CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10219, 13 December 1893, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A street has been named in Paris after Jean Leclaire by order of the Municipal Council. Outside Prance Leclaire is little' known, but in that country hia name is held in veneration by the working classes. He was a prosperous manufacturer, who founded more than forty years ago, in Paris, a co-operative painting and plastering establishment. In 1872 hs died, leaving the business for the benefit of his men. Under the direction of three overseers, appointed by a body of one hundred and twenty sharing workers and seven or eight hundred non-sharers, who, however, may become sharers in their tarn, the business still flourishes. The profits are thus divided—2s per cent for the. management, 50 per cent for the sharers, and 25 per cent for the pension and mutual benefit funds. Every sharer, after twenty years of service, is entitled to a pension of £6O a year. It was at the request of these men that the name of the founder of their fortunes was givea to a street ia the neighbourhood of tbesr place of business, and a grand gathering of all the employees has been hold in celebration of the event. It is said that an American, a Mr Nelson, has founded m Illinois, a similar institution, at a place' to which he hai given the name of Leclaire.

The Bruce telescope, of which many details have already come to us from the United States, is at last reported to be apnroaching completion, and will soon be set up at the Cambridge (U.S.A.) Observatory. From an account forwr.rded by an American correspondent of The Optician , it appears that tho instrument differs from the ordinary large telescope in the construction of its object lens, and bag a power which is expected to exceed that of a 45in telescope of tho ordinary kind. As the largest one at present in use is the Lick telescope, which is of 36ia objective, and the largest anywhere near completion is the great instrument for the University of Chicago, with a 40in lena, it ia supposed that the Bruce instrument will photograph stars which can be seen through neither of these. It is also greatly superior in tho expanse of sky which can bo taken upon a-eingla plate. The new telescope, which is the gift of Miss C. W. Bruce, of New York, will remain at Cambridge until its capabilities have been tested, and then will be shipped to its ultimata destination at the South American branch of the Harvard Observatory in Peru,

The young couple in Dickens’ “ Boots at the Holly Tree Inn ” have, in the way of precocity, been thrown entirely into the shade by a little Indian boy and girl who have just been tried at the criminal sessions at Borbatnpur on a charge of bigamy. The girl ami boy, aged respectively six and nine, were indicted for marrying, the former being at the time, to the knowledge of the bridegroom, already, under the barbarous Indian custom of child-betrothal, the wife of another. As the Act only allows presumption of death after seven years* continuous absence of one of cho parties, it was justly observed that a brido of six could not possibly plead chat excuse. For three days little "Lilith stood beside her fellowbigamist in tho dock, while their respect-ive-parents were charged with, abetting

their offence. Ultimately the jury returned a verdict of “Not Guilty/* and, as a local commentator says, “ the youngster* West cheerily home again without the smallest possible conception of what all tW bother was about.”

Prince Bismarck (the Daily News Berlin correspondent says) seems to be fairly again. He at least seems to have resumed his favourite occupation as a subject for the Journalistic interviewer. The other' day a foreign democratic paper unearthed a story, according to which, when thf late Emperor William was severely, wounded by the Nobiliag outrage, h* wished to resign in favour of his son, th* then Crown Prince, bul dropped the idea in consequence of Prince Bismarck** opposition. Bismarck is said to have dropped the remark in the Ministerial Council, “ I still want the old man/* This disrespectful remark was soon carried to the then Crown Prince, in whose family it was much discussed and commented upon. The present Emperor, at that time a youth of twenty, felt especially offended at it, and is stated by the paper to have i never forgiven it. When Prince Bismarck later on tried to bring hie influence to bear upon him as Emperor, he remem? bered the occurrence, and this ptreugthened his determination to pact with the old Chancellor. The Hamburg organ of the Prince now publishes a notice, evidently emanating from Friedciohsrahe/ln which the story is declared to be a pure invention.