MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, 4 March 1881, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

— , + . . , Mr John Young received £8750 commission for superintending the erection of the Garden Palace. Recent ocenn dredging* indicate ♦hat no marine life exists at « greater dep'h than 190 fathoras. The Rev: Charies Clark preached to big audiences lately in Birmingham. Moody and Sankey are reportel to have seriously Bhaken the Salt Lake polygamists. Pigeons kept for flyng and other matches are to be taxed in England, Al*ew South Wales paper says that Mr James Tyson, th* squatter, hat on income of £500,000 per annum. A Russian L«nd League has been formed. The' manifesto which has been issued declared that crime will be re* orted to if necessary to attain the end in view. Out of 219,000 children, between nix and fourteen yeaw of use, I'viftg >'n Paris. thd^frtL«bonk:7ooo who at end no schsMiaC is somewhat singular that, with tbe exception of tbef hospital in the Rue Deiftrt Rocherean, the Administration does not possess ft single creche, orphanage or nnv other establishment for the reception of children, either municipal or departmental. A new profession has been thrown open to women— namely, that of diamond cutting. The work of dia« mood cutting is & mechanical labor which calls into play extreme delicacy of touch, and special aptitude in judging form and color. Bread made from whole wheat soaked before being coarsely ground ia used in the French army. Seawater used in the kneading is said to add flavor to the bread. The present age is one of improvements and inventions of all descriptions. A French gentleman, who has been studying the guillotine, has reached the conclusion that there is room for improvement in this instrument of death, which it may be mentioned, does its work in three* quarters of a second, and he has just forwarded to the Minister of Justice the plan of his new invention. By his system , he says the three- quarters of a second will" be abridged, And the necessity of placing a criminal on the bascule entirely Ipbviated. The new guillotine woulcjjpbe worked by pneumatics, like tie clock, and heads, says the inventor, would be carried off like hats in a gust of wind. ! Baron Kolb, a German, who has been ransacking the figures of the universe, toys that the English is tbe most widely spread language, being spoken by about 80.000,000 poople ; German by 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 ; French and Spanish, 40,000,000 each ; Russian; 55,000,000. Every advance made by a ' people in morality and healthy employment and useful knowledge adds to its tenure of life. The average of life among the well-to-do is fifty years among the poor thir!y*two years. Clergymen average the longer lives — sixty-six. years. Idlers are shorter-lived than the industrious, and etatistics prove that in countries where consanguinous marriages are permitted there are to be found a greater number of deaf mutes and idiots than elsewhere. Preach to Pay —The latest idea in the line of sermonic literature ia a paper issued in Chicago on Sunday noon, immediately after church. The principal things in tnis paper are the sermons which the Rev. Dr Siring and the IRev, H.Thomas have just delivered at their morning services. The papers are sold in the streets, so that the people who listened to those sermons can bare the privilege of at once refreshing their memory 0a them, and of toeing sure thot they heard and remembered correctly. Prof, Swing's sermons are so popular that one of 'the regular secular papers stole a march on him a few days ago, and having narreptitioualy obtained a manuscript or a proof of the *eroton he waj about to deliver, printed it in the Sunday morning eajtion. The people who heard Prof. Swing thus had tbe advavtage of having, the sermon in their hand as he preached it, so that they could follow him and see if be gave it as printed. The Professor was deeply offended by this proceeding, and has brought a suit against the publishers for damages. It is not yet explained exactly how the ' damages' occurred, or to what extent the preacher was damaged by thus furnishing his people and the public with the sermon. The defence is that if 'his sermon was one to do good, it ought to be as widely circulated 80 possible,

The two smallest people in the world says the 4 Man with the "White hat/ in the Australian Sportsman, are now being exhibited in London. Their names are Miss Lucia Zirate. who is 18 years of age, 20 inches in height, and weighs 4|lb, and General Mite, who is 16 years of age, 21 inches in height, and weighs 91b . If the nutfbers are arranged in the order of the great divisions of the globe— Asia, with its 834 millions of inhabitants, stand first on the list, followed by Europe, with lees than half as many, namely 315 millions, Africa has 205 millions, America only 05 ; whilst Australia and Polynesia contain four millions, and the Polar regions only 82,000. These numbers added together, with the fractions which we have omitted, give the grand total of 1456 millions. * It's better to be born lucl^ian rich.' This will probably ion of most people on "VjHHIP followiog incident* .relateafiPLa. Queensland, jonrnal:— A, party ,of Chinese took it into their beads to chip a boulder of stones at tbe Margaret River, and found inside 700 ounces of gold. Dozens of people had sat on it, and a party of miners had made theif fire against it regularly, * John, 1 he plenty savee and scored the trick to the tune of £2700., Welly good 1