SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5148, 18 February 1888, Page 4

SCISSORS.

Buckingham Palace, Loudon, cost nearly £1,000,000 to erect.

Liverpool has 122 people to the acre, or double that of London.

There aro 270 active volcanoes in the world, seven of which are in Europe.

Mary is said to be the most common christian name in the English lauguage.

A full-grown elephant of average proportion is ca})able of carrying a load of two tons.

A young man was arrested at Altrincham for beating bis bride on the afternoon of their wedding day.

The authorities of Dresden, Germany, will not allow a piano to be played in a privato house nfter half-past ten at night.

Mexico is getting ready to pay her standing army. It has been twenty-eight months since the paymaster was around, and there is a limit to some things, even in Mexico.

Mrs John Jacob Astor gave away over a million dollars to benevolence, find more than fifty New York beggars lived on her charity, and ridiculed her for her greenness.

We by no means suggest to our young people that their reading end with newspapers, but we do suggest that there is now no such means of gathering knowledge— information of a valuablo character —as through tho daily press.—Nashville American.

A North Carolina man, who lives sixteen miles from tho nearest water course, and who never saw a ship in his life, has inTented a steering gear for sail and steam craft, which is pronounced a grand success. Parties in New York have offered him §50,000 for his rights. It was not a farmer who invented the rail fence.

By the death of Francois Bonvin, at the ago of 71, religious art in France has lost ono of its worthiest illustrations. He had been blind for some time before his decease, and for the last cozen years he had been unable to take any other nourishment than an egg and a draught of water daily. One of his finest works was an "Aye Maria," which was considered to rival tho best pictures of Peter de Hoog.

M. Pillet, who for 22 years conducted all the great picture sales in Paris, and through whose hands had passed more than £6,000,000 worth of works of art and curiosities, has just been knocked clown by the hand of death. Although he had amassed a large fortune, ho lost it all by speculation in tho course of two years, and died a poor man. The highest price he ever obtained for a single lot wan from Lord Dudley, who bought a service of Sevres consisting of 172 pieces, for which he paid £!0,-'i">.

One of the lions of the day in the French capital is M. Boiivalot. a jreoirraphical explorer, 33 years of aire, -who, in company with two of his countrymen, MM. Caput and Pepin, a faithful Turcoman, and an Armenian, has succeeded in crossing the plateau of Panyr iv the depth of winter, -when the thermometer was -Huleg. below zoro at night and 50deg. above it at noon, and succeeded in reaching the valley of Cashmere, after having- been nearly overwhelmed in a snowstorm, which overtook theso intrepid adventurers at an elevation of 18,000 ft above the level of the sea—or in other woids, at tin altitude of upwards of 2,000 ft above the summit of Mount Blanc.

Shakspeare appears to be becoming increasingly popular in Paris. Hamlet" has been reproduced at the Theatre Francais, and a translation of "Much Ado About Nothing" has been ri-eeived with great favor lit the Odi'on, while the BacmShakspearu controversy is made the subject of two clever articles in Le Temps, in one of which the writer point* out that the dramatist's signal disregard of poetic justice in the conduct of his story was diametrically opposed to a very positive dictum laid down by Bacon on that very subject. Some indication of the popularity of " Much Ado About Nothing " is afforded by the fact that the receipts average .'.2')6 petnight.

Some highly successful experiments have been made iv the grounds of the inilirary balloon factory, Rut- Dcsaix, with some captive balloons intended for the use of the Italian army in Abyssinia. Each is enclosed in a case on a four wheeled car, to which the cable is attached, and around this cable two telephone wires are coiled which admit of constant, communication being kept up between the aeronaut aud the men below. As water is very .-carce in Abyssinia, a hvdrogeii generator has been established in Naples, and 10 tubes of steel, capable of resisting a pressure of 135 atmospheres, will be filled with a supply of hydrogen adequate to the inflation ot' us many balloons as are likely to be required.

A horrible case of child murder has just been adjudicated upon by the court of assizes for the department of iiidre. A vigneron named Cherany deliberately poured nearly a pint of yitriol into the mouth of his daughter Juliette, who was only six weeks old, and whose face, neck, aud shoulders presented a frightful spectacle. In defence, the unnatural father pleaded that he had already three children of a tender age, and that before the birth of his younarest born he had made up his mind to destroy it. It is painful to add that the jury seemed to sympathise with his excuse for so atrocious an act, and acquitted him, notwithstanding it came out in evidence that the poverty of which he complained was partly the result of his own drunken habits.

Ninety artists of Paris, whose names have never travelled outside the shabby genteel quarter iv which they have their studios, have formed themselves into a revolutionary committee, and have issued a manifesto which nhows that the spirit of Sam Tappertit animates the subscribers individually and collectively. The document proclaims the undying hostility of the ninety to men of talent, to members of the institute, and to all artists who have been decorated or awarded medals. Those who call themselves " the masters " are declared to be no better than the obscure crowd, and as the undistinguished many are much more numerous than the favored and famous few, the former are adjured to combine aud vote for those radical candidates who will support " Equality and Rotation."

