NEWS AND NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume XVII, Issue 387, 5 April 1879, Page 5

NEWS AND NOTES.

It is stated that the creditors of Mr. Albert Grant intend to apply to the Metropolitan Board of Works to refund the sixty or seventy thousand pounds Said said to have been spent by him upon Leicester Square. A street-car motor, to be run by quickailver, is being manufactured at Aurora, Illinois. About 8001bs. of quicksilver, are to be placed in a reservoir at the top of the car, and to pour down over a cast-iron overshot wheel, producing an equivalent of 3-horse power. The quicksilver is to be returned to the reservoir by pumps placed underneath the car, to be operated on by a brakesman by means of a crank on the front platform. The annual consumption of preserved milk in England is enormous. The AngloSwiss Milk Company have made a profit for the past year of £60,000, which, after writing off £16,000 for depreciation of buildings and utensils, and adding £16,000 to the reserved fund, will leave available for distribution among the shareholders £28,000— equal to 18 per cent. Lady Heinrutch, it seems, has been ruined by the Credit Foncier Company (Limited^ Formerly possessed of £70000, she has now been reduced to such a condition that for the last two years she has had to slee*p on a- bundle of hay. The jewels that her husband gave her were pawned hy the Credit Foncier for £7>ooo, and she has now to sell coffee for the purpose of supporting an aged mother, nearly 100 years old, and three little orphans. A horrible story comes from Berwick. A poor woman called at a farmhouse in the neighborhood and asked to be taken in. It must have been obvious that the woman was very ill, yet she was turned away. Next morning she was found by the roadside dead, and with two new-born infants lying dead beside her. Words wculd be wasted (says the Glasgow News) in the attempt to characterise as it deserves the inhumanity of the people who refused to give or find her shelter under such circumstances. The fondness of colliers for dogs is proverbial. The distress amongst the colliers in South Yorkshire, however, combined with their inability to pay the increased dog tax, is inducing them in large numbers to part with their pets. Dogs in that part of the country are now at a discount. Many of them, of no small value, can be had for nothing, and the owners are glad to part with them on those terms. Tradesmen in some of the colliery villages are being offered them for nothing at the rats of from five to seven a day. A marvellous invention of a really practical character, not a mere ' ' paulo post futurum" invention like many we have heard of lately, has just been made by Mr. E. A. Cowper, the well-known mechanical engineer. It is a real telegraphic writing machine. The writer in London moves his pen, and simultaneously at Brighton another pen is moved, as though by a phantom hand, in precisely similar curves and motions. The writer writes in London, the ink marks in Brighton. The pen at the receiving end has all the appaarance of being guided by a spirit; hand. After a trial lasting only one day, Charles Peaoe (the murderer whose daring escape from a train we recently chronicled) was sentenced to death on February 4. There have been murderers in whose character more romantic elements were to be found, but there has seldom been one so strictly typical of that criminal class which tends more and more to organise its war against society and to elevate lawbreaking to the rank of a profession. It i 3 this side of the strange history of the convict upon which public curiosity has fastened with a keenness not often paralleled iv reoent days. We must go back to the time when Muller was tried for the murder of Mr. Briggs, or when William Palmer's crimes were gradually revealed to a horror-stricken community, to find a case during which anything like the interest displayed in the trial of Peace prevailed Truly this is an age of sham for which we are undoubtedly indebted to man's skill and ingenuity. No more solid gold chains, lockets, watches, or rings need be bought, seeing that for one-fortieth part of the coat of real gold we can obtain now an article — a gold chain, for instance, every link of which is marked Id carat, and is warranted to stand the test of acid. To all appearance these sham product ons are quite as good as the genuine articles, and as they are guaranteed to keep their color, we may expect ere long to find the watchmakers and jewellers adding their testimony to the great depression of trade. Already the demand for these goods has been so great tbat many first-cla33 houses have been compelled to get in a stock, and but for their weight many of the jewellers own that they themselves would be unable to distinguish the spurious from the real articles. Smokers in London have, during the past two or three years, been tempted to pur* chase German cigars at a remarkably low rate. It has always been a wonder how these oould possibly be sold at the price, seeing that they were subject to the same duty as prime fiavannahs. Bat the truth is now out We learn from the Customs report of the United States that in Germany the clippings or refuse of the cigars made ia America have reoently found a market at from 2c to 5c per Ib. Formerly these clippings were allowed to accumulate in tha cigar manufactories for months, till a speculat< r happened to come across a heap, which he bonght " for a song." Not content with selling their own refuse at a profit, manufacturers have established regular agencies in Canada to collect tobacco "waste," which is s-ipped in bulk to Germany. It behoves smokers who wish to eDJoy " the fragrant weed " to fight ahy of German cigars. . The English Volunteers, having now come under the immediate direction of the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, are in future to wear a distinction for long service. Having rendered themselves efficient and entitled to the Government grant, a cloth badge is to be worn of a diamond Bhape on the sleeve above the Austrian knot. When the Volunteer has farther rendered himself efficient for five years, and gained as many certificates, this diamond becomes a star worked in silk or worsted. A second period of five years as an efficient Volunteer entitles the man to a second star, and he may in like manner earn a third or fourth distinction. We shall thus be able to distinguish steady and experienced men from thos.e who have but recently joined the ranks, and Volunteers will have a further incentive to attend drill and maintain their efficiency. Another order which is issued by the Commander-in-Chief relates to dress. In future, we hear the whole force ia to be clothed in one colour, and that the national red. Peele's Coffee House, formerly one of the noted literary haunts of the neighborhood of Fleet-street, and well-known ' to colonists, has disappeared, haviog recently been absorbed into the contiguous hotel of the same name. It had of late years languished as a public news-rooms, and the coup de grace was given to it when Mr. F. Ktftk opened tht City JNfws Booms at

