BREVITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 11657, 18 September 1901, Page 1

BREVITIES.

The Czar will not visit Paris. The first race for the America Cup will b? sailed on the 26th inst.

Marshall and Co.'s boot factory at Port Melbourne has been totally destroyed by fire.

Mr Donald M'Donald is about to irsnnie his old position on the-staff of the 'Austr.i-

At Timaru yesterday a decree nisi was granted in Bachop v. Bachop, a husband's petition.

Czolgosz having refused to plead, t*o counsel have been, assigned him to prPiwe defence.

The Yorks received an enthusiastic welcome at Quebec, despite a heavy rainfall at the time of the official landing. The Indian famine last year was responsible for one million deaths, three-fourths occurring in the Bombay Presidency alone. Ihe funeral march froiri Buffalo to Y*'asbirgtcn has been commenced, amidst lokfns of universal grief. The widow follows the funeral car.

The death sentences on several Cape -e----bels have been commuted, while several obacrsj have had their terms of imprisonment shortened.

Many of the schools in the country districts of Hawke's Bay are closed, owing to the teachers being down with. influenza and no relieving teachers being available. The French have defeated Faterella, a ruler in the Sondan, who has sought refuge at Teka, which is British territory. He wdl probably be installed as Emir under British piotection.

General regret will be felt at the decision riv, t-j permit the Duke of York -o attend the obsequies at Washington. H.R.H. wll, however, be present at a memorial ,sti\>v.e a; Montreal.

The Victorian Premier (Mr Peacock) told a deputation from the employers under the Factories Act on August SO 'that lie would under no circumstances suspend the clauses of the Act relating to the fixing of wage* by the Board. ■ b S'r Graham Berry, the veteran Victorian politician, has just entered on his eightyfirst year. Sir Graham suffers much from rheumatism, but is otherwise in fairly good health, and still takes a keen interest in the large public questions of the day. Mr S. H. Parker, Q.C., who represented Western Australia at the Postal Confereuce of 1893 in this colony, has just been created a puivsne judge, vice Mr R. W. Pennefather. who has been acting in that capacity while Chief Justice Onslow was away on leave. . Fourteen minor officials have been executed, and other murderers been degraded or banished; but those chiefly responsible for the Chuchan massacres last year have been let off scot free, and are possibly in high favor with the Chinese Court to-day. A Philadelphia captain of detectives tells of one of the Malaprops of his force, who, despite his deficiency in education, is a clever operator. Responding to an inquiry, he explained to a friend the possession of two names by a prisoner by saying: " Jim Henry is his real name; Percy 'D. Klvne is his ananias."

In the New South Wales Assembly, Mr Haynes has introduced a Bill for the abolition of capital punishment in certain cases. It provides that a jury may find a person on trial guilty of murder in the first degree or in the second, the punishment for the former being death and for the latter penal servitude for life.

America is only at the beginning of the .labor..,crises of which Ve have probably been the worvit after a - generation Of open conflict in the shape of strikes,-, and of insidious friction still more mischievous in the form of trade union- restrictions upon the energy and intelligence of the workman.—' Telegraph.' Sir Mountstuart Grant, in one of the new volumes of his reminiscences, tells a story of Arthur Balfour, when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland, asking Father Healy: "Is it true I'm so much detested as the' newspapers will have it?" "If the divil himself," said Father Healy, "was as much detested in Ireland as you are, my occupation would be gone." In Nagasaki, Japan, there is a fireworks maker who manufactures pyrotechnic birds of great size that, when exploded, sail in a lifelike manner through the air and perform many movements exactly like those of living birds. The secret of making these wonderful things has been in possession of the eldest child of the family of each generation for more than 400 years.

Once there was an Englishman who went to America and fell in love with an American girl named Caroline. Tne Englishman was a fool, and the girl was very sensible. One night the Englishman went to call. "Do you know," he drawled, " I Urnthe name Carrie. I've named my hoise Carrie and my boat Carrie, and " "Come now," the girl interrupted, "that's carrying it too far." A strange circular has just been issued tu signalmen on a Russian railway forbidding them to go to sleep lying on the rails. One would hardly imagine that the temptation to do so would prove overpowering, but it appears that the signalmen feel they have to sleep somewhere, and they labor under the delusion that the vibration of an approaching train will waken them up, a mission which it frequently fails to fulfil. ' The Candid Friend' tells a story of Lord Beaconsfield and the late Lord Rosslyn, who was as famous for extreme freedom of his diction as for the charm of his manner. When Beaconstield was Premier, some six or seven and twenty years ago, and appointments were being made, Lord Rosslyn asked for the Buckhounds. " No," said Disraeli, "I can't give you the Buckhounds, your language is too bad—but we'll make you Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland."

When the King was Prince of Wales he refused to attend public banquets if the Press were not seated among the guests. On one occasion the reporters were to dine by themselves in another room. They refused, and brought the matter under.the notice of the Prince personally. He sent for the mayor of the town and made a few pointed remarks. When the banquet commenced the reporters were accommoda'ed with seats from which they could hare shaken hands with His Royal Hishness. During the last 200 years England has spent over £1,200,000,000 in war, which still means a payment of over £20.000,000 a year in iuterest on debt. Rut. the naval wars of the future will be far more expensive than the land wars of the past. It is estimated that a naval action between thirty modern battleships would cost something like £1,000,000 an hour: and that a naval war between England, France, and Russia would cost a sum of money equal to the market value of even- inch of English soil.

Attracted by the shrill whistling of the wind through the network of wire:; before a storm, Dr Eydam, a German, has nmde a novel investigation. He is now convinced that an unusual disturbance in the telegraph wires foretells bad weather, ami that the character of the atmospheric diV turbances may be learnt from the sound. A deep sound of considerable strength, b t instance, heralds slight showers of '■>-.<• and moderate winds within thirty-ebht !■< forty-eight hours, while a sharp, sin ! sound gives warning of high winds, -*witu much rain or snow.IVb football that works up the muscle, And gives a man plenty of dash, It's kick, it's scrum, and it's bustle, And a general looking for lash. In the good old hunt for the leather, If a cold you should have to endure, You will soon pull yourself altogether, With Woods' Great Peppermint Can.