NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1753, 28 May 1886, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

r A farm in Limerick was sold • recently for XI. A debt of £186 lay ' upon it in the shape of arrears of rent. ' Bayonets made of steel, and bearing " a resemblance to the Government ' regulation pattern, are being sold in ' Birmingham for a penny a piece. 1 M. de Lesseps, who returned to France on March 23 from his visit to the Panama Canal, declares than mora than half the work of cutting is done, and thafc the Canal will be finished and opened in 1889. The reports of the mountain farmers | of North Wales bring the number of sheep and lambs which have perished during the recent heavy snow storms to upwards of twelve thousand. The farmers complain thafc their losses are the most serious of the past thirty yeara. Bull-fighting for the expert musfc be very profitable. The chief espada of Madrid, Larfcijo, is employed during the summer season for £6000, and lastwinter in the provinces he made £10,000. He killed 345 bulls without a single accident to himself. Baron Beaumont applied for a license for a house in course of a construction in West Kensington. The license was opposed by the neighbouring publican and refused by fche Magistrates. Owing to the protracted melting of snow in the vicinity of Roslin (Midlothian), a farmer resorted to the expedient of ploughing up the snow in order to expediteits melting before turning over the land. A decree of the 19 th December revives in New Caledonia the old system of corvees pulliques which prevailed in France up to the _th August, 1789. Every tickefc-of-leave man to whom the State has made a grant of land will be called upon to perform twelve days' labour annually for the benefit of the Government;. Afc a council meeting of the Malthußian League — the president, Dr C. R> Drysdale, in the chair — the following resolution was proposed by Mr S. Fraser, seconded by Mr Gavazzi King, and carried unanimously :— " The council of the Malfchusian League deplores, in the absence of the actual widespread distress in our cities, that statesmen of all parties are so reticent as to the real cause of poverty — namely, the bringing into the world by the suffering classes of large families, which cause overpopulation and pressure on the food supply." The Chicago Public Library, according to a recent account, seems fco have been victimised in an altogether outrageous fashion. Some five years ago, a young man was charged with bookstealing, but strange to say, was acquitted on the ground " that a young man who did so much of it, and bo neatly, must be a kleptomaniac.'' After this he went away, changed his name, and returned to hia old tricks at the same place, and stole some 2000 more volumes before he was detected. The authorities this time still adhered to the kleptomaniac theory, and sent him to a lunatic asylum. The estimated number of passengers carried annually on the united Berlin tramways is 90 millions. A statistician has calculated that, if every person thus transported saves only ten minutes' time on avery working day of ten hours, counting 300 days to the working year, the aggregate saving of time in a single calendar year will amount to 5000 working years. Adding to this the saving of twenty minutes' time for 15 millions of persons carried by the city railroad— namely, 1666 working years — the grand annual saving for the travelling Berlin public would be 6666 working years in a twelvemonth. How many > ears the underground railway has added to London life no statistician can calculute. ' The Week ' (Toronto) thus refers to the cost of the suppression of Bid's rebellion .—-Four millions, which was our estimate of the rebellion expenses at the time, though it seemed to optimists excessive, has proved far within the mark. The direct; expenses are five millions, and compensation, with other affcerclaps, is likely to foot up two or three millions more. This to put down a rebellion which hardly exceeded the dimensions of a riot ! The force opposed to us seems to have been 400 men, many of whom were very poorly armed, while the whole force was badly commanded and destitute of ' military resources. We pay 100,000 ; dollars" for every enemy killed. What would be the cost of our participation 1 in a war with Russia, if a Russian force landed in British Columbia ? An extraordinary sfcory comes from Dublin. A number of gentlemen are afc present inquiring into the distress ol the country, giving notice, of course, of 1 their visits to the various districts. In [ several places this notice has had a wonderful effect in "producing " misery. ', On the day tbe Commissioners were ; expected in one parish every cow was [ driven to the mountains, women and children took to their beds, pretending l sickness; wads of straw were sub- ■ stitutf jd for cabin windows ; doors were [ broken off, and dirty old bags took the , place of ordinary bed clothing. The ; Commissioners in search of distress

could nofc under these circumstances be disappointed. Mr Walter Besant, in the * Contemporary Review' tells us that the Education Act, from which so much was expected in the mother country, is a failure, and that it is now perceived it can never achieve the results anticipated from it. A very small percentage of all the children who pass through the schools are educated at all, and what little they have acquired is speedily forgotten when they turn out into the world at 13 years of age. " Continuation schools," like those established in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium, must, it is urged be instituted in England, so that the pupils may receive thafc technical education without which fche mofcher country cannot calculate upon maintaining her place at the head of the industrial nations of the world." Cannot this be said of the New Zealand Act ? and should not some change for the better be made 1