MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1318, 2 November 1883, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

• It may not be generally known, says the World, that Lord Wolseley has for many years been extensively interested in squatting pursuits in Australia as the partner of his younger brother Fred. Mr Fred Wolseley is a squatter of great energy and skill, of much enterprise, and of some recklessness. The partner brothers have been very wealthy j and again, because of :a I seasons and unlucky ventures, 'the bite has been very short," to use an Australian phrase. It is understood that " Sir Gurnet's Ashantee batte of £25,000 was snatched at one full swoop to meet a squatting indebtedness of the co-partuery. It was sent out to swell its bank account ; bub brother Fred had not been prospering, the balance was heavily the wrong way, aud the bank absorbed the batte and even, like. Oliver Twist, asked for more. At present affairs are prospering. " A second St. Paul " is what a correspondent of the' Argus terms Bishop Moorhouse. Exceedingly rich samples of silver ore have been received at Adelaide from the Barrier Kanges. A very rich sample from Umberuuiberka, on assay, gave 14,0000z to the ton, or nearly 45 per cent, or pure metal. On a recent calm summer day a party of Cockney yachtsmen lunch d at low idrt on the Goodwin Sands, the most dangerous shoal in the British Channel, and played a game of cricket on the very spot where a groat ship, with 400 souls on board, was totally wrecked, and all on . oud lost. China is supposed to have a standing army of 1,000,000 men, but the despotic ruler of 300,000,000 need never lacksodiers.

In the of reign Edward I. there were only two clocks in England, one in an o d tower at Westminster Hall, the other in Canterbury Cathedral but they were both of foreign workmanship, and it was not till the time of Edward 111. that clocks were made in England. "Anglo Australian" writes in the " European Mail" : — « During the last few days I am breakfasting, dining, and supping. otf the New Zealand frost ash — a particularly fine viand — pigeons, swamp hens, and excellent mutton, all of which have reached this oountry in first rate condition, thank* to the refrigerator. The pigeons have the true gamey flavour, and this consignment has done not a little to popularise New Zealand fish, flesh and fowl, and that, too, in certain hithsrto jcf.ptical quarters." Gran, r 1 JrouVka. the newly-appointed Gro,veruer-Greneral of Warsaw, has been earning notoriety on the Continent by making some speeches of the Skobelolf character. Remiudiug a deputation that Russia had "neighbours powerTully organised for war," he declared that " Russia will never givo up an nch of her soil from the Vistula to Vladivostora," and rather than imitate France in the matter of Alsace and Lorraine the Russians will cover •' the whole empire with their bones first" This speech has been taken as an onset on the meeting of the Austrian and German Emperors at Ischl ; but it is rather a confession of weakness than a threat. Things must be in a very bad way with Russia when a Power which ten years ago used to talk of Berlin as at her mercy, openly admits that she may have to fight hard to retain Poland. There is no longer any talk in Russia to-day of the ease with which Germany could < e overran. The boot is on the other leg. Russian strategists spend their time in discussing how the German iuvasiou of Russia can be prevented. The position of affairs is at present this, Germany within ten years has made herself a stronger naval Power in the Baltic than Russia, and hasesta lished along her eastern frontier a base more powerful than that which Russia possesses in Poland and the Baltic provinces. Thanks to a better and larger railway system, Germany can concentrate ou this base in a week nine Army Corps to Russia's four, and can operate securely from it ; while Russia's base is pitched in "a country on whose sympathies," as Gourka put it, "Russia cannot rely." Hence Russia, knowing she cannot bite Gfrmany, is trying what a little barking will do to keepher off. We (Manawtu Times) are informed that very gold-bearing quarts, which i3 estimated by a practical miner, to whom a specimen has been submitted, to average at least five ounces to theton, has been discovered in the Pohangina district, on the property of the Wanganui Harbor Board. It appears that some little time ago a man, whose vocation— that of cattle hunting — takes him in o that district, reported that he had observed likelylooking quartz in various places. He was requested to bring some spocimensinto town the next time, and the pieoa we have alluded to is one of these. The gold in it is plainly visible to tha naked and unaided eye, and in view of the probability of a payable field being opened 'up, we would suggest that some organised effort should be made to test the value of the discovery* Now that the existence of payable quartz at'Terewhiti has been proved, and that' reports havb been received which lead to the belief that Woodville may yet prove a gold-producing dis» trict, it is probable that the country between the two points will be prospected. The Ashburton Mail says : — There was not a quorum present yesterday at the hour advertised for the meetingof the Town Hall Company, and messages were despatched right and left, requesting shareholders to roll up. From one who resides — well not far from the Hall came the followingreply :_« October 18, '73.— Dear Sir, — I am to drunk to appear, and intend to remain so. — Yours, &c. " Of course, the Scotch gathering of the previous evening had nothing to do with the happy frame of mind of the writer of the note, which, as will bo seen, is dated '73. The man who can forget ten years of his life, the last five especially, must indeed, be in a glorious state of oblivion. When spoken to on the subject, the candid Scot said " He was if he was goin' to lee about, i;." The whiskymay have marred the spelling of the note, but the national character for truthfulness was preserved. An impression has gone abroad that the Queen has practically disgraced the new Duk of Marlborough by refusing to admit him to her presence to deliver up the insignia of the Garter which his father wore, and which his. successor, according to custom, delivers to the Sovereign. He has been told he must leave the things with theLord Chamberlain. The American Press generally had stinging articles on the Jersey Lily on the eve of her sailing for England. She was classed with Adelaide ,\ eilson | and Sara Bernharclt in the category of i notorious women who have, " thank God, n ver been received under the roof of any respt cted American woman" ; and a leading dramatic paper of New York said : " Perhaps, without our own Lilian Russell (who ran away with Edward Solomon) in London it does not become us to say anything of Mrs Lanprtry's private car performances at the watering places and on the road but assuredly no women h s ever done anything so brazen." A Uen.a.ess was the least opprobrious tai m applied to her. Dyspepsia, billiousnes*, ncrvo i- nesa, and imserableness, all cured with H *

