BREVITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 11605, 19 July 1901, Page 1

BREVITIES.

London imports 4,000,000 parasols and umbrellas a year.-. . - The Imperial Budget Bill was carried by a majority of; 170.... • ~, . , , v . . Prance .has the jnost.; expensive Parliament. It costs £300,000; a year. The- Duke s of;(>>rmaught. has .been= in--stalled' Grand Master of Freemasons., The ) Baldwin. Arctic : Expedition havesailed from : Tromsoe, Norway, northwards. . There are: 232,821 r women employed: in Englisli cotton fictories; 0n1y:147,245 men. The Mauritras-Ausrtralian cable will.' be ready for wort before the end of this: year. Three Americans have been sentenced ■ to long terins of imprisonment for looting at Pekiri. '.■.-" Auckland will take a poll on the proposal to borrow £IOO,OOO for city improvements.' The coal concessions granted by the Chancellor, of the Excheaner represent £750,000. _ ; '.' .-.- K Invercargfll suburban municipalities express no anxiety for amalgamation with Invercargill .City. : The ocean 'race, for. tho purpose of proving the relative merits of the Belleville and Scotch boilers has commenced. Sir Edward Grey, speaking at ■Peterborough, declared ..that Lord Rosebery ought to return to" the arena of politics. In the latest skirmish near Aliwal North on Sunday seven of the First Connaught Rangers were killed and twenty wounded.: A. son of. Archdeacon Cholmondeley has been awarded the English Humane Society's medal for saving two lives on the English coast. The holder of-the license recently granted to a new hotel at Taihape was yesterdayfined £lO and costs for selling liquor on Sunday. General Feafcherstonhaugh has released thirteen: Boers, who, having taken the > *th of neutrality,, were held by.their countrymen as postages. There are 7,000 Boer refugees in the Potchefstroom camp. Surrenders are of daily occurrence, in the west and northern Transvaal districts; _Earl Russell . has been convicted of bigamy, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment, but will bo treated as a first-class misdemeanant. When Reitz was surprised Steyn was asleep. He escaped in his'nightclothes. A Tommy fired at but: missed the ex-Presi-dent of the Orange Free State. Mr F. E. Hiscocks, the one-time partner of Al£ Hayman in many theatrical enterprises, and the organiser of the Federal Minstrels, died at Sydney this week. On the 25th of Maythe Countess Ugarte, of Oakham, England, a well-known follower of the Cottesmore Hounds, committed suicide- by' shooting' herself through the heart. .; .'■'.' From Cape Colony comes intelligence that .Captain Charles Botha (a son of General Philip Botha) and .Field Cornet Humum were kiLed in recent operations in Orange Colony. According to Mr Burleigh the shooting of! the British wounded at Vlakfontein is anything but well' authenticated, and if it took place it was the work of a very, few Boers. Premier Barton hopes that simultaneously, with 'the imposition of a Federal tariff there.'will.be Intercolonial Freetrade throughout Australia; otherwise Federa- j tfon will have missed its mark*. " The programme of the See Government includes the of a conventioh-,to . reform the., .'Constitution of New South Wales and.tjie introduction of Bills dealing with industrial arbitration and female'suffrage^ The Rev. John Ferguson, formerly of Invercargill, but now of Sydney, will represent the Presbyterian Assembly of United Australia, at the celebration of the Presbyterian Union here at the end of October next.. The brothers Pattison, of Edinburgh whisky distilling fame, have been convicted I of ..fraud in connection with the flotation of I their reconstructed business, and sentenced respectively to and nine months' imprisonment. , . At a recent bull fight at.Linea (near Gibraltar) tho bull defeated two notable matadors, injuring them more, or less severely. There was no matador understudy, and the animal was liberated from the ring. The incident is rare. "Ouida's" concern for OHve Schreber is quite misplaced. The South African authoress chooses to reside at Hanover, where marshal law obtains, but she is given the ■utmost freedom consonant, it may be presumed, with military necessities. Ten members of the House of Lords own over 300 taverns, Lord Derby heading the list with 72,. while the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Devonshire are respectively the Proprietors-of- 50 and 47. These curious facte have : been' furnished in a parliamentary return. Australia is twenty-four times as large as tho United Kingdom, but the former's population is ten times as large as hers; to every square mile of the United Kingdom there'are 135' persons, but to every square mile of Australia there are only one and a half inhabitants. * ; . Earl Russell's,trial by his Peers was an imposing function. The members of the Ministry, the occupants of the front Opposition Bench, and the Bench of Bishops absented themselves. The errant Earl .pleaded thai he had been misled by American 'lawyers, who advised him that he was legally safe in remarrying. At the Denton. hat mills in Melbourne the other day Emma Gardiner, one of the employes, cut the forefinger of her left hand while - handling rabbitskins. The finger was poisoned, and became so bad that she had.to be removed to the Alfred Hospital, where she died a couple of days afterwards, from lockjaw. At Marseilles, a boy fourteen years of age, who has been blind in one eye since his birth, and came there to embark for America, "quarrelled with a porter, who dealt him two formidable blows on his left eye—the blind one. The eye was attended to, and when" the bandage was removed a few days afterwards the. boy found that he could see perfectly with both eves. . Mr M'Nab has charge of the Bill before Parliament for consummating Presbyterian Union and protecting to the two churches their respecive properties. The Watching Committee for the Otago Synod comprise, the Revs. James Gibb and Clarke, Messrs R. Cbisholm and T.'M. M'Donald (of Invercargill). ; While in Wellington, whither they go next week, the" Sonthern delegates will confer with the Northern church's delegates re the first meeting' of the United Assembly, which will be held in Dnnedin oh October 31. , Mr Ashton Kaye,,of the 'Hansard' staff, who has just received ah. appointment on the Sydney 'Hansard''staff, was presented by his confreres with' a substantial mark of their esteem. He served for five years in the-official gallery ,■ but 'if meritshad" met with its deserts he would have been fa 'Hansard 'hatid many years'before he Was. Mr Nath. Topp; of Liverpool, who gave £SO to the first British soldier, who entered Mafeking, now offers'£loo "to the-senibr or commanding • officer 'of-the company or squadron who succeeds in seenring as a prisoner the bandit' De Wet." - -•