4Some of the Parisian papers are pursuing ex-President Grcvy in his retirement with »in almost malignant animosity. Not only are they kicking him now that ho is down, but they arc doing so with hob-nailed boots. One of them slates that when Prince Alexander of Butteuberg visited Paris, in 1870, a short time after he had been called to the throne of Bulgaria, M. Grcvy not only entertained him hospitably, but exhibited such a sympathetic interest iv his fortunes us to astonish the rest'if the guests, and to suggest that tho French Government was about to take some utw departure in its foreign policy. .But before the close of thu evening it turned out that the President had been confounding Bulgaria with Ruurnnuia, and Tiruovo with Bucharest, the whole of the time.

One of tho most characteristic anecdotes of that picturesque tragedian, ICdvvinKddy, has been dormant so long that most persons must havo forgotten it. At the Sijw YorkBowery (old; Theatre mio night Eddy was billed to die of a gunshot, wound just as l.c had succeeded iv tiling oil' th,- burs of his prison and was hanging by a sheet outside his cell window. He reached the dangling Iwint without mishap. The alert otlicers evellcd their muskets, but, there was no discharge ; the guns had not been loaded. Eddy, man of endless resources that he was, betrayed no sign of dismay ; but knowing that it was imperative for him to die in order to end the piece, he shivered, dropped limp to the stage, rolled over, gripped his stomach, gurgled, struggled, groaned, exclaimed " Heavens .' .1 have swallowed the file !" and died in approved good fashion.

A female jiend, named Morraine, has been arrested at Daruetal, near Rouen, on a charge of indicting slow martyrdom on her own daughter, ouly three years of age. The police found the child lying naked and livid on a heap of mouldy straw in a iilthy Outhouse, exposed to tke. wind and thu rain. "When they entered tho place the poor little creature surveyed them with a look of terror iv her large eyes, and it was evident that it was tho first time she had been smiled upon or caressed during her short life. When they examined her body they found it covered with blue wales and with scars occassioncd by red-hot irons, applied to it by the unnatural mother. The child was removed to a place of safety, and the police hud considerable difiiculty iv preventing tho woman from being torn to pieces by her neighbors, who were wrought up to a pitch of fury upon discovering the abominable cruelties of which she had been guilty.

During Captain Finney's aquatic performance in a large glass tank on the stage of the South Loudon Palace one of the sides was accidentally splintered by a blow pf the swimmer's heel. The water rushed

through the opening and fell in a cascade over the footlights into tho orchestra. Captain Finney and his lady associate performing in the tank lost no time in scrambling out and were seemingly none tho worse. With the bandsmen it was a very different matter. All tho violins in the orchestra were put hors de combat, at least for the time being, and tho spectacle of tho sadfaced pianist resorting to a tin pot to bale out the grand piano was ono tho audience could not resist. "Baron" Courtney, the chairman, announced that a lady who had been waiting " her turn " at the wings had been so wetted she could not possibly appear, but w>th this single exception the programme was earned through successfully to the close, carpets being put down for tho convenience of the artistes.

At the Hotel Dronot a sale of highly interesting autograph letters was held on the 17th of December. Amongst them was one addressed by Jules Janin. for so many years the Aristarchus of the Parisian press, to a young musician who contemplated suicide. His kind-hearted correspondent wrote a dissuasive appeal, covering eight pages, containing the following choice little bit of autobiography :—" I have been as unhapy as you are. I earned two pounds a month by teaching Greek and Latin to some stupid children in a school at Chaillet. Well, I gave my lessons six times a week, and it was a rough orchestra to conduct. As soon as I hod finished my work, I set to and studied on my own account. Devil a bit did the thought ever occur to me of making away with himself. Devil a bit did I think of posing gloomily as an unappreciated man. I was 20 years of age, like you, and that sufficed for my happiness, my good fortune, and my enjoyment. I am an old man now, or soon shall be, and I do not regret a single day of my life." The letter brought .£(>.

A tragic, affair has occurred at Leamington, due to a disregard of the precept, that a man should be oil' with the old love before ho is on with the new. Major J. T, Green, an officer of the :>th Dragoon Guards, seconded for staff service as adjutant of the Staffordshire Yeomanry, has shot himself at the Clarendon Hotel, Leamington, almost if not actually in the presence of a lady named Bayner, Mrs Rayner is a vei-y handsome woman of GO, whose figure is well-known to till the, world who frequent Maidenhead, where she resides in great splendor. Her late husband left her a heavy jointure, on the dubious condition of not re-marryiug. Being a woman of an emotional nature, she fell in love with the handsome Major, who was a quarter of a century her junior, and, loth to forego her wealth", seems to have satisfied her conscience that under certain adverse conditions " marriage is a ceremony which had had ita day." In time, the Major grew weary of his arilded bondage, and sought the hand of a Leamington heiress, who has a fortune of £20,000. "The widow received tidings of his infidelity, and, as is usual, commenced letting off fireworks, metaphorically speaking. By dint of lying, the Major continued to quiet "her for a time, persuading her that his engagement with the heiress was nt an end : but on Monday last the indignant widow ran him to ground, just on the eve of his marriage—bringing with her a trunk full of damning proofs, not only of their intrigue, but of his degradation in their money relations. She gave him the alternative of returning to her or being exposed not only to tho heiress, but, what was worse, to his colonel and the Horse Guards, and then he quietly slipped out of the scrape by blowing away his jaw and the roof ot his mouth.