who had an enormous sum at stake on the match, that in a paroxysm of rage he seized upon me and bore me off to his kitchen, where he thrust a spit through my body, and actually roasted me alive before the fire; vociferating, with the most dreadful oaths, that he would knock out the brains of and half are slain; the eight survivors a third time, the four a fourth time, and the remaining two a fifth time; so that thirty one cocks are sure to he inhumanly murdered for the sport and pleasure of the spectators."-Ibid, p. 282. any one who attempted to rescue me. * Terrible as must have been the death-pangs of some of our friends who have already related the tale of their sufferings on earth, the barbarous deed of the monster who thus sacrificed me to his revenge and cupidity, surpasses in atrocity any outrage they have described; and it has been with extreme repugnance that I have adverted to a deed almost unparalleled even in the annals of human depravity. (To be continued.) Appalling as the circumstance here related in our fictitious narrative is, it is frightful to think that it is literally true. The atrocious act was recorded in seventy-two lines, in verses, entitled, "The Cockfighter's Garland;" but as the piece is, in our opinion, rather common-place, and scarcely worthy of the muse of Cowper, we shall not here transcribe it, as it is painful to dwell unnecessarily upon so revolting a theme. The poet does not reveal the name of the monster who perpetrated the heinous crime, as he commences "The Cockfighter's Garland" thus "Muse! hide his name of whom I sing, Lest his surviving house thou bring, For his sake into scorn; Nor speak the school from whence he drew The much or little that he knew, Nor place where he was born." The ruffian's memory must not escape so easily; and we shall copy the following paragraph on the subject from the obituary of The Gentleman's Magazine, for April, 1789.-" Died, April 4, at Tottenham, John Ardesoif, Esq.; a young man of large fortune, and in the splendour of his carriages and horses rivalled by few country gentlemen. His table was that of hospitality, where it may be said he sacrificed too much to conviviality. Mr. Ardesoif was very fond of cockfighting, and he had a favourite cock upon which he had won many profitable matches. The last bet he laid upon this cock he lost; which so enraged him that he had the bird tied to a spit, and roasted alive before a large fire. The screams of the miserable animal were so affecting, that some gentlemen who were present attempted to interfere, which so exasperated Mr. Ardesoif that he seized the poker, and, with the most furious vehemence, declared that he would kill the first man who interfered; but, in the midst of his passionate assertions, he fell down dead upon the spot!"-Voice of Humanity. RAPID INTELLIGENCE. INSTANTANEOUS COMMUNICATION BY MEANS OF SPEAKING TUBES. A correspondent has been pleased to ask our opinion respecting the practicability of conveying a message by means of what are called speaking pipes, instantaneously, through the whole length of the tunnel of our railway. Our reply is, that we are convinced that it would be practicable to transmit articulate sounds by such means to a much greater extent; and we shall adduce the reasons which have led us to that conclusion. Several years ago we had an opportunity of making some experiments with a considerable number of hollow tubes, about a yard long, screwed into each other. These tubes were in sufficient number to extend forty or fifty yards, and the diameter of the bore was about a quarter of an inch. When a person whispered as low as possible through a dozen or more of them, we could distinctly hear the words uttered; but we noticed another circumstance, which we thought rather remarkable at the time, which was, that when all the tubes were screwed together, forming a length, as we have said, of forty or fifty yards, the sound transmitted did not appear to have lost any thing of its intensity or distinctness; which warrants us in the inference we have hazarded, that articulate sounds may be conveyed much further, by means of hollow tubes, than is generally presumed; and we entertain very little doubts that communication might be thus effected, not only throughout the whole length of the large tunnel of our own railway, but through ten times that space. In our note books we find several experiments recorded respecting the transmission of sound through hollow and solid substances, and through fluids; from which we select the following, because it is on the largest scale. In Herschell's Treatise on Sound, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, it is stated that "in the cast-iron water-pipe of Paris, which formed a continuous tube, with only two bendings near its middle, the lowest whisper at one end was distinctly heard at the other, through a distance of 3,120 feet. A pistol fired at one end blew out a candle at the other end, and drove out light substances with great velocity." The length of the larger tunnel of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, is about a mile and a quarter, or 6600 feet, which is more than twice the length of the cast-iron water-pipe at Paris, through which, as has been stated, the lowest whisper was distinctly transmitted. Had that pipe been twice, thrice, or ten times the length mentioned, we are of opinion, as we have already intimated, that the voice would have been distinctly heard from one extremity to the other; although we have no data to enable us to surmise the maximum distance to which intelligence might be thus carried. Who can take upon himself to say that this distance may not be twenty, fifty, a hundred, or a thousand times greater than that between one extremity and the other of the waterpipe of Paris ?* * In the interesting Treatise on Sound by Dr. Herschell, we find recorded a most extraordinary instance of the transmission of sound under water, which we shall here transcribe, although, strictly speaking, it has no bearing upon the subject of transmission of articulate sounds through the medium of air : "MM. Colladon and Sturm conceived the happy idea of plunging atube into the water, at any distance from the bell, to receive the vibrations, which the surface of the water would not allow to escape, and to transmit them to the ear of an observer out of the water. With this view, they plunged, vertically, into the lake a thin tin cylinder, about three yards long, and eight inches wide, closed at the lower end and open above; and the sonorous vibrations propagated under the water were thus stopped and made to enter the air in the tube, which transmitted them to the ear of the observer. By means of this beautiful contrivance they were enabled to hear the strokes We would not challenge any man to prove a negative; but we may, perhaps, be allowed with propriety to ask some of our scientific readers to assign satisfactory reasons why the results we have conjectured might not be realized, if the experiment could be made on the requisite scale? or why oral communication might not be practicable between Liverpool and Manchester, if not by one stage, by a succession of stations, with attendants at each, to receive information by the ear, and to pass it on by the voice almost simultaneously. of the bell under water at the distance of nine miles across the whole breadth of the Lake of Geneva !" We are of opinion that the experiment here related would not succeed in a river like the Mersey, where the vibrations would be disturbed by the current; but in a tranquil lake it might, probably, be practicable to communicate under water, by the means here pointed out, a much greater distance than across the Lake of Geneva. IMPROMPTU, On hearing, in the course of Mr. Hume's speech, that if we should go to war to-morrow, we had a twenty years' stock of gunpowder on hand. [WRITTEN IN MARCH 1822.] Billy Cobbett declares, we are not in condition Nor let the whole weight fall to Ministers' lot, Let them find the powder,-John Bull's share's THE SHOT. THE GLORIOUS UNCERTAINTY OF THE LAW The tails to lawyers' heads appended, |