We ls' "rough on corns.".—Ask for Wells' "Rough on Corns." 7|d. Quick relief, comple e, permanent cure. Corns, warts, bunions. Moses, Moss & Co., Sydney, General Agents.

The 'War Cry,' the Salvation Army's gain, is a uaique journal, as those not acquainted with it, will gather from the follwing despatch : — Hilleluiab' wr are rising. As wrlook over the week's work, our bleeding hearts are filled with rejoicing. We are still waging war to the knife against sin and the devil. Nothing short of victory will satisfy us. Friday ; Soldiers turned oui in strong numbers. Having been in the thick of the fight hungry and thirsty, we 'old the Lord about it and Hp supplied m with enough and to spare ; He supplied rations to all comers. Hallelujah J wound up with forty in the fountain " for a clean heart and four laid down their weapons of worldly warefare. Praise the Lord !

Saturday our Hallelujah Free and Easy. The sharpshooters fired some redhot short into the enemy's quarter. The first appearance of our Hallelujah Fiddler who said he did not want to kill but to mortally wound. One got hit and came just as he was and got his mate also the same night. Glory be to God?

Sunday morning Knee drill ; 350 turned out. Wanted powder and got it before we left ; got onr guns primed up and shot rammed borne ready for engagement. Afternoon at 8, march ; hundreds turned out to see what th trout le was about; took them inside, opened a few broadsiders raking fire. astonished the devil. Night all packed like so many boys round a toffy simp. Terrible battle without ; shelled ihe Devil's stronghold, blew up some of his forts and took him by storm. When the smoke was all cleared away we had taken 18 prisoners making 20 for tbe day. Bless the Lord ;

Soldiers to the front! keep your powder dry and let Win or die be your mot o. Thirty nine souls for 'he week. Wellington for Jesus! Captain Collery.

