MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 12 April 1880, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

;. . . .-^- -♦ , *. The gloomiest view of England's future is taken by the Pall Mall Gazette. It complains that the nation shut its eyes to th« fact that the untrained levies have ceased to count in modern warfare, and experience goes to show that great masses of wen. skilfully handled are an absolutely necessity if any country is to hold Us own on land. With Germany, Austria,

France, Italy, .Russia, even Spain and Koutnania, armed to the tee'h, possessed nil of thrra of a system of military service which English statesmen refuse to adopt or to find a substitute for, the British army holds a very different posi* tion from what it did in 1848 or even in 1866. Even the very enumeration of foreoa show the difference ; for who twenty or thirty years ago would have thought of giving consideration to Italy or Spain P Yet to«day the first named oountry b an element of disturbance the tnoro in an already troubled medley ; not the les* 30 because she has worked hard to have a powerful fleet, and at this moment in conjunction with one other country, might occasion England grave pmbarraagmflnt for a time. France and Italy hold a position in the Mediterranean Sea such as no two Powers have held in this century. And it should never be forgotten that the British Navy is nowadays almost purely experimental. Some curious information respecting the spelling and pronunciation of military titles in olden times is given by a correspondent of an American paper. The earliest use of the woisd " colonel" in literature is, says the writer, in Thomas Decker's comedy ' The Shoemaker's Holiday,' written in 1599 and published in 1600 ; the earlier form of tbe word being ' coronel.' In 1633 thd word was pro nouneed ' eol-o-nel ' then it became ' colnel,' and ' curnel ' and " cunnel ' followed. Our great grandfathers, the writer continues, said ' colnel,' and our grandfathers " curnel, 8 as we do ; but long ago slovenly and rustic speakers said ' cunnel.' in olden time, ' lieftenant' being the rare phonographic exception 5 and for the last 300 years " lieutenant' has been absolute in spelling. Few other words probably have been and are so variously prounded ; the work being spoken as "levtenant,' "lufenant, 1 By the American writer the latter is given at the most common pronunciation, '* Lootenant" he declares not only to be an Americanism, but one of very la*e origin. " Lieutenant,' he continues, came into the English language from the French, and as it came with the sound ofw, its obtaining th*t of/ is worthy of remark. The most probaMe explanation is that as in old writing v and v were interchangeable, this led to the pronunciation of lieutenant as ' leevensnt,' which again became • lieftenant,' and finally 'laftenant.' 'Major' was formly pronounced ' mayor,' and we even find the word is written ; as, for example, in the following passage in the diary of Sir H. Slingsby, aEoyalisfc commander in the G eat rebellion—* My regiment was left in Stamport Bridge by order of the Mayor General, and to receive further orders from Collenell Thronmerton,' A very novel invention is about to be made public which, if successful, will greatly change the character of railways on 'lines where the traffic is light. A Home paper says it is reported that Colonel Beaumont, M. P. for South Durham, has invented and patented a com pressed air locomotive capable of running ten miles without replenishing, and drawing two loaded tram scars at a speed which can be easily regulated. At an experimental trial the engine was started with a pressure of 9001bs to tbe inch in the reservoir, and when stopped in three quarters of an hour's times 600 still remained. The revolutions per minute wore 110, and the total number of revolutions was 4730, which, if the engine had been running on a road, would have been equal to seven miles traversed. The scheme is quite possible if stationary engines are employed to compress the air, bnt it remains to be seen whether the required drawing power can be more easily or more cheaply obtained than under the present system. The career of M. Waddinaton who according to some good folkes owed his high position in France to the fact that of his having been brought up at Eugby has come to a close for the present ; it is now stated that as a manufacturer and employer of labor he found it hard to sympathise with the working classes, and he was a bit of a prig. His successor in the Ministry, M. de Freycinet, must be a queer fish. Although like M. Wadding'on, a Protestant, he recommends one of hir Eoman Catholic friends who is an invalid, to visit the scene of the Lourdes Miracles for the benefit of his health. 'It couldn't do me any good,' he says, ' but it may do you good ' There is only one way of accounting for this, pays A ; 'he couldn't have thought that his friend bad much the matter with him. Perhaps it was only ♦ nerves,' over which the imagination has great power.' 1 But, indeed,' argued B, ' it was ophthalmia.' ' Then in that case,' rejoined A. 1 be must have thought it was ' all my eye.' U- ,An individual who had formerly been in business as a stock-broker, lately died at Lyons, leaving a fortune of 1,800,000 francs, When the seals were removed in the presence of the relatives a will written in his own hand was found, under which the deceased left bis property anjong his brothers and nephews. Just as they--' were congratulating one another on their lnck, however, a second testament came to light, annulling the first, constituting one of his nephews, a young man named Malgras, a complel ely uneducated ploughman, at Montelimar, his sole heir, and leaving the original heritors to reflect as best $bey .m.ighs over the adage about

the distance between the cap and the lip. Malgras, on finding himself thus unex* pecteily a millionaire, is said to have been so dazed by the good news as to have lost his power of speech during fwo days, fears being indeed entertained for bis reason.

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