MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1637, 9 December 1885, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

♦ The Australian Government has established an office for the pratical testing of all patent medicines. A great jewel robbery occurred at Glasgow recently, property to the value of £5000 being stolen. A black pilgrim of the Hebrew faith was seen in Jerusalem recently. He was from Cochin, in China. There is hardly a village in Russia in which there is not to be found a bottle of water from the River Jordan. Electricity is successfully employed to work a twenty-ton crane in a foundry at Sunt-Ouen, France. The expenses of the National Eisteddfod of Wales amounted to £3900. The financial result is a credit balance of £200. Tito refusal by a te-tota 1 tailor to make clothes for ruoisellers, is a new cause for temperance discussion in London. Vienna is to be the scene of a con* gress of philologists, who are ansions that the world should adopt a universal language. The yearly copper production of the world is estimated at 222.000 tons, of which South Australia produces nbout 14,000 tons. Mr Walker, of the Leinster Bicycle Club, Dublin, has accomplished the extraordinary ride of 200 miles in twenty-four hours. * I A Dundee bailee, named Hnnto, recently sentenced a starving laborer ; to forty days imprisonment for stealing , three apples. Signor Snramaruga, editor of two Roman journals, has been sentenced to two years imprisonment for blackniail--1 Italiau artists. 1 ' The classic Tiber is once more to become a commercial highway, a Hue ' | of steamers having been built to run between Borne and Genoa. The Crown Prim* of Austria intends to do a little hunting next 1 year in England, consequently tlie necessary arrangement ate being made. It is said that the Emperor of | ; Japan can trace his descent for 25Y0 1 years, during all of which time his I family have been on the throne. , | Patti'g spare moments are beiug , devoted to the writing of her memorirs. The Great Eastern was sold by , auctiun recently, by order of the Court. The philosophers should be kept in a cage, and the donkeys turned loose ; mankind lav to wonder but dread to be taught My suburban friend, don't waste your time talking philosophy to the world, but talk Esquimaux to them ; they kant understand that, and will listen and wonder. The Bank of England holds oneseventeenth of the total deposits in the Banks of the United Kingdom, which amounts to £540,090,000. If all the railroads in the world were joined" one to another they would go around the earth on ita longest eirj enmference more than ten times, , The weekly cost per capital for the i inmates of the Christ Church Poorhouse in London, including food and clothing, and establishment charges, is 5s 4d. Appropriate services will be held by the Huguenots of London on the 18th of October, the two hundredth anniversary of the revocation of .he edict of Nautes. Illegitimate births are steadily on the increase in France, the figures l»ing 98,227 m 1880, 70,079 in 1881, 71,305 in 1882, 74,213 in 1888, and 75.754 in 1884. A fee of 2s must be paid to the Friedensrichter (Peace Judge) of Switzerland, before one can open his month to make a complaint against any irregularities. Preserved venison in honey from Ceylon is said to be a swell dish at London dinner parties. It is said to be very delicious, but the taste for it must be cultivated. The British Admiralty have author* ised experiments to be conducted at Portsmouth, with the object of determining the value of coal a? fuel for the use of ships of war. A deaf rante who inherited £30,000 was the subject of an enquiry in lunacy, a few weeks ago, in a London Court, and was found unanimously by the jury to be a lunatic, A Japanese medical monthly publication says that Western medicine is gaining a permanent hold in Japan, and within a few years the old style of native practice will stop.