Lndgate Circus. Amongst the treasure! for which Peele's .was noted was a perfect copy of the Times and of the deceased Morning Chronicle, both from the date of their first appearance. When it WM de* termined to clone the place, thene wera offered at the price of waste paper to the British Museum, but were declined. Advertisements in the United States and some of the colonies likewise failed to bring purchasers, and the proprietor was compelled to dispose of the whole of hi* files to a waste-paper merchant of the Borough. The Times, Morning Chronicle* and other tiles which were told, weighed no less than 40 tons, and realised the sum of £200 as waste. They have long since passed through the mill again, and appeared once more in a newspaper form, but under other names. One would have thought [that a file of the Times from its commencement would have been briskly competed for by the various colonial libraries. | Within the last few years it would ap. pear as if wo had been importing into our own country a great deal of the continental cafe system. Large and magnificent restaurants have been built iv all quarters of London, and those temples of lounging are seldom at any time destitute of a orowd of regular frequenters. Certainly we have as yet not many cafes on the exact Parisian model, but we may safely look forward to the time when we shall be far from being without those pleasing institutions. It has been urged, however, that by the universal introduction of the cafe rystem the downfall of publichouse drunkenness would be a foregone event. If such should be the case, few could have any serious objection to the cafes, for, if they did increase any natural tendency to idling, they would at any rate aot as some sort of check on the too common craving for strong drinks. But the war of cafes versus taverns will have to be fought for some years to come before it is finally settled. A lecturer recently alluding to the way in which transporting to another land brings out the finer qualities, the shrewdness, and the enterprise of the Irish, recounted the following anecdote :—": — " I remember the great conflagration of Sacramento city, California, by whioh the entire business portion of the city was laid in ashes. Well, when the great fire was at its maximum fury, an Irishman named M'Nulty, who owned some of the heaviest business establishments in the city, gazed for a few moments on the work of destruc* tion, and then, instead of folding his hands and weepins; over the diaaater, he went to the nearest livery stable, hired a fleet, footed horse, rode like John Gilpin during the remainder of the night, and before daylight next morning had purchased every foot of lumber and every Baw-mili at Grass Valley and Nevada city. There is possi* bly no human being on earth would think of running off by the light of his burning property in order to literally make his fortune out of the disaster except an Irishman emigrated to America. The result was that he almost immediately realised out of the sale of his lumber fourfold at much money as he had lost by the great fire."