In 1872 the production of copper in the United States was 28,000,000 pounds, and in 1 882 it had risen to 88,000,000. The Pacific coast raised the figures greatly.

Mrs Langtry has drawn very large audiences at Glasgow and Liverprol. The action brought against the 1 World ' newspaper for a libel on Lord Lonsdale ended, as everyone supposed it would, in a sort of compromise ; but his lordship succeeded in showing that the statement tint he had, or intended to, run away with a young woman was a canard. The real author of the scandal, a chattersome and middle-aged countess, has, with her venerable husband, been conspicuous by their absence from Belgravia this season. The Queen, with her own hand, struck the countess's name off the Ust of persons to » e henceforth invited to Court for Hate balls and concerts.

A most extraordinary accident occurred at Luton (England). When passing some buildings in course of erection a lad named Carrington, hearing the shouting of a workman, looked up at the very moment that a man dropped a shite. The falling slate severed the boy's nose from his face. The boy ran home carrying his nose in his hand. A docter immediately sewed on the nose with silver wire, and hopes are entertained that mortification will be prevented by the circulation being renewed ; in that case the boy will escape with but,slight disfigurement.

At the Supreme Court in Christchurch on Wednesday, in a case before j Judge Johnston a remarkable fact in | the trial (says the Lyttelton Times) was the examination of the defendant, the widow of a German farmer, who is absolutely deaf. For some time the question of how she was to be made an \ eligible witness appeared to puzzle his i Honor. The difficulty was overcome i by her niece volunteering 'o interpret questions to the deaf lady, who, it should be stated, could neither read ■ nor write. The services of the niece ! were thoroughly effective, as with very little difficulty she, by the mere move- \ ment of her lips, made the witness comprehend the nature of the questions ; that she did so being abundantly proved by »he volubility and impressi- : veness with which the defendant detailed the wrongs she felt she had ! been subjected to.

The Boston Journal contains this paragraph with reference to cigarette smoking by young ladies, which we receive with a large slice of incredulity : — The habit of smoking cigars and cigarettes is said to be growing among the young women of New York. There is a store on Fourteenth-street where tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes are sold to women only, and sent to the house in wrappers similar to those which are put around dry goods. In the fashion a le boarding schools which are resorted to by the wealthy girls of New York, smoking is said to be quite oommon in spite of rules against it. One girl in Vassar had a lot of Mallard candles, three boxes of cigarettes, a box of cakes, and three bottles of champagne, all of which are " tabooed " sent to her by her- younger sister, who had them packed in the iuterior of a cabinet organ that was sent to ornament the young lady's room at the college. The back of the organ was unscrewed, and the forbidden articles were packed therein. ' Another girl went to Fort Plain seminary, up°the Hudson. When one of her confidential friends sent her an embroidered easy chair, she ripped the lining loose at the back, and found the cigarettes she had s at for, forty packages, for herself and friends.

The special correspondent of the Melbourne " Argus'' in New Guinea v. riles in reference to Boioii, the nar.ve ao whose place he was staying : — " His • aughtir, who dird six or eight months 'go, lies above my head in the house. : his cuiious custom of keeping their eead is the most abominable I have ever heard pf. When a person dus, the body is placed on a spec e , of

screen over a trough as long as the j corpse. It is kept thus until swollen • almost to bursting, when an incision I is made into it and the juices expressed into the trough. All the relatives and j friends have by this time arrived ami : a great feed ensues. The children are. led up to the body one at a timo, and their foreheads and faces daubed with the horrible liquid in the trough. This alone is sufficient to propagate disease and decimate a tribe. Imagine a small-pox case and the consequences. The body is then placed on a screen and exposed to the sun until perfectly dried, when it is wrapped in aromatic leaves and slung in a net hammock across one corner of the only room the house contains. It does not resemble a human form, but merely an elongated parcel. And these people occupy this same room quite unconserncdly, although that fearful — It— is stretched there almost within reach. They seem quite callous to the fact that the shadow of death is hovering round and about them. I described our mourning and burial ceremonies to Boioii and his people through Belford. and his answer was Vf?ry characteristic of the inveterate stubbornness of superstition. ' Yes,' he say, ' that is very good indeed for the Britahiata, very good indeed. But then it would not do at all for us Sogere men. Oh, no ! We know best what is to be done. It is well. 1 "