The Paris Temj>, states that a numfcev of Polish expulsions from Posen, Prussia, it 80,000. There are 20,000 words in the Spanish language, 25,000 in Latin, about 24,000 in English, 30,000 in French, 45,000 ir Italian, 50.000 in Greek, and about 80,000 in German. A clnb of 4800 members in Berlin recently advertised for sil medical officers to attend them, at a salary of £75 each per annum, and more than 400 doctors applied for the positions. From Vienna it is reported that the Russian Minister of War has ordered that no Russian regiment is in fhtare to have more than one-eighth of its officers of German extraction. Henceforth the French colonies will issue and receive double or reply post cards. They will hrn impressed on f*eh half with a stamp of the va'ue or Id, l|d, or 2d, according to their destination. Herbert Spencer has become entirely unequal to responding to the innumerable letter from strangers not entitled to the privilege of correspondence with him, and has boldly taken the initiative among many bored literally men. by mailing a lithographed excuse to the intruders. A professot was ex^l lining to th« top class at a girl's high school tire theory according to which the human frame is completely renewed every seven years, and, addressing one of his pupils, be said, "Thus. Miss A—, in seven ytars yoo will be Miss A— no longer." "I devoutly hope that maybe so," said the young lady demurely easting down her eyes. The delegates of the Sta is represented at Berne Conference upon the? protection of literary and artistic property have signed a convention embodying the resolntions which they" have passed with this object A new plan for draining the ZoydW Zee ha* been proposed ; ani if earned out, it is calculated that abont 500, 000 hectares of land would be reclaimed, wliich would be equivalent k» ' about two provinces. The Gaildhall School of Uam r now 1 being erected at the cost of the earporation of London on the Victoria ! embankment, cover; an are* of S00»> 1 square feet. It is estimated thai the bnilding will cost £20,000. Under the will of Hugh Bleyner, > the eccentric Dublin publican, who* died recently, supposed to be-wortb ! nearly a million, the bulk of his property goes to twentyMrino Roman > Chatholic cbaritie? in Dublin. 1 •• Aladdin," the pautomime at Drury Lane at Christmas next, will, it m estimated, be produced at a cost of > nearly six thousand pounds. Th* > part of the youthful hero will Oh represented by that vivacious actress. Miss Grace Hnntley. Tlte arming of British warships with quick firing gQitS, which am intended to prevent the approach of torpedo* boats, is proceeding rapidly, and ship after ship is beiug soppKed with them. The number fur tach vessel varies from four to six. The German Government is about to purchase for £30,000 an object o€ great arcbjeological interest. It is* picture from the villa of the Emperor Hadrian, and representing Cleopatra. It is painted on stone, and of the time of Augustus. A newsboy in the employ of Messrs Smith and Son picked op a parcel on the London and North-western Raifway at Crewe. On the parcel being opened, H was found to contain valuable documents and about £4000 wortb if Mexican bonds. The Varde Bank of Copenhagen has suspended payment in consequence of great frauds. The whole capital, which consisted of stocks, has been lost. Several bank functionaries hate been arrested. It is said that tfa* director is the bead defaulter. The French army have been raamsuvring in the north-east of France, upon the scene of the actual hostilities of 1870, where it w supposed to be holding in check German forces invading the country from various points. It is said that the new tactics were closely watched by General von Alveneteben, the German officer in attendance. It appears from a lengthy report of the Commissioners in Lunacy recently issued, that the number of lunatics, idiots, and persons of unsound wind in the United Kingdom on the Ist January last was 79,704, showing an increase of 1176 on the preoediug year. Of this total 71,375 were paupers, and 738 were criminals. The rage for land in Melbourne shows very little aliatenent. Th* Ayr says that last week was not a very active one, owing to the Had weather and the inauguration of the racing carnival, yet sales were recorded by seven auctioneer to the valae of close upon £140,000— a sum that, large a* it is, has been trebled daring the busy season. The Arjm declares that the performance of Grace Darling in the Melbourne Cup is without aa equal in the records of the Australasian t«i She was last but one after the field had travelled half a mite, made up her ground, and notwithstanding being twice disappointed in getting through the horses in the straight, and once checked by a cut on the no*, y*t ran the winner to a head in the fisftett time ou record. Here is a piece of lock. The owner of a stall at the London Inventories, a Mr Downie, an American, discovered, by the purest accident, that the tvioe of the eucalyptus leaves removed the hardest boiler scale, without in any way injuring the metal. It was an accidental discovery and nothing more. He was able, nevertheless, to patent it as an " invention," and now be nin a fair way of shaking an immeose

