NEWS IN BRIEF.

Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 61, 14 March 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Owing to the capsizing of their boats during a gale, 27 oyster fishermen, principally negroes, have been drowned on tho Rappah&naock River, in Virginia. Some instructive particulars have boon published concerning strikes in New York during the year 1883. The total number of strikes during tho year was 44,950, and they lost altogether 366, 150 days' work and £125,000 in wages. Tbo ohief strike was that of the cigar and oigarette makora, who lost 163,000 days and £63,100 in wages. Experiments have for some time been mado in Belgium for preserving wood by exhausting the air from the pores and filling them with liquid guttapercha. The guttapercha is liquified by mixing it ¦with parafhn and subjecting it to heat. After it is introduced into the pores, it hardens as it becomes cold. The Duke of Cumberland is stated to bo in luck's way. The Duke of Brunswick left to lu'm his villa at Heitzing, and on an iron safo being opened, notes, &c, to tho value of £100,000 were discovered. During four years British Colnmbia has received 17,000 Chinese immigrants. Onefourth of the business done in Victoriii, the capital, is in Chinese hands. About one hundred Christian China*) women have been married to Christian Chinese in tho mission chapel at Ban Francisco. An American paper says that the greatest tea-drinker in England is Mr. Gladstone ; the greatest in France, M. Clemenoeau; and in America, Mr. BoncicauU. The latter carries, while travelling, a flask of tea, as others do of cognac. Over 20,000 Germans are employed in London, monopolising almost entirely the barber, tailor, and waiter trades. They work for far lower wages than the English. Tarsus, tho birthplace of, St.* Paul, now boasts of Young Mou's Christian Association vigorously at work, and of a native Bible- woman successfully engagedin teaching her sex from house to house, There are 2380 co-operative societies in Germany, with a membership of over 1,000,00*0, and last year they purchased over £750,000,000 of goods. A Portsmouth correspondent states that in connection with the proposed increase of the navy, orders have beon reoeived at Portsmouth to concentrate as rauoh labour as possible on tho armoured ships in hand . and to facilitate their completion the men from next week are to work ono-oighth extra 1 time daily. Dr. Seltzer, in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, recommends beof tea made very hot with red popper for delirium tremens. A London surgeon is stated to have treated 150 cases successfully with this remedy alone. Dr. B. W. Richardson declares that the mental phonomena of typhoid fever are full of suggestions, and that typhus is marked by short, delirious dreams, remittent fevers by long, dolorous, and painful dreams, and scarlet fever by realistic dreams. Steps are being taken at Cambridge for raising a university memorial to tho late Professor Fawcett. When the mills of Mr. Michael Simpson, a Boston millionaire lately deceased, were burned down, every workman who had other people dependent on him reoeived regular wages while tho now mills were building. The Pekin mandarins are said to have subscribed £200, GOT) for the war against Franco. A very dcop well v being sunk at White Plains, Nevada, on what they call the Forty-mile desert, in the neighbourhood of the sink of the Humboldt. A record of the progross of this well will be of interest to many persons. They have found salt water, hot water, and finally, at a depth of 1650 ft, they came across wood. The chief reliance of the Morman Church for accessions from without is 'Great Britain. Out of 27,000 persons who' have. recently become Mormons, 20,000 have come from that country. During the year 1884 there were 2946 new buildings erected in Brooklyn, that being 254 more than were erected in 1883. The estimated number of buildings now in Brooklyn is 72,055, indicating a population of 666,509. An old attache of the Washington Capw tol says that in former dayß professional speech-writers used to get from £20 to £70 from Congressmen fora good oration. Jews own and work more than 1,260,000 acres of land in Russia, and rent from the Crown nearly 1,580,000 acres more. Lynn, Mass., shipped 296,933 and Haverhill 194,761 cases of shoes during the year. Italy has 325 prisons, with a constant avorage population of 40,000 offenders and 32,000 convicts. Among the latter are more than 5000 condemned to hard labour for life, which means 5000 murderers, and 1800 to more than 20 yoars, the far larger number of whom are murderers also. It is stated that a new Russian ironclad on tho model of the Italian ship Duilio will be commenced next year. Her capacity will be 11,000 tens, and her armour plating will be 12in thick. The registered horse-power will be 8000, and speed seventeen knots. It is feared at Brussels that King Leopold will become insane owing to his- great political anxiety. A magnificent piece of amber weighing ijlb is on exhibition in the Royal Geographical Museum in Berlin. It was found at a depth of 60ft below the surface. It appears, from an account of Viennese society now publishing in Parii, that there are no less than 70 Archdukes and Archduchesses belonging to the House of Hapsburg, who all marry into the royal oasto, form a dan among themselves, and do not associate on intimate terms even with the highest nobility. The German authorities, with a view to discouraging emigration, have forbidden the railways to carry emigrants at reduoed rates. Every visitor to the World's Exposition in New Orleans is required to deposit a silver half-dollar in a glass box in oharge of the doorkeepers, no admission ticket being sold. The second prize for butter at the Calcutta exhibition was awarded for a fine Bample of American oleomargarine. Some one spoiled a good joko, and the judges reconsidered their award. '¦ Amsterdam speculators have a scheme on foot to supply London with milk. It is proposed to build four vessels of 750 tone each, to convey over 60,000 quarts of fresh Dutch milk daily to Harwich from Amsterdam. , Tho German Postal Department for 188384 shows a surplus of 21,000,000 marks (£1,080,000). The poor pay of the port officials, especially of the lower grades, has mado this l&rgn surplus possible. The newspapers and periodical* of all kinds now issued in the United States and the Dominion of Canada reach a total qf 13,402— a net increase of 1200 during, tha year 1883. In that year the daily journals advanced in number from 1138 to 1254, the weeklies from 9062 to 10,028, and the monthlies from 1091 to 1499. The great French painter, Bastion Lepage, had an odd fancy for painting his female sitters with their mouths open. The republic of Nicaragua owes no foreign debt, and has sufficient surplus in the Treasury to pay its home debt on a moment's warning. The coalfields of Arkansas have an area of 12,000 square miles. Divers in the vicinity of Gibraltar have bo far found 102 large guns. The Paris fortifications 'are likely to make room for working men's houses. There ase now 70,000 families in the city unable to get proper accommodations, and the Government has promised to soon' attaok the fortifications. : ' In 1816 there were in Prussia 123,933 Jews ; in 1843, 206,627 ; in IS6I, 262,000 ; and in 1880, 363,790. Seventeen per cent, of all Jews in the kingdom reside at Berli*. England paid £5,000,000 last year to foreigners for cheese. The construction of a railway from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Golf is proposed. It is estimated that there are in New city alone over 20,000 Italian, men, women, and children who are without work. Judge Russell, of Boston, claims to have discovered that Captain Miles Standish was a Roman Catholic. The Constitution of Portugal is to be m modified that the Chamber of Peers shall consist of 100 life peers to be appointed by the King and fifty peers to be elected by an indirect process. At a village in Gloucestershire, a short time ago, the banns were published between a bachelor of 79 and a spinster of 80. Among the scientific novelties by which hist year will be remembered, is that of hatching chickens by electricity. The coinage of the United States Mint at Philadelphia during hut year aggregated 52,270,000 pieces, valued at £3,389,600. • There are in the United States Army 18,262 privates, 2913 storekeepers, musicians, etc., 4660 non-commissioned and 2193 commissioned officers— 2B,o2B in all. An English newspaper called the Continental Express, and appearing thrice a week, has just been started at Dresden, .