MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1272, 20 July 1883, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

A Sheffield lady has intimated to the weekly board of the Sheffield Innrmary her desire to present a sum of £10,000 for the purpose of sending convalescent patients to a san? tonum at the seaside or elsewhere, as the medical gentlemen decide. Even the Greeks of the proud old I 1 Orthodox " Church are making growth in toleration. A young Greek in Constantinople, lately converted, was appointed to some small office under the Greek Government, and went to his official superior to confess to him that he had become an evangelist. He expected to be driven out with abuse as a heretic. But to his astonishment, he was informed that his disertion of the Church of his fathers would

not alter his official relations. He was even permitted the liberty of absenting himself from the Greek Church service on state occasions, when officials i are required 1 t& be present.. Hop Bitters gives, good; dSgestion, active liver r good circulation, uml buoyant spirits. Read larger. The Mayor has received the following Very encouraging telegram from, tin* Member for the District in reply to the ; resolutions of the late public meeting : 1 — * Welijn&ton, 16th July- W. ft. Haseklen, Esq,, Mayor, Westport. i Telegram received. Re roads already voted for, votes renewed, or increased. Works will be prosecuted vigorously during the cur rent year. Black water to Inangahua Valley report not presented ; will move for its consideration as soon as presented to Parliament Harbor works delays lastyear were unavoidable. Government inform me unexpended balance last, year's vote and £10,000 extra proposed tbis year will be placed at disposal of Public Works, Department, with instructions to urgently prosecute harbor works this year. Bridging Ngakawau be done under the provisions of the Roads and Bridges Act, 1882. Shall put a question today re extension of railway to Mokiliinui and report reply. Jno Muneo." — Westport Times. At the opening of his article upon the Standard Oil Company in the •» North American Review," Senator Qamdon weaves some of the wonderful facts in regard to petroleum into the following picturesque paragraph : — »• Pew things in fiction are more wonderful than the history of petroleum since the opening of the first oil well in Pennsylvania, August 28th t 1859. Four years before that time Jouatliaii Watson, who owned a tract of laud on Oil Creek, noticed oil flowing from v spring, He took a bottle of it tc Hartford, Conn., to have it analysed by a well-known chemist. This authority pronounced it an artificial product and not a natural one. Had any person then predicted that NorthWestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia would be found to contain vast resources of this oil, and that it would in a score of years have added 1,000, 000,000$ to the wealth of the nation, he would have been considered insane. Yet such a prediction would have fallen short of the truth. There are today more than 20,000 wells producing this oil and over 100,000 persons are exclusively engaged in handling it. Railroads . have beeu built to transport it> while through a network of over 4000 miles of iron pipes, running over mountains, beneath rivers and through cultivated Kelds, streams of it pulsate continually. Oil from the wells in Pennsylvania, lights the streets of South American, cities, cathedrals in Europe, the mosques of Asia, the shop windows &f Jerusalem, and.it is known, and used over the whole civilised world." * rH^eTSveming Standard of 24th Majp announces : — " The Rev. Josiah Henson, the original of ' Uncle Tom 'of Mrs Beecher Stowe's story ib dead. The rugged, kindly, humorous negro was a man of good parts, although he was indebted for his education, as he used to say himself, to the University jof Adversity. He was born of slave parents in Maryland, in 1786, so that he attained the ripe age of 93 before he was summoned to another world. In his time the deceased was sold over and over again, was flogged, and had to suffer all the horrors of the fugitive's wanderings by night in the wood of Indiana. In 1830 Henson reached the Canadian shore, and he felt that he was a free man. His first impluse was to throw himself on the ground, roll in the sand, and behave generally like a lunatic. In our territory he acquired, property, became a Methodist preacher, and devoted himself to the liberation of those he had left behind in captivity. He afterwards went into the lumber trade, and was successful ; and it is to his credit that he was free with his profits in helping on the cause of philanthropy. Twice he visited England, and had no cause to complain of his reception. On the last occasion he had the honour of a friendly audience, or interview rather, with her Majesty. It is not every white man who has the double privilege of being a hero of romance and agreeable to royalty." What strikes an intelligent European most in America, and what is, in reality, the most remarkable thing about the country, is the absence of all appearance of government. The people govern themselves. They have no master. Being sovereigns, they are loyal each one to himself; being poers, there is no jealousy of position and being free men, quick to assert themselves, they recognise the same right as belonging to all. Hence it happens that a standing army is unnecessary. A standing army is needed either to repel invasion or to hold a nation in subjection to a soverign house ; but America does not fear invasion, and having no crowned head, it can dispense with the armed drones who improverish a country, and strangle aspirations for freedom among the subject people. Since the civil war and the third-term conspiracy there is an end of all danger from within. Cataline is dead and buried, and Caesar is making money on Wall street like any other speculator. The third incident is the reported disapproval by Pope Leo of Cardinal M'Closkey's reception of Mr Alexander Sullivan, president of the Irish-Ameri-can National League, and his approbation of. the work of the Philadelphia Convention. This news conies from Rome through Knglish sources, but it has been denied here. The Pope's letter commanding the Irish bishops and priests to abstain from the National agitation and condemning the Pajmell fund has created quite a commotiorrand prominent m-inb^-^f^ 1 " JVi^p::: tv i^

America publicy advise " boycotting '* the Pope, and recommend the Irish tc pay no " Peter's pence " hereafter- It has done more to destroy the abiding confidence of Irish Catholics in the justice and fairness of the Papacy than anything else : and their determination to take their theology, bat not their politics, from the Pope is pronounced. It is generally believed that Pope Leo has sold out to the English Government. The New York Board of Aldermen requested the Trustees of the Brooklyn bridge over East River to change the opening from May 24, Queen Victoria's Birthday, in deference to the Irish sentiment. The trustees refused compliance. The New York Board of Alderman is chiefly composed of Irish rumsellers, who control the votes in their respective wards. This bridge has cost about 16,000,000d61. It is lighted by electric lamps. The traffic by cars will be by endless cable, on the principle as applied in Dunedin. The endless cable, which will be operated by a 400-horse power engine, near Prospect place, Brooklyn, 11,700 ft long.. It cost 850,000d01. Four cars, containing 400 passengers, will be on the bridge at one time. There is space reserved for foot passengers. All pay toll. Already there is talk of a second bridge. The New York Sun suggests the construction of hanging gardens under the great bridge, to rival the famous hanging gardens of Babylon. It proposes to have a couple, with a passage between them for tallniasted ships. It says : " The bridge will be a wonderful spectacle, especially at night From certain positions, such as the track of the south ferry for instance, almost its entire stretch of one mile will be visible, and the electric lights, closely dotting it, will stand out against the sky at night in a vast bow of splendid fire. To sit beneath it in a well appointed hanging beergarden, to hear the rush of travel overhead, to be fanned by unhindered breezes from the bay, and to mark the sweep of masts and sails and cordage past the open windows, would be to experience a rapid combination of sensations at once." Whether this extremely practical suggestion will be acted upon is doubtful with the present structure, but in the event of a second one being built, it will probably be so constructed as to have the hanging garden ' a part of the design. Ideas in which there are money, novelty, and enjoyment are never thrown away in America. The effect of the electric light oh this stupendous arch is singularly beautiful and impressive. — O. Times.