Mary, Countess of Orkney, was both deaf and dumb; she was married in the year 1753, by signs. Shortly after the birth of her first child, the nurse, with considerable astonishment, saw the mother cautiously approach the cradle in which the infant was sleeping, evidently full of some deep design. The Countess, having perfectly assured herself that the child really slept, raised an immense stone which she had concealed under her shawl, and, to the horror of the nurse, (who was an Irishwoman, and like all persons of the lower orders in her country, and indeed in most countries, was fully impressed with an idea of the peculiar cunning and malignity of "dumbies,") lifted it with an apparent intent to fling it down vehemently. Before the nurse could interpose, the Countess had flung the stone,--not, however, as the servant had apprehended, at the child, but on the floor, where, of course, it made a great noise. The child immediately awoke, and cried. The Countess, who had looked with maternal eagerness to the result of her experiment, fell on her knees in a transport of joy. She had discovered that her child possessed the sense which was wanting in herself. She exhibited on many other occasions similar proofs of intelligence, but none so interesting. THE PERILS OF INVENTORS. The dangers which inventors have frequently to encounter are very great. Among many instances we may mention the following:-- Mr. Day perished in a diving bell, or diving boat of his own construction, at Plymouth, in June, 1774, in which he was to have continued for a wager, twelve hours, one hundred feet deep in water, and probably, perished from his not possessing all the hydrostatic knowledge that was necessary. Mr. Spalding was professionally ingenious in the art of constructing and managing the diving bell, he had practised the business many years with success. He went down, accompanied by one of his young men, twice to view the wreck of the Imperial East Indiaman, at Kish Bank, in Ireland; on descending the third time, in June, 1783, they remained about an hour under water, and had two barrels of air sent down to them, but on the signals from below not being repeated, after a certain time, they were drawn up by their assistants, and both found dead in the bell. BRIBERY. The triumphant exposure and punishments of corrupt bribe-takers on a grand scale belongs to the close of the seventeenth century. In 1695 Sir John Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was compelled to put the question himself that he should be expelled. A bill for securing the right application to poor orphans of freemen of London of funds belonging to them could not be carried without purchasing the support of influential members and of the Speaker himself, at a bribe for the latter of 1,000 guineas!