News and Notes in Brief.

Vice-Admiral Sir John Hopkins replaces Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. Sir Michael Culme-Seymour succeeds Admiral Sir Nowell Salmon, V.0., as com-mander-in-chief at Portsmouth in June next. Though Sir Henry Keppel heads the active list of the navy, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alexander Milne, who was born on 10th November, 1806, is the father of the fleet, being Sir Henry KeppeFs senior by nearly three years. This nonagenarian joined the naval service in ISI7, and 26 years ago reached full flag rank. His service career has been as distinguished aa it has been long. Mr. Sims Beeves is about to visit America,. He will be six weeks in New York and the big cities, and will take in California on his way to Australia, where he hopes to recoup the heavy pecuniary losses of the past three years. He is very well pleased with his South African tour. He describes President Kruger as " a most kindly old man." He was " not so muoh impreiißed" with Dr. Leyds. " It is wonderful to consider how a command to be liberal all of a sudden impoverishes the rich, breaks the merchant, shuts up every private man's exchequer, and makes those men in a minute have nothing, who at the very same instant want nothing to spend. So that, instead of relieving the poor, such a command strangely increases their number, and transforms rich men into beggars presently." A reflection by the Roy. Dr. South. Pope Leo XIII. has a nervous temperament, and this, it is said, added to his incessant work and exertions, renders him liable to frequent insomnia. He has not slept lately much more than two hours a night. When sleep does not come to him, he composeA Latin verses, or calls one of his secretaries and dictates to him, in his bedroom, sentences, sketches for documents or for encyclioal letters, and thus keeps constantly at work The principal physical trouble with the Pope is that he catches cold easily, which renders him voiceless. Dr. Robert Anderson, C.8., Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department in London, if a member of a family intimately associated with the conduot of criminal trials. Dr. Anderson's father, the late Mr. Matthew Anderson, who was Crown Solicitor for the City of Dublin for nearly half a century, was the solioitor in charge of the Fenian prosecutions in Dublin in 1865-67, and Dr. Anderson's eldest brother, the late Sir Samuel M. Anderson, who was knighted for his public services, wan solicitor in the prosecution of the Phoenix Park murderers in 1883, and was one of the Irish offioials marked out at that time for assassination. Mrs. Temple, the present Primate's wife, counts cousinship with half the greatest houses in England. Her mother, Lady Caroline Lascelles, was sister to the Queen's great friend Harriett, Duchess of Sutherland, and to the mother of the Duke of Devonshire. At the Archbishop's wedding Mome one came up to him and said, "Oh, Bishop, here is the Duke of • asking to be introduced to his new relative." Dr. Temple, who had already wrung several ducal hands under similar circumstances, exclaimed, "What! more dukes !" Mid. Temple's brother is Ambassador at Berlin, and her sister is mother to the Duke of Devonshire's nephew and heir. A noted physician has met with great success iv his treatment of persistent cases of '* nervous " headaches, and he hat) finally disolosed the secret. -In eaoh case, he fays, after the patient had laid bare a long tale of woe -of sleepless nights and miserable days — he prescribed, briefly, a simple haircut. The ourative property of the treatment is based on the fact that the tube whioh passes through the entire length of e.teh singlr hair is severed in the process, and the hair "bleeds," as tho barber says, thereby opening a safety valve for the congested cramum. During alterations to Trevor Hall, Llangollen, the workmen found in the roof a hundred and sixty £5 Bank of England notes, and a bank-book containing deposits amounting to £1200. The money is believed to have lain there for seventy-two years. A deputation from the mineral water trade to the Home Secretary stated thai 30,000 women were engaged in the trade in London alone. One firm's output of bottles varied from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 a week iv the summer months. The Japanese show their appreciation of an actor's playing in a substantial manner. They throw various portions of their drees on the etago, and at the end of the performance the favoured person claims the money that the donors repurchase them with, the prices for the various articles being at fixed rates. The average price of tea sold at the Mincinglano Sale-rooms, London, during the last year has boon nuver more in a single month than 9£d per pound, and only I*7 per cent, of the whole was bought wholesale for more thau Is. Cigarette smoking in England dates back to 1844 The great impetus to their increased use was caused by the Crimean War of 1854-56, when numbers of military and naval officers adopted this method of smoking- from the inhabitant* of Russia, Turkey, Malta, Levant, and other parts of Europe. The vixit of the Tsar of Russia to France cost the French Government £280,000. Paper-hangings for use ou walls were introduced into Europe from the East in 1675. France has more money in circulation in proportion to its population thau any other country. Previous to the sixteenth century every physician in Europe wore a ring on his finger, as an iudioatiun of his profession. A Cincinnati rcsiuuraut announces " eighteen carrot vegetable soup."