The "Freeman's Journal" is sure that to the abler and more original intellects iu the Cabinet the temptation to once for all take a hold and heroic course in the matter of Irish self-government must be immense. They must see that to the present situation there is only one of two finals. One is the complete disfranchisement of Irelaud, which in this age would be as impossible as it would be to restore th Heptarchy. The other is a concession under reasonable conditions to that desire for Local SelfGovernment which is the settled passion of the Irish heart. We are confident lhat in the end the latter solution will triumph, and when it does, as in many other reforms, all that will surprise the world after a time will be that so needed, so innocent a change, was not made long before. If such a desirable consummation is to be reached, it must be by the Radical section f the Government standing up for the principles, and refusing to be, any longer muzzled by the Whig wing. The history of the Government up to the present time does not lead us io entertain any strong hopes in this direction. Mj Chamberlain can occasionally utter a fine Eadical sentiment, but when the Cabinet comes to act, it always acts in Irish matters as if a Tory and not Liberal Government was in power.

Advocates of total abstinence have some cause to resent the injudicious chivalry of one of their number. At a public meeting at Salisbury the other day, a. Wiltshire farmer of the. name of Terrell challenged a Mr Abbey, an Oxfordshire farmer, and lecturer of the Church of England Temperauce Society, to a reaping contest, on the terms that the former should sustain his energies upon beer and the latter on water. Relying upon -the goodness of his cause, Mr Abbey accepted the challenge, and the competition took place, fifteen acres being allowed for each "pitcher." The result was that beer won by over an acre. Mr Terrell from the first held a considerable lead, and at four o'clock in the afternoon the ground cleared by him was fifteen acres and three roods, while Mr •* bbey had only completed the third rood after his fourteenth acre. This will, no doubt, expose total abstainers to the jests of the light-minded.

A late official return shows the proportion of English, Scotch, and Irish soldiers in the British Army : — Cavalry : English, 7,663 ; Irish, 1,024 ; Scotch, 686. Royal Artillery: English, 11,565; Irish, 2,373 ;" Scotch, 966. Royal Engineers : English, 2, 632 ; Irish, 373 ; Scotch, 248. Infantry: English, 34,824; Irish, 21, 970 ; Scotch, 4,650. Foot Guards : English, 4,26;); Irish, 855; Scotch, 828. Household Cavalry: English, 911 ; Irish, 90 ; Scotch, 198. Thus, while in the Infantry and Cavalry of the line and the Artillery and Engineers the number of Irish soldiers greatly predominate over the Scotch, in the picked corps — the Household Cavalry and Foot Guards— the proportion of Scotch over Irish recruits is somewhat remarkable.

As a beautiful duchess was stepping out of her carvage, a dustman, who was accidentally standing by, and was about to regale himself with his acustomed whiff of to acco, caught a glance of her countenance, and instantly exclamed " Love aud bless you, my lady, let me light my pipe in your eyes ! " The duchess was so delighted with this compliment that she has frequently checked the train of admiration, which is frequently offered to her charms, by saying " Oh, after the dustman's compliment, all others are insipid."

' Figaro ' tells another Arthur Orton story from Australia. AMr Gordon Duncan recently paid a visit to the lunatic asylum at Paramatta, when out of 150 patients exercising in theyard he picked out one whom he declared to be Arthur Orton. He declared he had cut the back of the alleged Orton's hand thirty years ago, and on examination, so the story goes, the cut was found. The tale might the more readily b^be-livc-d if Mr Gordon Duncan explained how he came to be hanging about a lunatic asylum on the outside chance of finding this Arthur Orton, who, by the way, declard his name is Cresswfell.