OUR MAIL BUDGET.

SUMMARY OF WORLD HAPPENINGS

LONDON, January 8. The world's production of gold m 1915 amounted to £91,000,000.

Tho late Earl of Crawford's collection of stamps 'has been sold for £20,PP0. The 400 labor exchanges now m existence are filling 15,000 vacancies, each week.

The ex-Shah of Persia has been discovered living quietly as a Persian merchant m Berlin. ' ."' "

Stars- that are 240 tunes as powerful as thejjun have been discoverea by the aid of th© spectroscope. The Port of London Authority have approved a scheme for establishing a staff of 3000 permanent laborers.

A brisk business is being don© at Lloyd's m insurance against mumps, of which there is an epidemic m the City. Wider skirts, high boots, and a suggestion of a waist ar© among the indicated fashions for the early spring. ' While engaged m surveying the West Indies, the Danish, research ship Margarette was wrecked. The creAV were saved, but the records were lost.

Miss Meek, only daughter of Mr W. A. Meek, E.G., died during a Yeomanry ball at Newark. It was her first ball.

Receivers have been appointed for six great allied drapery firms m New York and Boston, with a total capital of £1,200,000. "Parsifal" was produced m Berlin for the first time m Germany outside Bdyreuth, the Wagner copyrights 'having expired. Two cijicus horses, said to be worth. £1000 each, have been-"/ mysteriously poisoned and have died at tW Wonder Zoo at OlymfriiU-- '••'v^ 'A;. l; '- t } ' : ' . '*,' 1 .-, ''- The Archbi_hdp of Oahterbury preached 'a sermon 'pleading"-, for sobriety of statement and of j^dfmcrit m political Controversies.: '- <.■'■ -.-:■■} '-'."* "'-'.':"■.'. f^ : *. ,:

No fewer' -than" 63o "city corporations and town, 7&ric__', district councils have passed resolutions, m 'fftyor of .the Daylight Saving Bill. ',;.;<• -"•**': -"r.-Able-seaman C. W.' bloore "was lost overboard from the White Star liner Athenic, which arrived at Plymouth yesterday from New* Zealand. ' ' Monmouthshire's tribute' -to tlie late Viscount Tredegar is to take :i tbe form of the endowment of a convalescent home with a capital sum of £_0,000.!" "

It is stated that the Cesarevitch has much benefited by his prolonged stay m tho south of Russia^ and': that, a slight lameness is the only sigh oJuKis illness. Al boy of 15 is amon^ the' huhclre'ds of people xviiO have applied to Sir J_m_s_ Shackleton to join ,th^« Imperial .Transantarctic EspeditiOh.. ' „ ';. „ , -. r " Seven habitual dnihkirds'at _York won £1 each by going, through. 1916 without being once convicted of "druntehnessl Tho English: telgraph _e_vice ' will shortly have the only wire ih the world which will take six messages concurrently and type them as .they are received. • . *■".*" •„.' ,1 .A-'-' r The experiment of providing readymade farms to actual ; purchasers appears to bo successful m New Brunswick, Canada. During the year* 130 -such farms have been .sold to actua} settlers. Ten negroes were killed and ohe white and 33 negroes were injured by lightning which struck a camp at Ka'mbovo, Katanga. Mrs Helen Kerr died at Newcastleton, Roxburgshire, aged- 104. She fimoked a pipe till near the end of her life. '. '''-.."'.'' For improving the roads m Middlesex .the Road Board has intimated that it will set aside £30,000, arid is calling a, conference of the county highway authorities to discuss' the matter. Tango pedometers showing- the mileage danced are now worn as garter ornaments at fashionable gatherings'in'Baltimore, Maryland. Fourteen, miles, was the distance which* a yourig woman's pedometer showed after a "recent dance. With 1800 tons of her bunker coal on dire tlie Houlder liner --I_i>.vObiTentina' hound from Liverpool for South America, has 'pi£t into Falmouth, Cornwall/ The Duchess of Norfolk and a number of other prominent 3ociety hostesses i have condenined the tango ? and declare that they will not allow it to be danced m their house. • It was stated at a creditors' meeting that Mr Melville Joseph Gideon, the ragtime pianist, mad-about £"7000 from music m a year, but lost £10,000 m gambling since June 1912. In his speech from the .throne' m opening the Tokio Diet the Emperor of Japan said that the alliance with Great Britain was continually growing firmer. Herr Mendel Tittinger, .who has died in/ Vienna, leaving £80 ; 000, directed m his will that the interest on his fortune should be devoted to assisting poor tradesmen at Czernowitz (Bukowina), his native city. As far as is known 11 lives were lost m a gale that swept the North Atlantic coast on Friday, and wrought havoc m many places on the Jersey shore from Sandy Hook to Atlantic City. .Those .who perished were the crews of 'two barges that foundered off Barnegat. An unnamed benefactor has presented £25,000 to the corporation Of- the city of Berlin for the building and upkeep of a "forest freeh'.air school" for boys. The donator stipulates that only healthy boys without herditary, defects shall be admitted to the school. .-. *. : .

