BREIF MENTION.

Evening Star, Issue 10212, 14 January 1897, Page 3

BREIF MENTION.

A case in which Carl Von Ledobur sues Nancy Murphy for £IOO for medical services and treatment, and defendant, on the other hand, makes a counter claim of £lO3 16s for money lent, board and lodging, etc., and for rent of a house, was called at the Magistrate's Court yesterday, and adjourned until the 22nd inst. At Masterton last week a man was fined £2, with costs, for supplying driDk to two Maori women.

Mr Edison has made a remarkable statement to the effect that by the use .of the Rontgen rays the blind may be able to see, the only condition being that the optic nerve must be intact. Experiments have been made at his laboratory, apparently to some extent successfully, and Mr Edison prophesies that within three years they will be able to restore sight to the blind. The steamer Rock ton on her la9t trip from the West left Fremantle with 440 passengers, this being the largest number which has ever left West Australia in one vessel.

A Melbourne cycling amateur created great amusement in the dressing room at a recent meeting by producing a razor and carefully shaving his legs before appearing on the track.

It is understood that a very large number of competitive designs for the new Bank of New Zealand buildinrs in Wellington have been received from all parts of the colony. The names of the successful competitors will be awaited with considerable interest. The entries closed on the last day of December. The man Bains, the victim of the T« Kuiti stabbing affair, is in a very precarious oondition, and at latest accounts from Hamilton was not expeoted to recover. A woman named Coral. Neal has been committed for trial at Dargavilleonacharge of ill-treating Thomas Bowden, aged ten, who was in her oare.

The Minister of Mines visited the Great Barrier on Tuesday, and was pleased with the prospects of the reefs shown to him. An attempt was made yesterday to fire the Wairarapa Dairy Company's premises in Cuba street, but the damage was only slight. A singular coincidence is that about this time last year, and about the same hour in the morning, a similar unsuccessful attempt was made. Sheffield (England) hi»B followed Glasgow's example, and the tramways of that city will in future be worked by the Corporation of that city. At trie, inquest at Pleasant Point on the body of George Morris the jury returned a verdict of suicide while temporarily insane. The evidence showed that as deceased was developing sign 3 of insanity, caused by the shock of his father's death, he was watched, but, his brothers going away for a few minutes, he cut his throat.

The people of Christchurch are agitating for a public swimming bath. The ' Lyttelton Times' says that what is wanted is " a bath in a central position, with an abundant supply of pure water of a suitable temperature and with a scale of charges that would enable everyone to take advantage of the facilities it offered for practising the art of swimming and cultivating the virtue of cleanliness." Dunedin is quite as much in want of such an institution as Christchurch, and Mayor Gourley has a fine chance of marking his mayoralty with the inauguration of such a desideratum.

The following extract from a private letter, which,has been handed to the London ! Daily News,' gives a good idea of the way in which they live at present in Constantinople :—" In my office I have a case of provisions and water, which in case of need would enabfeus to stand a siege of a week at least. I have arranged that, if anything like a general massacre my family on the Bosphorus would go to , and we here in town would remain where we are. I always carry sufficient money in my pocket to enable me to go on board any foreign steamer in the port if I happened to be near it when the trouble commenced. We are ready for immediate flight were it necessary."

At a type-setting oontest in London a machine set-up 262 lines of newspaper type in'an hour, tix times as much as could be accomplished by hand. A physician contends that too much sleep iainjurious. Tall and bulky people, he says, require more sleep than others, and worrjeij can do with much less sleep than men. The depth of water has a considerable influence on the speed of steamers, which are found to move more Blowlyin shallow waters.