A Mischievous Middy's Joke

Dr. Foord Clark, a young sea-going surgeon and au entlmsiastic savant, arrived in this port a short time since as the surgeon of the British ship John o'Gaunt. The ship was from Calcutta. The voyage was long, and as it was so monotonous as not to furnish to the active intellect of the young surgeon all the phenomena that the savant could ei ave, one of the midshipmen determined to improvise some phenomena for him. At first he contemplated a seaserpent, but as sea-serpents are becoruing very common, and are a good deal of trouble, he finally determined on the electric light occasionallr seen by unusually tough shellbacks aloft in the rigging of ships at sea, and which is known as St. Elmo's fire. He got the mate's bull's-eye lantern, and on a very dark night he climbed aloft, lit it, and made it fast at the mast-head. Descending, he rushed into the cabin and announced to the doctor a remarkably well developed case of St. Elmo's light. The doctor bounded on deck, examined the light, made a sketch of it, and flnally the midshipman boldly volunteered to go up and interview it. He went up, blew the light out, and, descending,told the doctor he had touched the Manie with his h'nger, whereupon he instantly received a tremendoas electric ihock, and St. Elmo's light disappeared. Dr. Clark foundthe depraved young man's pulse at 102, so he put the nidshipman's anu in a sling, put a whisky sling into the midshipman, and )ut the midshipman and botli slings in he sick bay, and thereafter, during the est of the cruise, and as i premium nnocently paid to a case of very atrocious wickedness, he prescribed to tlie 'oung hero who had blown St. Elmo's ire out of the mate's bull's-eye lantern daily rations of tobáceo and grog. Upon aiTival in this port of the John o"Gaunt, Dr. Clark wrote a very abtruse account of the matter, which was mblished in an evening contemporarv, md he also forwarded to the London Graphic a much more detailed account of the phenomenon, together with waer-color sketches of it which he had made. The doctor having subseqiienüy ailed from this port as the surgeon of he Zealandia, Thomas Y. Powles, comaander of the John o'Gaunt, to whose cnowledge the perpetration of the joke ïad come, also in a communication to ;he evening contemporary, "gives the vhole business away," not to raise a ;uffaw at the expense of a ypung genleman whose acquirements as a physiian and as a scientist are adniitted by joth the bodies, but that the joke that he tedium of a long voyage and the excellence of its own inception and execution made pardonable, may not serev as a f alse beacon for other scientists. - San Francisco Chronicle. John Duncan, a poor weaver of Aber deenshire, Scotland, who presented the Jniversity of Aberdeen with his herbarium of ni'urly 1,200 British planta colleeted by hhnself, wlule engaged as i harvest laborer in various localities from Bauiï to ïTorthumberland, is now so f ar reduced in worldly circumstances as to be an actual pauper. He has been compelled to accept relief from the poor rateé. Perhaps it would be better to relieve the wants of this humble worker in science in some otlier way than to erect a monument to his meniory aftei he goes down to the grave. The water in New burg is so bad thai a corrnspondent of the Journal says "ii is almost cruel to squirt it on a deceni flre."