MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1390, 21 April 1884, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

In the United Kingdom there are 18,500 miles of iron highways, constructed at a cost of £767,899,570, nearly the total of the national debt. Kxclusive of 599,568 seasou ticket holders, 954,838,265 passeugere are being annually carried, besides 256, 215,838 tons of good. The annual receipts from passengers reach £28, 796,813, and from the carriage of goods, £87,740,815, the work expenses being £36,170,436, the net earning* £33,206,688, and the average earnings on capital throughout 4.82 per cent.

The ciack light weight jockey in England is a lad Darned Marti p. Though only Bfteen years of age, and still going to school, he nrrakes a comfortable income of £5000 a year, . .fljo. , gels holidays to ride rac.es. .A foetal cl<*ver lad, with good hands, he has We-* 00140 the most fashionablo of thu light .

Weiguta, and gets most handsome fees for winning. If he does not grow too ni i<y: : .a ;n»>v • v.n £10,000 a year ba» for- h* ••"•i"h >s 'is majority. O:ie of the Southern Pacific Railro ••;:?■•! Lhe. United States has been bo.- ;••■•>' -f-J onti-.vly with rock alt. I «• '? ■..v.vi.c-i* r" -n irked, 'is the fir?? in- -- "■• •*.'•• .-..v! Ufa railroad nvlbedt b- i .•• li.i-.1- an-i ballasted- in salt. The a l ;., v »f-h one" rolled over this place <lried up,, and left a vast bed of salt about 50 miles in length. The quality is supprb, and is inexhaustible. Grasshoppers .of enormous size and giant centipedes -have been here pickled in the chloride of sodium, and are to-day, after thelapse of centuries, in fall size *nd perfection of shape."

Many attempts have been made to •make _jas-e«gines self-starting, or rather to start them in a manner similar to that of a steam-engine, by the act of -opening a valve. Vai'ious methods have teen proposed, but, as far as (• Iron") is aware, none of them have been carried to practical success. In the <Clerk gas engine, however, the problem has been successfully solved. Whilst the engine is; running it is made to compress to (about 70lb per square inch) an infl.immble mixtnre iv a wvottght-irou welded reservoir, this energy is- utilised to start the engine when required. Only three minutes are required to completely xshargH the reservoir, which is of sufficient size to start the engine^ several times consecutively. This* system has be>n tested for somp time paat by the daily wafting of a number of Clerk esngines both' in Glasgow and "London. By this invention the gasengine has been brought one step nearer to that ultimate perfection to which wq believe it is destined to attain.

A short time ago a gentleman was about to leave Constantinople for London, having among his 'luggage a Very valuable copy of he Koran in manuScript, some 500 years old, and for which as much as £6000 was said to have been offered. It would protobly have found its way into one of the Europeans museums had not an inquisitive Custom-house official discovered and claimed it as state property. •"; . In England the average of life exceeds that of France by eleven years, though the French climate is considered superior.

Ouida sb said ,to be the dau '.'itf-v of ■George Ljinrencpi t!ie au'.hor of ' Guy Liviiradii&eV and " B'-eakiuu a Batter Twenty womwi nave taken the B.A. •degree in the University of London during the past year. There are only 175 persons in conTents uin Portugal, in 68 establishments. These persons are fast dying off, the youngest at present being from 60 to 70 years years of age. Umler a law passed 50 years ago no fature inmates can be received, so that convents will soon become extinct in the - ' '"" The French issue of " John Bnlr"ond His Island" is reported to be in its twenty-eight edition. " :

At a meeting of aquatic men in at which Hanlan, Trickett, and Beach were represented, it was finally arranged that the Canadian -should row for the championship and £500 a side on May 22, on the Nepean River, over a straight-away course of about three miles and a-quarter. It is not yet finally decided whether Trickett or Beach will compete. The ■articles have been signed, and the first of £150 already paid. The choice of Hianlan's antagonist will probably be settled shortly.

A daring robbery has been committed upon a passenger V>y a cabman and bis confederates in Melbourne. After leaving tjhe Masonic ball at the Town Hall Iklr Bt-tt, a visitor fioui Tasmania, got into a cab, and requested to be driven to the. Port Phillip Club Hotel where he was staying. The cabman, instead -of going to the hotel, drove Mr Bett about, the. city, and stopped, as he. believes, in Little Bon ike street. The cabman then, with the assistance of three other men, forcibly took Mr Bett's watch, studs and rings, and then drove away. He got into another cab, and was taken to his hotel, as soon as possible after which he reported the matter to the .police. The value of the. stolen property is £250. One of the rings is said to he worth £105. The police have made two or three arrests.

