Scissors.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5705, 12 December 1889, Page 4

Scissors.

The electric light on the Eiffel Tower, Paris, is reported to be visible at Orleans, 69£ miles distant.

The production of Gilbert and Sullivan's latest opera will take place at the end of the present month or the beginning of December.

R. Sherwood has been engaged for three or five years as private trainer for Colonel North, at a salary of £2000 per annum, and £3 per week each horse.

A new 3S-ton gun has been mounted on the battle-ship Ajax. in the place of the weapon which burst a few weeks ago, and she is now ready for service.

T. Loates will next year ride as first jockey for the Duchess of Montrose. He has been engaged for a term of years, with a retaining fee of £1500 per annum.

Am ancient adage say ß :—" It is better to suffer an injury than to commit one" But this depends largely upon circumstances. Size of the other mau, for instance.

Sir Arthur Sullivan's " Golden Legend " created such an impression at tho Woicester Musical Festival (Massachusetts), jhat the work will be repeated next year.

Subscriptions to the Ouseley Memorial Fund already exceed £3,000. A special service was held last month at Chester Cathedral in aid of the fund, at whioh Mendelssohu's "95th Psalm" was performed with full orchestra.

An old gentleman has just passed away at the village of Deeping St. James, near Spalding, Lincolnshire, who had had five wives, and who buried the last of them a month prior to his own decease. He lived to be eighty-five years of age.

Messrs Donald Currio and Co's steamship Roslia Castle, London line to the Cape colonies arrived at Plymouth on Saturday afternoon. Her passage from Capo Town, exclusive of stoppages, was the fastest recorded, namely, 16 days IShours 45 mine.

"Steward," he said feebly, in the small hours of the stormy night, trying to turn over in his berth, "Steward, what's that?" "The sailor on deck, sir." "Yes, but what did he say just now ?" "' All weU,' sir." " My, what a liar !" And then he turned over and moaned.

The Guildhall Sohool of Music, which was founded by tho Corporation of London, is the largest conservatory of music in the world. The number of students at the present time is 3,400, and last year tho snm of £19,898 was paid to professors in fees.

According to a correspondent of the New York Tribune, who interviewed Mr. John Burns, that gentleman lays claim to be descended from an uncle of Robert Burns, the poet. His mother migrated with him from Scotland when she was a widow and ho a boy. She is still alive. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith. Mr Hulse, M.P., is one of tho most expensively dressed men in the House of Commons. His collar and shirt bill is not covered by £300 a year. The Duke of Portland runs him close in this sort of thing. Indeed, what with silken hunting shirts and the like luxuries, his out-fitters's bill amounts to nearly £500 a year. The calculated population of Scotland in 1868, was 3,276,350, but it rose to 4,007,070 in 1868 ; or in other words, it increased by about one quarter in the twenty years. But tho police have multiplied more rapidly still; for whereas in '80S one constable looked after 1117 individuals, in ISSS his jurisdiction was reduced to 981 persons. Healthy London. Iv tho thirteen weeks of last quarter the death-rate was only 1G . per 1000. Ten years ago at the same" date it was 19, aud twenty years since, 22. What this means is that m a population of some four millions tbtro are 10,000 fewer deaths per annum than there woie a decado back, and about 22,000 less than in IS'69. At Ashtou under Lyne I'olico Court, a well built man named Daniel Fisher, a Welshman, who has besn travelling round the country exhibiting himself as the Tata_-d King, was charged with deserting from Her Majesty's ship Northumberland in 1882. The man is tatooed from bead to foot with all kinds of —iiieiful designs. He was remanded, aud was taaen to Strange- ■ ways prison to await the arrival of an escort. During Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria's recent visit to Paris, he went to see bis uncle, the Duo de Montpensier, then on tho eve of his return to Spain. The Duke, who had not set eyes on hitn for a long time, did not k-iow him at first, but afterwards, shaking bis Highness cordially by the hand, he remarked with a smile, " Ma foi! I am like the Powers; I did not recognise you."

