SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4733, 7 October 1886, Page 4

SCISSORS.

A company with a capital of £1,000,000 is about to be floated iv London for the purpose of carrying out a self-supporting system of emigration. " The number of barrels of beer charged ■with duty in England in ISBC was 27,194,803, against 27,980,493 for 1880, which involved a decrease on the net receipt for the previous year of £141,168. A money-lender in a large way of business is reported to have cleared out of Melbourne for America. His liabilities are stated to be £50,000. Ho is said to have been heavily involved in tho wholesalo jewellery business. Robt. Baine, a printer, aged 20, has boen fined 10s. for walking about South Melbourne dressed as a female with a sofa pillow for an improver. The sofa pillow may he more substantial, but it is scarcely au improvement on tho improvor. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company havo sriven Messrs Caird and Co., shipbuilders, Greenock, an order to build a screw steamer of about 7,000 tons, and proportionate engine power, being by far tho largest evor built aud launched at Greenock.

At Sebastopol and the other war ports of the Black Sea a wire apparatus has boen placed in the sea by American engineers to catch and destroy" hostile torpedo boats by electric fuses. The construction is kept a secret. The port of Sebastopol was closed for 12 hours while the apparatus was being laid.

A few weeks ago their died at Herford, in Westphalia, Wilheim Gottschulk, the last of the celebrated Free Corps at Jagers, known as Liitzow's Wild Huntsmen, raised in tho Prussian War of independence against Napoleon in 1813 ; he had taken part in every skirmish and action in which the corps was engaged. At an Oddfellows' fete recently held in Plymouth, England, in the midst of a footrace a rush was mado for a raised platform, which suddenly gave way. AVhcn tho struggling mass of people had been extricated, it was found that of three sisters named Coombo two had been killed and one dreadfully crushed, and that several other persons had been injured. The French are making a new gun intended to discharge manuscript spring poems into tho ranks of tho enemy, but the Germans heard of it through a spy, and are manufacturing a mortar that will shoot a whole spring poet a distance of nine miles. Tho penetrating power of these guns must be left to tho imagination. An ironclad editorial office would be no defence at all. An elephant belonging to Bostock and Wombwell's menagerie, while marching into Portsmouth, England, ran into Hilsea Barracks, seized a sentry round the leg, and threw him to the ground before he had time to protect himself. The animal then galloped round tho barrack square, exciting the greatest consternation; but, after eating a dish of potatoes and drinking some water, he quietly went away. An accident, which might havo been attended with serious consequences, befell Mr John Forde in the Melbourne Opera House, while performing the part of Louchard in opera of Madame Angot. During the scuffle scene terminating the first act tho drop unexpectedly descended, the roller striking the actor on the head, and leaving him, hatless and bewildered, alone on the stage, between the curtain and the footlights. Her Majesty's ship Vulture, thrco guns, which was built in Sheernoss about eighteen years ago, has been sold out of the Royal Navy as unfit for active service. The Vulture was one of the last wooden gun-vessels built for the Royal Navy before the introduction of composito shipbuilding, and has had a considerable amount of foreign service. She was last employed on the East Indies station, where she took a prominent part in the suppression of slavery, capturing several dhows engaged in that nefarious

traffic. There is an old tradition that during tho great war at the commencement of the century, prize-money was so plentiful with English sailors that they would cat bank notes for wagers. A contest of this kind, although not so easy to accomplish, has just taken place at Lure. Two small farmers, in a fit of drunkenness, defied each other to swallow tho greatest number of silver sfr pieces; each adversary to supply the coin to the other. One achieved his twelfth ; but the other stuck at his second, which got stuck in his throat, and he had to be removed to a hospital at Nancy suffering fearful pain.

The South Australian Government boring party employed in search for water on the Mullabor Plains have achieved this object at a depth of 7001-. from the surface and twenty miles inland from the' head of the Great Australian Bight. The water, which was struck in sand, rose at once to within 150 ft of the surface. It is good stock water, but slightly brackish. The Government geologist considers that the underground supplies coming from tho high land about the Musgravo Ranges havo been tapped, and that similar success will be achieved in other parts of tho plains. These plains aro good pastoral country, though hitherto waterless.

The United States Economist states that the clip of wool is short the world over, and prices of the staple and goods must go still higher most inevitably. There is nothing surer than this, and the sooner tho trade make up their minds to the inevitable the better. I'he Journal, a Boston paper of repute, says the brightest part of this improvement in the trade is its legitimacy. There is, of course, some speculation, as is to be expected on a rising market, but the largest manufacturers havo been and aro free purchasers. Extra fine wools have been bringing such high prices, and it is freely stated that all the fancy Saxony clips have been bought up by a single company up to 58c. per lb.

An order in Council has been published in the Government Gazette of Queensland imposing, under the Immigration Act Amendment Bill, recently passed, certain conditions for limiting the operations of the Immigration Act in regard to nominated immigrants. The new conditions provide that no person above the age of 55 is eligible for nomination; and, further, that no mechanic or artisan he nominated without tho special permission of the Minister. No applications will bo received unless from persons bona fide resident in Queensland for the previous six months; and tho immigration agent must satisfy himself that the person nominated is a personal friend or relative of the applicant. Mr Frank Thornton and Mr H. R. Har-

wood, who havo been associated in the re-

presentation of "Tho Privato Secretary" -throughout tho colonies, have travelled as iar north as Townsville and Charters

Towers. From North Queensland they were, according to a letter from Mr Hary wood, to return direct to Melbourne to reappear at the Bijou Theatre. It is stated that the third season of "The Private Secretary" in Sydney, and its second in Adelaide and Brisbane, wero financially niore successful than the former ones, and that the Queensland one has been very . t prosperous. Mr Thornton will make his final appearance in Australia in the comiii"Bijou season, prior to leaving with his ~ family for England.

' A correspondent writes: —Happening to tako up an old book of travels by Captain Chamier, E.N., I camo across the following anecdote about the Emperor of Germany, then Prince of Prussia, about 30 years ago: •" On my return to Melleray," says Captain Chamier, "I found a miserable-looking dirty vehicle driving to tho door from which descended a young man with another of more mature ago. Thero was a servant who looked nearly as poor as his masters, and who handed out a carpet-bag which seemed tho working material of the trio. The two first went into the modest public room, and at one end of tho long table wore Boon enjoying what in England is called a substantial tea; tho servant swaggered, and of course was better fed. He was not disposed to disguise himself, or the master he served; ho was evidently somebody, this servant—and very soon, unable to contain within himself the honor of his position, in-£-_med my courier that his master, tho young man, was the Prince of Prussia. I never saw a more modest and agreeablelooking young man in my life. At 4in tho morning, without in the slightest manner disturbing the inhabitants of the inn, and paying a bill of about fifteen francs, thip active Prince continued his jmirnoy. Here was an example worthy of being followed. There wus no foolish Ostentation, no encouragement for plunder, no overbearing impertinenuo, but tho manner and conduct of a thorough nobleman and careful gentleman."