NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Bruce Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 1762, 29 June 1886, Page 4

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

The Chinese frequently condemn, a prisoner, to be kept awake until he diea. A criminal under such circumstances lives nine or ten days. A line of soundings just completed across the South Pacific from New Zealand to the Straits of Magellan, by Commander Barker, U.S.N., found 3002 fathoms, near Chatham Island, tbe greatest depth. An Italian has, it is alleged, invented a luminous printing ink that renders it possible for newspapers to be read in the dark. What a luxury it will be, when one is restless at night, to be able to take up a book or newspaper and read himself into a somnolent condition without the trouble or danger attending other lights! News comes from Aden that the Emir of Harar, a town in North-east Africa, has put to death all the Europeans in that place. Among those massacred were the Italian scientific expedition under Count Porro. The Emir afterwards marched upon Gildezza and captured the town, taking prisoners the Anglo-Egyptian garrison, consisting cf about 100 men. An official paper shows that the number of agrarian outrages in Ireland during the quarter ended 3J.st March numbered 256. This includes 3 cases of murder, 19 cases of incendiary fires, 17 cases of killing and maiming cattle, 121 cases of sending threatening letters, 8 cases of aggravated assault, 5 cases of assaults on bailiffs, and 24 cases of injury to property. That there is nothing uew under the sun has again been discovered in the case of Professor Pasteur. It appears from a work published by Dr Vinson that no less a personage than Radama 11., King of Madagascar, had some idea of the inoculation system. " This Monarch ," says the author " believed that a cure for all diseases, and particularly those of the skin, might be found in a homoeopathic virus. He made a series of curious experiments. He accumulated in a phial a little of all he poisons of humanity, and, convinced that the mixture would be a panacea for all contagious maladies, he inocu- i lated his Ministers first of all to see how it would act." Unfortunately his Malagasy Majesty died before he had concluded his experiments. What became of the poor Ministers Dr Vinson is not able to say, but it is supposed they suffered the same fate as Professor Pasteur's rabbits. There lives in North Devon, a clergyman who for many years has hatched out thousands of Loch Leven trout in his parsonage ground — the operations being carried on in a most primitive j manner. A few troughs made ) by the village carpenter out of yellow deal, a filter constructed from a large petroleum cask, filled with large gravel and pieces of old blanket, together with some lead and iron pipes, comprise all his apparatus, the whole costing less than ten pounds. Yet with these simple appliances he manages to hatch 95 per cent, of the ova which he obtains yearly from the establishment at Howietoun ; and not only stocks a large piece of watar in his own occupation, but sells quantities to those who are desirous of improving their trout streams. This proves that costly and intricate appliances are not requisite for the mere hatching of fche fish. It is easy enough to bring out the young fry from the eggs ; the difficulty is to attain such a knowledge jof the habits and requirements of the fish as is necessary to bring them to maturity. Hawkie one night in Stockwell Street, Glasgow, was in his oration treading perhaps rather hard on the corns of the Irish portion of his j congregation. A son of Erin, stepping ' to the front, asking Hawkie, " Now, | did you Scots sell your King for a j groat V Hawkie replied "He had j never read of that ; but if it was the case it had every chance* to be as much as he was worth, as the Scots never were kent to sell their hen on a rainy day ; but you Irish never had a king to sell, and, if you bad ever had Irish Kings that could bring groats apiece, ye would have brought them to the hammer, and we wid have seen Irish Kings hanging in dozens at every broker's door. But, Paddy, what did you get for your Parliament when you sold it ?" By this time Paddy was in full retreat. j Sir Provo William Parry Wallis, G.8.C., the senior admiral of the fleet, has jast attained his 95th year, having been born at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, on April 12, 1791. The gallant veteran first went to sea in 1804, but was borne on the books of the navy since 1795, when he was only four years old, his father having occupied an official position in the naval yard at Halifax. He took a prominent part in the memorable action off Boston between the Shannon (of which he was the second lieutenant) and the American frigate Chesapeake, #which was captured after a desperate struggle of 15 minutes, on June 1, 1813, nearly 73 years ago. The French are going to have an exhibition in 1889 to commemorate the centenary of the Revolution. An iron tower, double the height of the Great Pyramid, is to be built iv the grounds _fc a cost of two hundred thousand pounds. It will certainly be a very remarkable piece of engineering, this Parisian Tower of Babel. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that " thearchitect and inventor " thinks he will, recover four-fifths of the £200,000 it will cost from the visitors who will ascend ic. He also stipulates that it

shall be " allowed to stand " for some time after tlie exhibition closes. " I was amused," writes a correspondent of the * Pall Mall Gazette,' "to notice the other day a remark concerning the imperative necessity for a simple, moral, and practical limitation in the excessive multiplication of the human race. The doctrine, is not a popular one in. London. The other day I met a man who told me with an air of pride that he had had no fewer than twenty-one children — but injustice it must be adraittted that he had been twice married. He was a working painter, about fifty years of age, and seemed fairly happy. But this is nothing to two other cases that came to my knowledge this week. One is c that of a poor woman, living in two rooms in the East-end, who has been safely delivered of her twenty-foarth child, and the other that of a well-to-do lady in the north of London, who is now cheerfully preparing for the arrival of her thirtieth. Of the twenty-nine already born seventeen are still alive. These are English families indeed."