Figures showing Bristol's prosperity, weTe given bj r the Lqrd Mayor at the City Council meeting. He said that the registered tonnage of shipping entering the port last year exceeded 2,500,000, an increase of OS per cent. Japan's^ imports- during 1913 reached a value of £63,000,000, and the exports \ £72,900,000. ' I Police raided a robbers' ;caye m the ' fashionable quarter of Budapest, and captured a gang which has stolen £40,000 worth of merchandise' m twelve months. Naval shipbuilding and repairs have meant £15,000,000 m wages to the British working man during the current year., •...,'. Five Englishmen were drowned, iii the stranding m the Baltic of a new vessel which was being taken to Russia for delivery to the Russian Government. A highly-placed 'Somerset House official, who was said to have forged a claim for the repayment of income tax m the name of a fictitious person, was remanded at Bow Street Police Court. On a war footing Russia' could now put 1 5,600,000 men into the field, sa,ys M. Stephane LaUzanne, editor 'of the Paris Matin, who is now m Russia, while m a few years' time she will be able, if necessary, to mobilise 10,000,000. The Great Western Railway Company has issued m its official magazine the following New Year message to its employees: — 1914. Motto for the year. Daily resolve : Honest endeavor. Safety first! A fortune of nearly £70^000 has "been left to the Cancer Hospital, Fulham road, under tho will of the late Mr Thomas Culveje, who was for 52 years a member of the -Stock Exchange, and died last November at the age of 'B2. Sir George , Barham., of Snape, Wadhurst, Sussex, and iIZ Haverstock Hill, N.W., chairman of the Dairy Supply Company and the Express Dairy Company. and the originator of London milk supplies from the provinces, who died on November 18, aged 77. left £259,222. , For the first flight from Cairo to the Cape (6000 miles), before- November 1 next, tho Johannesburg Sunday Times is offering a prize of £500. ' [ Through a sleigh falling' over a precipice, \seven peasants have been killed at Bad-Aussee, Styria, m Austria-Hungary. Mr Mailing, general manager of the Liverpool tramways, has submitted to the tramways committee a large extension scheme, including a tunnel two and a half miles long, under the Mersey to Birkenhead and Seacombe, the estimated cost of which would be £3,000,000. A three-ton fly-wheel burst at the British Westinghouse Company's works, Trafford Park, Manchester, and the flying fragments killed one man and injured twelvti others, two of them seriously. The city councillors of Agram, Hungary, m consideration of their not receiving any salary, voted a turkey or its equivalent m money for each of them as a Christmas gift at the taxpayers' expense. . .- ; ' A soap combine, with a nominal capital of £35,000,000, to exploit China, has been organised- by Messrs' Lever Bros., Brunner Mond, Crosfield, Gossage,

