NOTES AND NEWS.

Evening Post, Volume XVI, Issue 284, 30 November 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

NOTES AND NEWS.

Cyprus already has a newspaper, the Cypress. Chinese railroad trains run but thirteen miles an hour. Duke Charlea of Schleswig-Holstein, brother of the King of Denmark, is dead. The United States have an average of over 180 fires per day. The British Government has ordered the emancipation of all slaves on the island of Cyprus. Widows over fifty cannot marry again in Portugal. . In this country, widows never get over fifty. The newsboys and bootblacks of Cincinnati gave their earnings for one day to the yellow fever sufferers. The Turks are mounting fresh guns on the lines of Constantinople, and constructing fresh works. A fire near Moscow destroyed 23 stone houses, 31 wooden houses, and 70 warehouses, valued at about £700,000. The feeling in English political circles against Russian intrigues in Cabul is extremely bitter. Waterloo Bridge and the Charing-cross Foot Bridge, London, were thrown open to the public free of toll on 6th October. It is said that the O'Keeffe millionaire business is nothing but a hoax, and that the large family of " O'Keeffes " are very much disappointed. A handsome Rondoubt lady has volunteered to kiss 100 men at one dollar a smack, and send the proceeds to aid the yellow fever sufferers. The total number of English medical attendants and nursea employed during the late war was 145, of whom 23 fell martyrs to charity. The Japanese have been a nation for thousands of years, and have the oldest written history known on the face of the globe. Photography has not yet penetrated into Persia, the reproduction of living creatures being forbidden by the Mahommedan religion. A Liverpool firm, who think there is possible profit in importation of live hogs from America, are fitting up a steamer with accommodation for 2500. A clerk named Stafford, who was employed at the Liverpool branch of the Bank of England, has absconded with a bundle of notes, said to be worth £15,000. The Young Men'B Christian Association, of Bos ton, gained in membership last year over 1800. It raited 8319 dollars ; it has no debt, and in eight years it haa found situations for 2392 young men. There is a difficulty between the Chinese and Rußpian Governments about Yarkand,

which the Russians have occupied. A Chinese ambassador was sent to St. Petersburg. At the sale of the Papillon Hall shorthorns, England, Mr. M'Culloch, of Mel. bourne, secured a cow, Waterlily, for 445 guineas, and several others at long figures. Frank Buckland, the naturalist, declares that babies swim naturally. A friend put one into warm water, and it took to it like a duck, swimming briskly. There are 98,557 more children enrolled this year than last in the Victorian public schools. All capitation grants to denominational schools are abolished. j The late Charles Matthews was conscious for some hours before his death. ! He knew he was dying, and said he felt no pain. He left messages for some of his friends. Forty- eight American medical students, all belonging to the weaker sex, are making a tour in Europe under the charge of a Washington University ProfeßSor. Ages, 16 to 35. i Australia and New Zealand have the largest commerce per capita carried on by any people on the face of the earth. Their enormous exports enable them to purchase largely in the markets of the world. Miss Milly Christine, a woman of 25, with two heads, four arms, and four feet, holds levees at Westminster Aquariam. She converses intelligently upon two subjects at once, sings duets, and dances. Tennyson is an incessant smoker. He uses a clay pipe of the old fashion, with a stem^ a yard long, and smokes common Virginia pigtail tobacco. He never ixses a pipe the second time. The imperial title is to be brought into more general use by the substitution on service envelopes of the words "On Her Imperial Majesty's Service " for "On Her Majesty's Service." Professor Hutton has made some extraordinary statements. He said that it would take 120 millions of years to form the crust of the earth, and that man existed upon the earth 100,000 years. Mr. Berry is in favor of purchasing Mr. Marshal Wood's statue of her Majesty Queen Victoria for £3000, to stand in the great hall of the Victorian Houses of Parliament. In the New South Wales Assembly, on 6th November, a petition was presented, signed by 15,000 residents of Sydney, against the influx of Chinese. The document was about 500 ft. long. While a party of schoolboys were out on the beach at Bournemouth on 4th October, several of their number went into a cave formed by the cliff, and had been there but a short time when the cliff suddenly gave way, burying them beneath it, and two of them were, unfortunately, killed. In 1843, a Mr. Snail, of Kentucky, engaged himself to a young lady. They became separated. He married three times ; she married once. The Wo met about a month ago, and they were married, after thirty-four years. There is no nation where madness is so , rare as in Turkey, where the people of all ' others think the least. In France, Germany, and England — countries more distinguished for intellectual activity — the number of suicides is greater than in any other countries. The Reddies of Southern India marry their grown-up daughters to small boy husbands. A similar practice used to obtain in Russia, where it was a common joke that a wife when going afield to work, often had to carry her sleeping husband with her in her arms. Some months ago the Lord Bishop of — — - came to this country on a visit to the Ploy. Dr. of the Episcopal Church of New York. The doctor instructed a colored boy in his service to knock at the bedroom door of tho Lord Bishop early in the morning, and say, "My Lord, the boy." Accordingly the nexb morning the boy, somewhat dazed by so much grandeur, knocked at the bishop's door, who called out: "Who is there?" The boy responed : " The Lord, my boy." Dr. C. W. Siemens said before the Society of Telegraph Engineers that the microphone with the telephone and phonograph, would probably be hereafter regarded as one of the greatest achievements in natural science of the century. The Princess Alice Relief Fund now amounts to £35,000, and the committee have decided to solicit no further donations from the public. £13, 000 has already been distributed to widows and other relatives of the drowned, and the cases of about 100 orphans have yet to be dealt with. At Grimstone, Leicestershire, on the Bth September, the remains of Mrs. Preston, a laborer's wife, was taken to the churchyard for burial, when the vicar refused admission to the church on the ground that deceased had died a Wesleyan. This gave rise to considerable indignation in the parish, and on Sunday last the church was almost deserted, while a crowd followed the clergyman beating tins and pans. A Frenchman, named de la Rue, has been drowned in the Yarra, Melbourne, under peculiar circumstances. The deceased and another Frenchman, while drank, were swearing eternal friendship on the bank of the river, when one slipped into the river and was drowned. The other could only with difficulty be restrained from plunging into the river, and was also unconsolable at the loss of his friend. An. open verdict was returned. The late Earl of Dysart was a thorough misanthrope, spending as much of his life in as complete solitude as possible. He dined every day on two mutton chops, and his only amusement was to visit a sort of Bluebeard's chamber, where he permitted no other soul ever to enter. Here he kept his title deeds and other documents, which no one else but himself was allowed to see. It is said that this fact suggested to Diokens some of the details of the story of the reoluse in " Great Expectations." James Donnelly, a poor Scotchman, who had no money to pay his passage with, was discovered in the hold of the steamer Chester on her recent arrival at New York. He had been eleven days without food or water. He suffered fearfully, and after the sixth day became insensible, and when found he was believed to be dead. When the pangs of hunger drove him to it, he ate some refuse that he scraped off some cases which formed part of the cargo, which, owing to its saltness, drove him nearly mad from thirst. There are hopes of his life, and he has several relatives in America, who no doubt will see to his wants.