CLIPPINGS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8596, 25 September 1893, Page 4

CLIPPINGS.

By the death of Herr Arthur Kube, in hie thirty-eighth year, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses resident in the city of Berlin are made happy in their old age by a legacy of from five to six million marks. Herr Kube, in leaving this amount of capital to the city, desires thati an institution shall be founded for old schoolmasters and schoolmistresses whose pensions are not jeufficient to maintain them as their positions demaad. The recipients of this charity must be Protestants. The two sisters of the testator, with other relatives, receive legacies of the interest of this sum, and after their deaths their shares will go to swell the capital in the hands of the Berlin magnates.

The French Academy, eaye the Daily News, has at length given its assent to a scheme for the reform of French spelling. This decision, which has been postponed year after year, has been carried in the face of strong opposition. The Due d'Aumale was in favour of the old spelling, M. Greard (Rector of the University) in favour of the new, and both were supported by.a pretty equal number of followers. M. Emile Ollivier, a recent convert to spelling reform, carried the waverere. The new rules of spelling will shortly. appear in a booklet issued by the Academy with accompanying Commentaries. Among the new alteration* submitted to public approval are the suppression of the hyphen in compound words, aud the reduction to symmetry of regular plurals. The addition of the '• s" is to be henceforth the uniform sign of this number. Thus voices wilJ be spelt Vois instead of Voix. "" Paragraph" will become in the plural " alineas " iustead of as now alinea.

The following detailed account of * n pedition through East Africa, undo* ??' $ command of Froiherr yon Manteuffel £ v reached Berlin. In X warn guru, w |, er * Ir* \ Sultau Lonjo had been appoiuted Vali k* the Germaus, throe insurgent chiof* r , I refused to tocogniso German ruW 5 I' organised forays, wero to be tried' >v I. submitted, but tho third, Matura t V Pongwo, had to bo forced to Bubmi«? U X The head of the troopn' reached NiZ I thousand metres from Pongwe, upon Tf £ II tho guns wero planted. A uutnbar i ¥ people wero seen in front of the vilU ' H beating the war-drum amidst howls a 8! W\ yells, and several shots wero fired by th r Hereupon tho Commander gave order, f I tho village to be bombai g Zlt After the fourth shot a remarkable ino,Z!; >> l took place. Tho troops as well a !K ■' bearers were attacked by a gigantic awim % of been and completely touted. It »„ • about uu hour ior them all to colkJ l " together again, Sergeant-Major Mittelataedt > and an Ascari being missing.. Tho guns anH J' ammunition had been left behind on th r mountain. A patrol was sent, out to search t tor the sergeant and he was found at hu i v gun nearly stung to death. An hour after ¥ wards, when tho sergeant had recovered* £' tho fight was rosumml and the vilUei $'. stormed. The effect of the grenades had »q frightened tho enemy that tho village w&i I completely deserted. As the people o! Pongwe had offered armed resistance, ami & had escaped pumshment by flight, the only £' way to deal with them was to destroy their " ; village. |,

Recant news from Fiji (says tho Auckland Star), states that letters received there from Rotumah, an island some distance to the north of tho Fiji Group, atate th»t thero lias been a great falling off in the quantity of copra made tit this island owine to the past hurricaues and drought and some kind ofa disease which hus affected the trees, causing tho nuts to fall when about two-thirds grown. "Even if nuts were plentiful," writes a correspondent ftfc Rotumah, "I do not think there would hn people lei t to work them up. Most of the young and able-bodied men go away, leav« ing only the old and decrepit to 'work There are a great many of the young away from the island who will never return. The people of this island are doomed soon to disappear like tho natives of Eastei Island. I landed on this island fourteen years ago, r.ud I should judge there worenfc that time about 3000 people on it. At the present time I do not think the population exceeds 1500. Thero has been a great decrease in these few years back. I know ef one village where thero aro only two or three people living, whore formerly there were hundreds. In a village called Voimosi you could once count thorn by hundred!j afc present there are only s.hout coven all told. And so with a good few other villages."

According to a British fanning journal, there are several destructive diseases oi animals in India, of which there is uo experienco in the British Itiles. They ma maladies peculiar to the soil, climato and herbage of the country. Many of them we of obscure origin, and their preciso nature has not been accurately determined. But ' ,the most destructive disease of nil in our' Indian possessions is true cattle plague, or ' rinderpest. It is said to have devastated several tracts of country, aud that it hw '■ obtained a firm foothold in huniirodsof' ■ districts throughout India. It if no imaginary cireumatauco to find it valley, at ono time abounding in cattle, in a few weoki reduced to a valley of dead bone?, vith & few emaciated animals only remaining oa tho site where great herds were seen a short . time before. Some legislation is required .' to place a check ou the ravages of the de«, struotive disease which is now slaying iti hundreds and thousands in our Indian possessions. There bullock labour is thr' , -. mainstay of agriculture, and a villager's pair of bullocks represent his capital. Tia loss of these means his ruin, for tho death of his bullocks results in a total or partial joss of his crops as well. Yeomen of the ,<• country also suffer severely in the samewmyt It is said that the rinderpest in a more for* midable foe to India than even the Rnsstau himself.