Miscellaneous Items.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XVIII, Issue 4291, 10 September 1897, Page 4

Miscellaneous Items.

At a meeting of the Royal Botanic Society it was stated that several of the streets of Basingstoke had had to be repaved, owing fc« the flagstones having been forced out of j^ositioo by an undergrowth of fungi. The Queen's Jubilee present from the British residents in the Tranavaal is in the form j «f a go'S shield, weighing 131b. The address, which runs to 260 words, it eugravod thereon. It S3 adorned with 132 diamonds. Something like a record. Mr W. H Groom, one of the representatives in the Queensland Assembly for Dray ton electoral c c mp!et@ 1 hie thirty-fift! ye ir of political life on the 11th August, L ,e was elected in 1352, and has represented the one con etituenoy continuously ever since. At Kansas City (Missouri) the police have begQn to force the women prisoners in the | g a ol to break stones for street repairs, and to wear coarse overalls while at the work. I'bia step was taken on the ground that the women are not p nished enough by detention in gaol if they aie allowed to be idle. & Devonshire lady of independent meanhas jait died after apanding nearly a.lifetime in bed, Thirty-nine years ago ahe c*me to the conclusion that bed was the most comfortable place in the world, and decided upon remaining there for the rest of her life. ¥Rom that day, although enjoyins? excellent healthy «he never got up again. An appalling invention has been " made in Germany," having for its object the preveution of permature burial. The machine is well calculated to add a new terror to the eraveyard. It works on the slightest movement in the buried coffin, bo that a passing vanor atil! snore a moving train may by the oscillation it sets up cause the dread thing to work. And what happens is this. An iron box springs open ; a black flag flies wildly upright, a bell olangs, and the glare of an electric lamp lightens the countrywide. 3?his machine would be more terrifying than « gnogfc, if it worked !