At Angers on October Ist a monument was unveiled in honor of tho 000 volunteers of tho First Republic who chose to jump down from the Rook of Mura into the Loire rather than surrender to tbe Vendeau Royalists, though they know tbo leap must be a fatal one. Fully 15,000 persons attended tbo ceremony. In the evening thero was a banquet to 600 persons in a tent on the Rock. Tho Salford Guardians considered a scandalous trick played on the lato matron at the Hope Hospital. She, on retiriugone night, was horrified to find tbat a neat of rata had been placed in her bed, and she passed the night on a chair. The Infirmary Committee had pa&ted a resolution that, failing information, all minor officials at the hospital should be dismissed. The Guardians confirmed the resolution, au amendment receiving two votes. j

Rubinstein has announced his intentiou of establishing quinquennial prize competitions for composers aud piauists. They are to be held in the principal cities of the Continent, and the first will take place in St. Petersburg next year. The succeeding ones are to be held in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris. The renowned pianist has deposited 25,000 rubles (about £2600) in the Bunk of St. Petersburg as an earnest of his undertaking. Competitors must bo between 20 and 26 years of age, and tho prize iv each branch of musical study will be 2500 rubleß. The workmen who go in advance of tbo Czar whithersoever he travels form a squad of six mechanics. Two are locksmiths, two carpenters, and two masons. All are married men, born ia the Czar's service, and absolutely devoted to their Sovereign Their business is to examine the walls flooring, chimneys, locks, and furniture of the apartments which tho Czar is to occupyIhe chimneys, in particular, eugage their attention, for every Hue leuding to a room in which tbo Czar is to sleep or oat has to be grated and barred at top and bottom. ' Some practical joker, who has money to spend, has been amusing him.sdf by issuing a Boulaugist coinage in B omo of the French

provincial towns. Ho has put into circulation somo hundreds of ten centime pieces m bronze, with a very fine profile portrait of the General, and the inscription "Empire Franeais—Eruest I." It was easy to work oil' these spurious coins among the miscellaneous of "coppers"—lmptrial, Republican, aud Italian- which circulate in

.rranue; now collectors me snapping them up as curiosities. The Whitehaven Board of Guardians have decided, by ten votes to niuo. that tho boys in the workhouse school bo taught shorthand. One member, Mr. Braithwaite, did not approve of the proposal, fearing that they would be asked to introduce mu»ic musters and pianos next. Mr. Musjfravo uuother member, confessed that ho bad tri-d his hand at shorthand ; ho had learned to write it, but could never learn to read it Amid laughter he added tlu.t many of the ratepayers coul-l not writ* longhand, let ulouo shorthand, and yet they bad to'pay tho rates." Tho mover of the resolution heJd tbat a knowledge of shorthand would be of the greatest service to tho boys. People thought the rovelations mado by the Lancet Commission concerning the adulteration of food bad enough, but it is a question if they w»re so startling as those made in Vienna by the Austrian Sooiety of Apothecaries. Fancy bread, made of the pulverized bark of trees, sawdust, and chaif and a so-called "nutritious coffee," consisting of roast acorns and chicory. It would be impossible iv this country for lard to be adulterated with 80 per cent of margarine, and tho most f raudclent tradesman would refrain from coloring cinnamon with ochre.

In one corner of a crowded street car, crossing the Sixth street bridge on Saturday evening, sat a young lady of more than ordinary good looks. Her fellow passengers had plenty of opportunity to gaze at her without embarrassing her, for," beforo the ear was over tho bridge, she had dropped 60und asleep. Tho portor evidently knew her, for he made no attem|)t to wake her when he came to her after collecting the rest of the fares. Sho did, indeed, look very pretty, her head resting slightly against the window-frame, her lips just parted, and her face composed peacefully. There was a half smile on tier face, as if her j dreams were pleasant. Sho had probably i been standing behind a dry-goods counter all day long. The men, aud the women too, were careful net to touch even the hem of the sleeping girl's dress as they passed out one by one. By the time the car bad crossed the Alleghena panes, only tho sleeper and a gentleman who was reading a paper were left in the car. Just then the conductor entered tho car and remarked to tho gentleman : " I shall have to wake her I she gets off here." The conductor laid his hand on the sleeping girl's shoulder, and I gave her the least possible bit of a shake J

