GOSSIP FROM ABROAD.

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 11

GOSSIP FROM ABROAD.

A boy preacher of five years old is attracting attention amongst certain people in the United States. His mother has taken hkn regularly; to church, and though ho cannot read.he delivers, we "are told, fluent discourses in an earnest manner. He cannot get on without mufiio to start him off, as it were. An eye-witness of one of the drawing-room services conducted by this child relates that at the conclusion of the opening hymn the boy desired the congregation to kneel in' prayer, and when they showed no sign of obeying he bogan to cry. However, he soon proceeded with the service, and preached with surprising command of language and gesture..

Fashion's mandate that purses, reticules, travelling bags, and footwear must be made of alligator hide has made alligator hunting an Industry in Louisiana and Florida, and the monsters are rapidly being exterminated. So marked has. been this destruction that the Police Jury of iPlaquemines Parish nave been compelled to prohibit the further killing. It seems that alligators feed largely on muskrats, and since the lessening of the number of the former the rats have increased enormously and have seriously- damaged crops.

The officers of the Palestine Exploration Fund' of England announce that after a long delay they have at last received a firman from the Sultan of Turkey whioh gives them permission to resume their excavations and researches in Palestine. The Turkish Government requested the officers of the society to furnish the name of the site at and around which they propose to begin operations. The latter, have pledged themselves to transmit to the Imperial Museum in Constantinople all objects of antiquity found in the excavations. They are permitted, however, to keep duplicates and to make copies and take squeezes of all inscriptions and reliefs, and to take photographs of everything. ~"

Julien, the great pastrycook, whose death was recently reported, has left 30,060 francs a year, in which his wife io to have a life interest, to the poor of Paris. The half of the remainder of his large fortune is to be divided among those of his oousins to tho twelfth degree who ar» infirm, notoriously poor, and over sixty years of age.

The announcement that seventy female olerks are to be added almost immediately to the Savings' Bank establishment has moved the editress of Wermia Penny Paper to tell women post-office workers that their customers do not think them sufficiently obliging. Says this paper, with a frankness that would be ungallant in men, and is more usefully said by a woman's newspaper I: ♦* Men, it is said, are businesslike enough to understand that thejr are employed with a view to transacting Post Office business ; women., on the other hand, appear to think that they are placed behind the counter In order to be short/sharp, and disagreeable. This, unfortunately, is to a very large extent true, and as it seriously detracts from, their value as workers and hinders the advance of other women, I shall return to Che chargo in a future number."

A rich treasure of more than 1.000 silver coins of the eleventh century has been found while digging tho foundations for a new house in the CKergrasse, in Bonn. The coin* were all in a large pot, and, strange to say, the workmen allowed children and strollers to take away a considerable quantity, and their attempt to soil the pieces caused the discovery to become known, whereupon the mayor ordered the remainder to bo taken to tho Rathhaus and preserved.

In the introduction to the current number of the Archiv, the illustrious physician, Professor Virohow, publishes some interesting observations on the progress of medical science, ajn-opos of the International Congress to be held in Berlin in August next. The old leader of tho ■«• Fortsohntfc " party is no stronger . to politics 5 but dne of the most inspiriting passages in his address is that in which he deplores " the only occasion on which political feeling has been allowed to prejudice the purely neutral relations of nations." This refers to the choice •f Washington last year instead of Berlin in deference to the protests of the Frenoh members. The Washington Congress, however, has voted for Berlin as the next scene of their beneficent labours, and it will not be the fault of the founder of these great meetings if the feeling of the past should still prevail. Their German brethren, ho promises, will gladly learn from others, and will be mindful of the feelings of aIL " For we physicians," he says, "do not mak« war. It is our first and fairest task to mitigate its terrors, and to replace hate and discord by reconciliation and unity."

The cotton industry has been started at Colombo. Ijarge quantities of cotton can be grown, in. various parts of Ceylon and brought cheaply to Colombo, whore it ia readily bought by th'o Ceylon Spinning and Weaving Company. The first cotton mills in the colony have been started near the capital, and to begin with 10,000 spindles and 150 looms are now working, or soon will bo. Probably before long the present premises will be oxtended so as to include 20,000 spindles and 400 looms. Lancashire will thus find another rival, though a email one to begin with.

The late Mr. Joe Ronayne, member for the City of Cork, was (according to the Daily NewsJ one of the wittiest and most goodhumoured of men, but though Mr. O'Connor Power sat with him in the House of Commons for years, ho never once heard him do justice to his powers. He was out of harmony with the tone of the Houee, but in Irish gatherings outside Parliament, and in the society of his friends, Joe's genial and pungent wit was, wo are told, in full force. He died from the effects of the amputation of a. leg. When the doctors had decided to cut it off, a friend said to him, " Joe, 1 am particularly sorry your leg has to be cut off." " Why are you particularly sorry P' inquired the sufferer. " Because, said his friend, " you will never be able to stand for the city again." To which Joe, turning in the bod on which he expired a day or two later, quietly replied, " Sure if I can't stand for the city I can stump the county."

Wordsworth lias given us in a sonnet on sleep a well-nigh exhaustive list of the remedies for restlessness at night ; but Mr. Amyot, }f Disc, has discovered another, which might have suited King George 111. when the hop-pillow failed. Mr. Amyot is indeed of opinion that had it only boon known to "the King" Great Bolingbroke " when he lay in tho solitude of his sick chamber, it would have gone hard with Shakespeare's immortal soliloquy. This is simply a hanging chessboard, whose squares are each provided with a hook on which to hang chessmen of special construction. The plan is to set out a problem here and suspend it to the wall right facing the sufferer, who, if Mr. Amyot's experience is worth anything, will gradually dozo away in the effort to work out the ending.

Mr. Lock wood is preparing a Bill for the House of Commons to give the light of appeal in murder cases. The distinguished lawyer is not, in favour of a court of criminal appeal — a tribunal to which every prisoner found guilty of any offence could appeal ; but he do sires to relievo the Home Secretary of un onerous burden, which ia rendered more irksome by political considerations. The appeal court which ho seeks to establish would merely dischargo tho present functions of the Homo Office in cases when; capital punishment has been awarded. It would consist of throe or moro judges of the Queen's Bench Division, assisted by tho judge present at the trial, who would have full shorthandwriters' notes of tho proceedings before tho jury, and receivo all such other information as now goes before the Home Secretary. Tho lion, member for York does not think that tho prisoner should of necessity bo represented by counsel before this tribunal, which in other respects would investigate tho wholo circumstances much in tho sumo way as the Court of Crown Cases Reserved reviews the facts submitted to it.