There would be considerably less ■work for temperance reformers it a'Upublicans would act up to the idea of the saloon-keeper of an Ohio village, who lias issued the following card : — "To all who.i) it may concern, — Know ye that, by thp payment of '.'45 1 am permitted to soil intoxicating lignoj's at my saloon in this city. To the wife "who has a drunkard for a husband, or a friend who is unfortunately dissipated, I say emphatically, give me notice in person of such case or cases in which you are interested, and all such sha'l be excluded from my place. Let, mothers, fathers, sisters, aurl brothers do .likewise and their requests shall be kindly regarded. I pay a heavy tax for the privilege of soiling liquors, and I wish it distinctly understood I have lio desire to sell to drunkards or minors, or to the pooi* or destitute."

The wealth of gold in Venezuela seems likely to rival that of the Transvaal. The success of the El Caliao mines— wlrose shares, of the nominal value of £420, are now wanted at L 44, 000 each, and wlyosediv for the month of September alone was €800 per ££20 chare,, equal to over £9000 per annum per share — has led to the formation in London' of the Cartago, with a capital ©£4800,000 in-£l shares, to work at Oattago gold minds, which are situated «mly »ix "miles distant from the El Caiteo property. The prosjltatua' states

that the Cartago will, it is considered, prove to Vie one of the richest mines ever discovered in Venezuela since the disco very of the wonderful El Callao. have hung, the one fora century, the other for nearly two, and Blenheim will remain a moument of the cruel kindness of a nation which voted areward to the hero that was to prove a greater burden than his descendants could bear." The collection eontaints a painting of the Madonna by Raphael, which is probably the finest belonging to a private owner in the world, and which is valued at £70,000. It is possible that the projected salt of these paintings may be the cause of a serious quarrel in the Churchill family. Nor is it quite certain whether the present Duke possesses absolutely, as he, believes, the power of disposing of them. The other members of his family are hostile to the dispersion of the pictures. Certain English naval and military papers are deploring a scarcity of men for the Royal navy. It is recorded that the stock of seamen had fallen to such a low ebb that two ships fitting out, q-ii-ii'g B' >o men, would about exhaust all the available material; and then a great many young seamen,

.■ot to say '>f)ys, would be sent afloat before their time, while of trained men - " fjispnvity would he still greater. When Hanlan, on the Thames, rowed away from, opponents with ease, propelling his boat at a noticeably unvarying speed, people were wont to believe and openly asserted that hidden mechanism in the boat was the cause of his success. When he stepped into the first boat offered to him on the Farramatta, New South Wales, precisely the same peculiar power to keep the boat going at an even pace without jerky propulsions after each dip of the oars was noticed, and observers were forced to the conclusion that he is a singularly skilled rower.

Some most important correspondence lias been stolen from the house of a deceased statesman. It consists of confidential letters between the late Due de Moray and Napoleon 111. The fear of its publication is causing quite a nutter of excitement in Parisian circles.

Liebig, an authority in matters of health and things which are good to eat and drink, thus wrote : Sherry and strong cider are more quickly intoxicating than the generality of wines, and ttfey have a peculiar influence on the gastric juices of the stomach. The intoxication of beer is heavy and dull, but its use does not hinder the drinker from gaining flesh. The. drinkers of whisky and brandy are going to certain death. Bed wine is the least hurtful, and in some cases really beneficial."

England and Wales employ 443,563 miners, of which number 881,768 are engaged in the coal pits.

Public salaries and private wages are ahsnrdly low in Switzerland. The President of the Confederation receives only £600 a year ; few judges get more than £200, while there is hardly a bank manager in the whole country who earns twice the latter sum in a year.

The Nice Journal continues to report further tragedies both at Nice and Monte Carlo. In a recent issue it stated that a rich stranger had blown out his brains at the Hotel de Paris, after having lost all his fortune at play. On January 18 it records the case of a commercial clerk at Nice who from similar cause, putan end to his life by shooting himself through the head. On the same day a man committed suicide behind the Hotel de Londres at Monte Carlo.

The Queen of Tahiti has passed throngh America. Her Majesty, who travels incognita at Mis Salmon, is on her way to visit England and France. It appears from the tables in the general census report that there are thirteen English counties in which population is declining. In Cornwall the decline in the last decade even reaches nearly 8£ per cent. In Huntingdonshire it has been but a fraction less, while in Radnorshire, the falling oft has been 6 2-5 per cent. In all other counties there has been an increase, amouuting, in the case of Middlesex (outside the metropolitan boundaries), to nearly 48-J- per cent.

There are no less than 40,000 square miles of almost unbroken forests in North Carolina —pine, chestnut, oak, maple, beech, and hickory timber in their finest growth. ' Within the next ten years it is estimated that the timber alone in North Carolina will exceed in value the present total valuation of al propprty in the State, including land The State grows as many as nineteen varieties of oak, and its pine forests are of the heaviest.

A French meteorologist has, in the exposed court of his house, two bars of ii*on planted in the earth, to each of which is fixed a conductor of coated wire, taVininating in a telephonic receiver. His practice is to consult the apparatns every day, and it never fails," through its indications .of earth currents, to give notice of the approach of a storm twelve or fifteen hours ahead.