MISCELLAJNTEOTTS EXTRACTS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1754, 1 June 1886, Page 4

MISCELLAJNTEOTTS EXTRACTS.

The King and Queen of Sweden have joined the Blue Kibbon Temperance Army. A pumpkin has been showu at Opotiki, measuring 6 feet 4 inches round, and weighing 9llb. A proposal has been made to establish State granaries in England, as a means of precaution against possible famine in time of tfar. Professor Dana, of Yale College, says geology furnishes no satisfactory testimony as to changes of species. At a place north-east of Eticup, W. A., a mob of blacks captured a child from the friendly natives, and killed, roasted, and ate the body. A suit over a disputed undertaker's bill in Cleveland, Ohio, developed the fact that the undertaker had retained one of the eyes of the corpse as a curiosity. The 'Kentish Observer 'states that the late Rev. A. C. Gray stone, of Tanker ton Castle, Whitstable, whosedeath occurred in London recently, has left property to the value of £4,000,000. For years John B. Gough supported the widow and family of Mr. Stratton, the man who found him drunk in the streets of Worcester, Mass., and induced him to sign the pledge. The ' Popular Science News ' asserts that the average length of life is constantly increasing, and the time may yet come when persons 100 years old will excite no more curiosity than one of 80 years at the present time. The death is announced of the "Rev. J. E. Johnson, vicar of St. Jude, Sheffield, who a few weeks ago dismissed his congregation rather than allow them to sit in damp boots, and himself caught a cold from which he ultimately died. A young midshipman lately went out to join his ship. He was met on deck by the captain, who said : " Well, youngster, so you've come to join us. I suppose it's the old story — the fool of the family— eh? Haw, haw ! " To which the middy cutely replied : " Oh, no, sir, it's like everything else — all changed since your day ! " The captain decided not to pursue the question. Mr Euskin writing on Education, says : — " I know of nothing that has been taught the youths of our time, except that their fathers were apes, and their mothers winkles, that the world began in accident, and will end in darkness ; that honour is a folly, ambition a virtue, charity a vice, poverty a crime, and rascality the means of all wealth, and the sum of all wisdom, A Napier paper relates the foliowing : — ln the yard of the Terminus Hotel a cage contataining a tui is hung, and sparrows come for the crumbs, that fall from the cage. In return — and this is a solid fact, at least one of the visiting sparrows hnnts up worms and brings them in his bill to the tui, who, of course, bolts them with alacrity. The Prime Minister of Hungary, himself a Presbyterian, has succeeded in passing a bill through the Hungarian Parliament, by which the Presbyterian Church is to be represented by five ministers and five elders, to be elected by their congregation, to sit in the Upper House of the Hungarian Parliament, so as to be a counterpoise to the prelates of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches who have seats in that House. The French three per cent loan of forty million pounds has been successfully floated. This brings the indebtedness of France to the enormous total of eighty thousand millions sterling. The new loan has been raised (with the exception of a comparatively small sum for military stores) to pay off a floating debt which has already been contracted. Hence the Ministerialists aague the present loan is no lean at all, only a mere borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.