fortune oat of it As boiler scale ca-isws the loss of millions annually to employers of steam power, the money value of the happy little accident may bo imagined. A London correspondent of a Scotch paper writes :— I hear of a forthcoming psera^e case which should make a sensation. It is said that a lady has ari-ivfd from Australia in order to posecute the claims of her son to a title which has within quite a recent Period passed with the family prop»rty into other hands. The new peer, who is not a son of the deceased peer, will be asked to surrender to the new Peer who profeses that he is. It is declired that the lady will be able to produce a certificate of her marriage with the late peer, and to prove that her son is the lawful ifsueoftlie union. The striking fact in this pretension is that allowing the documentary evidence to be unimpeachable, the marriage must have taken place when the late peer was about 16 years of age. A large meeting of the unemployed was held in Adelaide on the 28th nit One of the speakers said that hundreds of men were out of work, and it was the duty of the Gbvernme «t to give them some relief. He moved a motion to the effect that as labor is a producer of capital, it was necessary for the welfare of the Colony that it should be ntili *»d. He said the Attorney-general's arlvice to the arti3ans to rely upon themselves, meant that they should cat each other's throats, and secure work by trampiug with swags through tho areas, asking the farmers to give them work at 5s a week and tucker. Excessive land speculation and house building were the cause of the present state of affairs. At the recent eight hours' demonstrations hundreds had confessed to the gatekeepers to not having the shilling to pay for admission, and hundreds had not the money to pay for a meal a day. The New Zealand Schoolmaster demands the total abolition of all school committees, and the vesting of all appointments, together with the actnal management of schools, in Boards of Education, assisted by managing committees or Commissioners. " From every corner of the land," it says " the cvy has come • Deliver na from the tyranny of local committees." The system, it declares, has eutirnly broken down through the ignorance and selfishness of the class of men who commonly succeed in getting themsel- ! yes elected to school committees. The sole objects of these people, it appears, are. to bully the teachers, out of sheer jealously and impertinence, and to get their own children or favorites advanced without regard to their qualifier- 1 tions. The bronze door in the Capitol at Washington was modelled in Rome in 1858, by Randolph Rojea*. The easting was done at Munich, at a total cost of £28,000. The height is nine teen feet, the width nine feet, and the 4 eutire weight is 20,000 pounds. This work of art was formerly placed in the aonfch doorway of the old Hall of Representatives, but is now at the front entrance of the Capitol, where it may be seen to better advantage by tourist*. The larger panels of the door pourtray the chief events in the life of Columbus. The smaller ones are filled by statuettes of patrons and contemporaries of the great navigator. Four bnsts, representative of the four continents, America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, form the tour corners of the outer casing. The head* of W. H. Prescott and Washington Irving appear among the historians of the voyages of Columbus. The door was placed in its present position in 1871. The largest single parcel of fine silver yet received at Silverton was sent in from the Pinnacles Oo.'s smelting works last Saturday, and consisted of over ll.OOOoz, making a total quantity refined at the works from last run of 15,2740z. In addition to this 28 tons of lead were gained. The run has shown the existence of silver in the ore treated to have been about 470z to the ton. a highly profitable quantity — and the manager is confident that the yield from the next parcel of ore to go Jthrongh will exceed this, his latest assay returns averaging 35 per cent, of lead and 60ozof silver. Unfortunately the water difficulty is still a serious one, and it may delay the early resumption of smrltingoperations. The water caught in the dam has been lost through soakage, and that obtained in the well at some distance from the mine is not sufficient in quantity to supply the furnace. However, Mr I£orrest feels assured that before long lie will have obtained enough for all purposes in the engine shaft. He has wisely d«eided to cross cut the lode in a drive from this shaft at the 125 ft level, 60ft below the water line. By this means he will drain the lode into the shaft and at the same time prove it to the level stated. The cap of the lode has lately Wen opened to a further distance of 100 ft north of the north shaft, and there is every indica tion of the continuance of a strong body of ore, giving good assays in silver. The newely-opened lode shows chlorides and carries a high percentage of lead. The Sydney Daily Telegraph commenting on the late speeches of Sir Julius Yogel and the Hon. Mr Stout, says :— We must confess that when we read these speeches they seemed to us more fatally discouraging than any amount of depression. The danger to the patient is not the malady from which he is suffering, but which the strength of his constitution would enable him in time to shake off. Hifl peril is in the nostrums which political q>iacke;y in offering him as a medicine. Surely tlier »nist he a large number of people in New Zealand who can sec

that the only genuine remedy against the consequences of past extravagance is present retrenchment, against the difficulty imposed by debt is the resolution to borrow no more or as little as possible, and against the depression of the leading industries due to fall in the prices of their product is to reduce in every way the cost of production ; an end to b« reached rather by lightening taxation than V.y increasing it. With what feelings must they see the Mincer in charge of their finances tell them that the best remedy against the effects of over-borrowing is to borrow more ; against over spending to spend more ; and against depression is the increase of taxation ? And above all, what must be their reflections when the Treasurer complacently assures them that the restraints of Parliament on the Government are all ineffective, and that if they can raise the money they do not care what were the purposes to which Paiihment restricted its application ? In private life we all know the inevitable termination of such a financial career as that here outlined. We shall watch with interest for the saving conditions which will yet, we hope, save New Zealand from such a catastrophe."