MISCELLANEOUS.

Lake County Press, Volume IX, Issue 463, 25 March 1880, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The reduction in rent made by Mr Parnell to-his Irish tenants is 30- per cent, less than that made last year by the Duke of Bedford (who has no Irish pr»peity) to-his English tmants, and less than that made by many. Irish landlords*

A woman recently- sold' her baby in a bar-room in H rsham, England, for 3§B. to a man who had taken a fancy to-the child- Ho left the place with his-putch-.se,. bub the, woman followed bun, snatched the infant out of his arms, slapped his face, and »an away. The Dake of Rutland recently accepted t»ie notices to quit their farms s»nt in by fifteen of his tenants, and, when rent day came, directed hj s agent W return the whole of the year's rent to every on*- of his tenants except the fif&een-who had given nonce. * Bell s Lise "records an extraordinary gam- of ch ss played by f-ur gentlemen of. Pressburg recently. A brilliant table was the che-s-b >ard, and the ►ixty-four squares were duly chalked out. Each of the pieces was represented by a bottle of wine. Champagne was the king, claret the quean, Burgundy the bishops, port the castle-, Madei;a the knights, and pint flasks of Hungarian wine the pawns. The one novel and original rule which governed the play was this:—Whenever a player took a "'piece" he was to empty his o • n and the captured " piece " at a draugbt Unfortunat-ly for the success of i he experiment the chessmen were more than a match f >r the players, all four of whom ifsnominiously c'dlapst d before the game was half finished. There isa limit, as expeiienced topers know, to drinking *' uo heel-taps," and if this new fashion of playing chess is ever to bee me popular there will have to be fewer "pieces." If four players are unabie ©consume thirty-twobottles of miTed wim s between them without becoming ignobly drunk, what h.ipe is there for two players ? But, at any rate, no o-ie can deuy that this was a gallant attem-tt to relieve chess from the charge of slowness. The " (Jhiel," in ' Bell's Life ' writes a* follows:—(We are copyi g the old coun'ry here in Otago). ''(Jiuap revolvers -eem a commodity of the-e parts. 1 have seen in the wind'Wß six shooters r&ngtDg in price from 18s to 4os. No wonder th'n that shootii g affrays are becoming more nutne ous than ever. Could not the Chancellor of the Exchequer put a heavy tax upon revolvers and all pocket firearms ? If they were not so cheap, depend upon it they wou d not be anything like so common as they are am ng the lower classes. The other night when I- was travelling by the Metropolitan Railway, a drunken sailor, a mate I should say by the look of him, blundered into the carriage, and as soon as the train had. start-d began to enter into familiar conversation with his fellow-travellers, in the course of which he pulled out a loaded six-shooter, and with quite unnecessary dramatic acion proceeded to t-bow-us bow he had kept off a gang of rouihs in New York, aid how he had eubsequ • n'lj kept a rascally crew from mutinying. His story was interesting, no doubt, but personally I should have preferred if without illustrations, for my attetiti-m was more occupied in following the erratic flourishes of the loaded six shooter than in drinking in the details -of the narra tive. But seriously these cheap revolvers are a grave nuisance and a serious source of danger " The very rapid growth of Transatlantic cities is proverbial, but few have sprung up so quickly as Dead wood, in Dakota, which was recently entirely demolished by fire. Two weeks after its destruction the town was completely re-built with fine brick buildings far superior to the original structures! Public men over in Victoria glory in the good old practice of making hay while the sun shines. The • Geelong Times ' i as a satirical paragraph in one of i's issues, drawing attention to the fact that the la'e- Chief Secretary pronice c-mfortable Governmentbillet for each and every one of his sons and sona-iu law. He is, indeei, just the man for Galway. In commenting on the fact, a correspondent of the * Ballarat Star ' states that he is prepared to challenge the editor of the Geelong paper for £5 if he fails to prove that Ballarat has produced the premier in that line of business. He then goes on to add that their hon. member has quartered .upon the State the whole of his large family connection, consisting of atleasi forty-six! The Army and Navy Gazette, of the 241 h January says :—•« So * Frou-Frou* is to be restored to the boards of her Maj-sty's ships, and the rustle of the rjeuicoai. the patter of little feet on the pop, and the spooning of the sijj »altn«n and nursery maid will again have thfir jilae in th" interior economy of our men-01-war. Tau years have made

the Admiralty f6rgetful of those causes which., led to a stringent order being issued against the residence of women on board ship, and married commanders of training-ships were recently granted the pleasure oft their wives' society. And now the Flag Captains at Portsmouth and Devonport have been given permission to shift their residence- and take their wives and families on -board the flagships. It is a capital thing for the captains, being equivalent to a very considerable addition to their pay, relieving them as it does of house rent and accompanying expenses, but the system was • not ■ found to work well in days gone by> and we fail to see any reason for b-lfevirig that the former objections will be found to have been removed. The establishment of nurseries afloat will give rise to the belief that there really is a ' Pinafore-' and 4 Bib* in her-Majesty's-Fleet." The following remarks of the Registrar General on the excessive* infant mortality from diarrhoea and dysentery during the month of January are instructive :—'• Of the whole thirty-five deaths, twenfy-five were of children under one year, or at an age when they would not • readily have had access to cold water, and to whom cold water is not usually given. This fact is noticed as the increase in this class of deaths is often popularly, attributed to the character of the driuking water, and • hus causes are overlooked arising from improper diet and the -neglect of the observance of strict cleanliness, not onlv in the use of infants' feeding vessels, but also in the domestic and outsioe arrangements cf the house, so as to preserve the milk used by infants from contact with impure air, which it readily absorbs."