MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1260, 18 April 1883, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

«. The incandescent electric light has been lately adopted by a few surgeons for operations about the mouth, and -dentists are likely to find it exceedingly useful. The British Medica' Journal •says that the globe containing the incandescent material is enclosed in another globe, and mounted on a handle of suitable form ; after its introduction into the mouth the circuit «an be closed, and the light immediately obtained. The light is extremely pure and clear, and all shadows are •cast down, and away from the operator. It is calculated to be exceedingly useful for operations for cleft palate. The amount of electricity required 10 be stored is not great, as the light is only •maintained for the time that the operator actually requires j and Faure's accumulators, which are already a •commercial product, are well adapted for the purpose. The London correspondent of the * Manchester Guardian ' says ; " One of the earliest cases to be heard in the new New Courts will, no doubt, come under the designation of 'sensational.' A well known Roman Catholic gentlemen called Count Eyre, who derived his title from a foreign source, died

rather more than a year ago. He left a large amount of personal property to be equally divided among his sons. One of them is Dr Eyre, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, and another is the Rev. William Eyre, rector of the well known Jesuit College of Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. The share of the latter would amount to £30,000. But as he belongs to the Society of Jesus, he cannot hold any property of his own, and has made over his legacy to the order. The executors object to this. It seems that there is some obsolete law by which no Jesuit and no number of Jesuits can inherit money. The executors, therefore, refuse to pay the share of his legacy to Father Eyre, and the latter claims his right to re-, ceive what his father bequeathed him. It is said that a friend of both parties has offered to make matters * pleasant all round ' by a perfectly legal means which he has indicated, but that the solicitors on both sides have objected. In the meantime some half-dozen of the leading Q.C.s and other well known barristers have been retained, and the trial will most likely be coml menced before many more days have passed." A marvellous potato has been introduced into France by M. Ohrond, naval surgeon, who discovered it in a sandy island at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. According to Le Fermier, it will give two crops every year in a fairly warm climate, which practically would amount to a permanent crop. M. Blahchard has experimented with it at Brest, and has found it capable of amelioration, the result of careful attention being a potato about the size of a hen's egg ; and M. Langier, of the Museum of Natural History at Paris, having analysed the Ohrond potato, has found it to consist entirely of starch, very compact, and therefore of great weight, relatively to its size. It is found also, to be healthy and withstand a little frost, and mature very quickly, as it can be taken up about two months after planting. It is believed by the police that there are in Melbourne and its suburbs no less a number than 2000 fallen women. Six hundred of the class called unfortunates are known to reside in the streets and lanes that extend from tbe Parliament buldings in the east to the Spencer street railway in the west of the city. These are lodged In at last 230 houses. . Indeed, where the number of suoh houses in the city and suberbs, with all their occupants, placed on one extended area, a considerable town would be formed, and what a town ! Messre C. Pownall and Co. , scriveners, Wellington, report that negotiations absorbing considerable amount of outside capital have been concluded on mortgage investment during the last month, the general rate railing on landed estate only for sums in excess of .£IOOO, 7 per cent, securties on township properties still command the higher rate from 8 to 9 per cent, the supply of money offering on these transactions being very limited. We are unable to quote any amelioration in banking stringency, but as the Victorian Loan has, since our last report, been successfully floated, the Australian market will be much relieved, and, combined with the low quotation for money at home, we shall look for considerable modifications taking place of the existing pressure, detrimental alike to the trade and commerce of the country. Near Allentown, N.J., in a neat and comfortable cottage, live Thomas Imlay and his wife, who have just celebrated the seventieth anniversary of their wedding. Mr Imlay is ninetytwo years old, and his wife four years his junior. They were married when he was twenty-two years of age and she was eighteen. Mr Imlay, is of Scotch descent. He has 120 grandchildren, and enough great grandclildren to make the full line of descent number 200. Of their children, ten are still living, all of whom have large families. The couple are each hale and hearty, of good memory, and with fair prospects of living a century. Paul Krote, a poor German peasant living at Pousin, near Berlin, sold his small farm in order to raise money enough to bring his family to America. The new proprietor, while digging a trench for a well a few days after his purchase, discovered a pot containing 6145 thaler pieces, all bearing date in the early part of the century. An increasing number of steamboats are being worked by petroleum on the Black Sea. The petroleum industry of the Caspian Sea has been greatly developed during the last year, more than 5000 vessels having entered and left the little harbour of Baku employed in the petroleum trade. # The reqart for 1882 from the Moravian missions among the aborigines of Australia says that the doomed race is dying out with increased rapidity. The Christian life leads them to reject the views of their fathers and arrests the progress of certain diseases; but the sins of their fathers are upon them, and they are rapidly disappearing. December 6th was the fourth anniversary of the Gotha crematory. That date saw the one hundredth cremation. There was 16 cremations, the first year, 17 the second, 34 the third and 32 during the fourth ; 75 were males, 66 Protestants, 28 Roman Catholics, and 6 Jews of various nationalities, 5 being Americans. An new industry has recently sprung up in Sweden In most parts of that country enormous quantities of bleached mosses are found that grew ages ago. These old mosses are now o-athercd and made into paper which is said to be very fine in quality.