and the Erasmic Company. A factory will be built m Shanghai. Two thousand five hundred tons of tea., valued at about £190,000, was brought to Tilbury yesterday by the steamer Ulan Mackeliar. This is said to bo the largest cargo of tea ever taken into a British port. The. airman Legagneux made a new world high-flight "record"' at Frejus. on .Sunday, reaching 20,300 ft. The previous record of close on 20,000 ft was made by Perreyon (who was killed last month) at the beginning of last year. On the last day of the exhibition of the recovered "La Gioconda" m Rome, the crowd wishing to see it was so great that the picture was carried to a balcony and held up for the hundreds massed m the street below to have at least a distant glimpse of the portrait with its enigmatical smile. The 1913 output of books, says the Bookseller, numbered 12,046, a decrease of 840 from 1912, but greater than the figure for any other year. There, were 2285 works of fiction, published and 11 on aeronautics. BOROUGH ACCOUNTANT ARRESTED. Charles Massey, late borough accountant of Aberystwyth, for whose arrest on a charge of embezzlement and forgery a warrant has been issued,- lias been arrested at Wanganui, New. Zealand. The extradition papers are on their way out. FAROE ISLANDS DISASTER. From Thorshavn, m the Faroe Islands, it is reported that crews of 19 men on three fishing boats started out early on Christmas morning, fishing. After two hours' sailing, a fearful storm sprang up, Stid the boats all went down. The whole of the crews perished. _- BLAST FURNACE WRECKED. , One man was fatally burned-, and two . others . severely, • by an explosion ■\yblclx 'wrecked a. blast furnace at Consett Works, Durham. Many tons of retl-liot coke, ore, and metal were hurled m all directions. Three men, named Dickinson, . Wilson, and Lavery, respectively j were'- removed' to the infirmary, where Lavcrv died. THEATRE BURNED DOWN. At Sail Sebastian, Spain, on Monday, a serious fire, broke out, and destroyed the Circus Theatre and a number of neighboring houses. The work of the firemen was hindered by a storm. < The scene of the fire was hemmed round by thousands of panic-stricken people. SUGAR IN THE VEINS. The injection of sugar into the veins of patients apparently dying from heart failure and exhaustion from various diseases not only restored the heart action but .produces "a remarkable improvement iii the general condition. Such is the substance of a communication from. Dr. Eririques, of the Hospital Do La Piotio, to the Academy of Medicine. The results m many cases are said to have/ been almost miraculous, and, no ilieffects whatsoever were experienced. AN AERO SLEEPING CAR. The Russian airman Sikorsky, who was reported last August to have carried seven passengers for 56 miles on a new giant aeroplane designed by him, has now successfully tested a still larger machine. According to the St. Petersburg. Bourse Gazette, the new aeroplane, weighs 3_r tons, is propelled by four 100 h.p. motors, and contains cabins with sleeping accommodation for a number of passengers. On Boxing Day the new aeroplane flew for several hours, carrying ten passengers and a load weighing altogether one ton. . YARROWS TO BUILD ON PACIFIC. For the sum -of '£60,000, Mr A. F. Yarrow, of the Clyde shipbuilding firm, has purchased eight acres of land and the shipbuilding and repairing plant of Bulle'n Brothers, at Esquimalt. With the development of Canada's naval policy this new branch of the British firm, which is to be known, as Yarrows, Limited, hopes to secure contracts for torpedo boats. In an interview, MiYarrow declared that the shipbuilding future of the Pacific Coast was assured with the opening of the Panama Canal. CHINA TO START BIG STEAMSHIP COMPANY. The Chinese Government has decided to start a big steamship company. The capital is to be £10,000,000. of .which two-fifths will be raised by the Government and the merchants, and the remainder among Chinese residing abroad and rich Chinese m the interior. About forty steamers will be bought. The name of the company will be tho China Mail Company, and^no dividends Will be given to those holding official shares. NEW ZEALAND HENS LEAD. In the third international egg-laying contest, now being held under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture of British Columbia at tbe exhibition grounds m Victoria, tho hens m pen No. 1, from the Rangiuri Egg Ranch, Otaki, New Zealand, are iv the lead m the non-weight varieties with 236 eggs to their credit from October 28 to December 27. The birds m pen No. 10, owned by A. Easton, Duncan, 8.C., were second with 193 eggs. TREE INSURED FOR, £6000. An insurance policy against loss by fire or frost for £6000 was effected on a' pear tree — the most valuable m tho world— owned by Mr H. A. Woodworth, of Will-tier, California, who last season realised £640 from its fruit. A BEAUTY'S AMBITION. Miss Rae Potter, known as "Chicago's most beautiful working girl," disdaining the offers of wealthy suitors, has married a pool* railway clerk. "To keep house, to wash dishes, and sweep and cooW for the -man you love," said the bride, "this constitutes a woman's greatest happiness." SEES THE WORLD AFTER 50 • YEARS. After fifty years of good conduct! m the Ancona penitentiary, the life sentence of Giaoomo Casale, the head of a notorious band of brigands that harassed. Italy for years, has been remitted, by King Victor Emmanuel. Casalc's astonishment at the altered world m which ho found himself on coming out of prison was unbounded. 'SHIPS THAT VANISHED. During the year just closed, says the Shipping "Gazette, the number of vessels posted at Lloyd's as missing was 25, with an aggregate net tonnage of 31,426. The missing ships were responsible probably for the loss of about SCO lives. THE NATIONS THEATRE. A site m Bloomsbury has been acquired by the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Committee. It is situated between Russell Square and Bedford Square, and is opposite the new extension of the British Museum. The site has an area of over an acre, arid it has been secured from the Duke of Bedford for about £60,000.