while, with the other hand, he rang the bell for the driver to stop tho car. The girl rose at once, but though she did this and opened her eyes also, she was evidently still in dreamland. Her lips moved, and she said, almost in a whisper: "There, it's ten o'clock; didn't you hear the clock strike ? Let me go, I say—please let me go, Charley !" and then she suddenly stopnod; put her hands to her face, and, without a word more, ran out of the oar, now thoroughly wide awake, and blushing orimson.—Pittsburgh Dispatch.

M. Spuller, Gambetta's companion in his i escape by balloon from Paris, has just given on tho occasion of tho unveling of a monument at tho village of Epineusc, whero the balloonist*? alighted, an interesting aocount of the historio incident. The professional aeronaut, M. Friohet, said tbe French Foreign Minister, hud one failing. As soon as the balloon had got well up he wanted to go down, and when they approached Cbantilly a first descent was made. Tbe country people told them that they must ascend again, as the Germans were very near them, and so they started afresh, but soon M. Fricbet elected to descend, and would have landed them in a farm crammed with the enemy's troops had they not been fired at and thus warned off. Ballast had to be thrown out in profusion, and M. Spuller helped to lighten tho balloon by tho sacrifice of his overcoat. At last, as tho gas with which the balloon was inflated was visibly escaping, tho travellers had no alternative" but to decide on descending somewhere. They perceived a small river, but soon they heaid the sound of the Prussian dtutn, and Gaiubotta told M. Friohet that they must at least make their way to tho other side, where there was a wood. This was done without any accident, and they alighted on the fringe of the Bois de Ferrieres, at Epineuse. Numbers of peasants went to meet them, aud they wero received hospitably by the Mayor, M. Drebus, whose daughter was allowed to start ouo of the pigeons which they_ had brought with them to convey to Paris the news of their safe arrival. . The Mayor i drove them to Tricot, whenco a schoolmaster took them to Montdidier. They arrived at 11 p.m., slept at the sub-Pre-fecture, and took the train next morning for Amiens. The oak grappled by the balloon for making tho descent attracted many visitors, till the owner, a Royalist, cut it down, refusing offers of purchase.

It may not bo gonerally known, says a writer in Cassell's Suturday Journal, that one of P. T. Barnum's earliest successes in the art of extracting money from other people's purses arose out of a decidedly successful lottery scheme of his own planning. He was at that time a youth in a barter store, and he bartered a lot of worthless trash in exchange for a whole load of common green glass bottles of various sizes. Of these he resolved to get rid by means of a lottery, and, with them, a large quantity of tinware which had been in the store for some years, and had become begrimed with dust and fly specks. The highest prico was twenty-five dollars, payable in any kind of goods the customer desired. Theu he had fifty prizes of five dollars each, a hundred of one dollar each, a hundred of fifty cents, and three hundred of twenty-five cents eaoh, all payable by goods of his own choosing. He issued* 1000 tickets at fifty cents each, and, as the prizes amounted to the same value as the tickets, and were weU puffed, they sold like wildfire. But when the purchasers came for their prizes, a young lady who had drawn a five-dollar prize would find herself entitled to a piece of tape, a reel of cotton, a paper of pins, sixteen tin skimmers, cups, and nutmeg graters, a few dozen glass bottles of different sizes. One man would learn that all his prizes consisted of tinware; another would discover that out of twenty tickets ho had drawn ten prizes that consisted entirely of glass bottles. Some of the customers were vexed, but most of them laughed at the joke. "The basket loads, the arms full, and the bags full of soiled tin and glass bottles which," says Barnum, " were carried out of our store during the first few days after the lottery drawing constituted a series of the most ludicrous scenes. Scarcely a customer was permitted to depart without ono or more specimens of tin or green glass. Within ten days every glass bottle had disappeared, and the old tinware was replaced by a smaller quantity as bright as silver."