BRIEF MENTION.

Evening Star, Issue 10903, 11 April 1899, Page 2

BRIEF MENTION.

The 'Olutha Leader, 1 ' like its contemporary, is to be issued bi-weekly in future. The longest comuiunioable distanoe at which the long-distance telephone Is now operated is from Boston to St. Louis, a distance of 1,400 miles. The line Is more than twice the length of any European line. The newest engineering proposal is t tunnel beneath the sea between .Gibraltar and tho African Continent. The tunnel would be about twenty miles ,1 >ng, and, assuming the possibility of a railway being oarried through Moroecq, Algiors, Arabia, and along the coasts of the Persian .Gulf, would enable an Englishman, after crossing the " streak," to reach Bombay by a purely lan 1 journey. Acetylene is likely to be the means of lighting in Balclutha now the water gasworks have beep burst down.

At last week's meeting of the Hastings Borough Council application was made for a license for an "Irish jaunting car." The mayor asked if this was a hackney carriage or a bone-shaker. The olerk said it was a hackney carriage. A successful operation for hydatids was performed at BalcUifcha yesterday on Mita Annie Johnston, daughter ,of Mr Adam Johnston, Kaihikn. The operation was performed by Dra J. G. Smith and J<imes and WillUm Fitzgerald. —' jFree Press.' VI am always pleased to meet journalists," said .General Booth to an Auckland Pressman, •"for it is so seldom you can get at them in ohuroh that J. like to have a chance to sp ak to them occasionally in private. I don't know bow it .is, you know, but Pressmen as a rule seem hard to impress. When a whole congregation is moved, I have noticed the Pressmen Bitting with an unmoved expression on their faces, just as if religion was no concern of theirs. Mind you, I don't believe they are as hard as they pretend to be," added the General, smilingly, as if he had just had. an afterthought. An extraordinary affair is reported from Tonawando, New York State. The mayor (Mr James Rigby) died and was buried. The death certificate having been lost, the body was exhumed to discover the cause of death. It was then found that Rigby had been buried alive. He had smashed the glass fixed in the coffin lid, and the marks of his teeth were upon the upholstery at the head of the coffin.

The French engineer, M. Berlier, whose proposal to tunneftie Straits of Gibraltar is said to We approved by the Spanish Government, is making great efforts to |ateresfa Englishmen in bis scheme.'' He recommends it aa providing a new route from London to Bombay, which journey, b'e says, can be made in a little over a week, Slthottt scarcely patting foot on board a - *P* ' '" •' '" ■ l