CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10221, 15 December 1893, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

A Paris correspondent states that Professor Janssen, the astronomer, has discovered from spectroscopic experiments made at the new observatory on Mont Blanc that there is no oxygen in the solar atmosphere. He therefore concludes that the general influence of the sun will be exerted on this planet for com to come. Professor Janssen is confident that Jupiter and Saturn will have time to evolve, even haa-doae, The-comiminica-

tion ha made on this subject to the Academy of Sciences was warmly applauded.

Something like a new sect seems to have made an appearance at Bombay. It is based on Mohammedanism, andis, according to the pastor of the new church, the Rev Hamid Snow, to be specially intended for Europeans, and next to them all Englishspeaking Jews, Hindus and Parsees. The dogmas include the belief in one God and Mohammedaa his prophet; equal belief in all other prophets in the Koran and all other Scriptures, in angels, in resurrection, in the judgment day, in heaven and in hell. The ritual embraces ablutions, prayer, tithes, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage and abstinence from forbidden food, intoxicants, usury, gambling and superstition, The names of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, Mir Snow says, have a dear place in every true Muslim's heart.

Aa examples of the superstition in Tunis displayed during the cholera panic, the Paris correspondent of the Daily News states that a woman named Hina Boucli gave out that she had been told by an angel in a dream that whoever drank of the water in her cistern would escape the malady. In two days twenty thousand persons passed through her courtyard to drink there. Their eagerness was so great that riots took place among them. The street where Madame Boucli lives was blocked. Able-bodied adults carried their aged or paralytic parents and their infants to touch with their lips the water, one drop of which, they hoped, would bo enough to act as a charm. Another womam sells bits of ribbons to be pinned on the clothes the purchasers wear. She declares them to be a sovereign preservative, and is believed by many. A third makes a mark with charcoal on the foreheads of those who come to her. The police have interfered to stop the traffic of Madame Boucli.

A banquet to celebrate the Battle of Inkemann was given at Aldershot recently, when survivors residing in tbs Aidershot district, together with those who lost near relatives in the memorable fight, were made welcome guests. Representatives from each regiment now at Aidershot that participated in the battle were present. The Chairman received the following letter from Miss Florence Nightingale, Knight of the Boyal Bed Cross : “ I am glad to hear that yon are having a dinner at Aldershot in memory of the men who died so gallantly at Inkermsnn without a thought of self or of fame (at one time and in one spot, without officers and without orders, standing by their comrades and their duty without confusion and without food). Not one of those expecting to oecspo with life, with no thought but to sell their lives as dearly as they could, their very names unknown, they saved the army, and perhaps Europe. Inkermann, the soldiers’ battle, was a greater Thermopylae. Who can tell what a few may do ? If those handfuls of men had failed in their pluck, where might we bavo been now ? The course of history might have changed. Will not a toast be drunk to their memory and to the survivors ?— Florence Nightingale.”

A wild beast: tamer, calling himself Professor Max, has had a narrow escape at; Hong Kong from being killed by a panther, in the presence of Sir William and Lady Robinson and a large number of ladies and gentlemen assembled to witness the performance. Maz, who is described as a powerful young man of twenty-eight, has been accustomed to go through a series of daring feats in the cage with tigere, panthers and snakes, and to conclude by having a deer and a panther driven into the cage together while he stands by prepared to drive off the panther should it seek to attack the frightened deer. On the occasion referred to, however, the panther was sick, and Max, unwilling to disappoint his distinguished patrons, determined to go through bis performance with another male panther, eight years old, named Fluton, which was captured only about six weeks previously. Platon, being less under the tamer’s influence, was whipped about the cage and poked with poles till he became so infuriated that he sprang upon his tormentor, landing on his right shoulder. Max was bitten twice in the forearm, and tho panther closed its teeth on his biceps. 1 With one paw he mauled the performer’s face, and with the other made *an ugly wound on his back. The Annamite and Chinese attendants attacked the animal with long poles, and made him release his hold, and Professor Max made good his escape from the cage before the panther could spring upon him a second time. He was bleeding profusely, and was. removed to the Victoria Hotel. At the latest advices .the wild beast tamer was stated to be seriously affected by the injuries to Lis arm, and unable to perform again until further notice.

The statement that the Apothecaries Company ia about to sell that quaint memorial of Chelsea's once rural character, the old" “ Phjsick Garden,” besida the river near Choyne Walk, with its ancient cedar trees, its sun-dial, its trim beds and sooty gravel paths, is authoritatively denied. The truth ia that the Apothecaries cannot have sold it, because it is hot theirs to sell. It, was conveyed ia the reign l o£ King George 1., by that renowned and travelled physician, virtuoso, and book and manuscript collector, Sir Haas Sloaae, to the Apothecaries, to be retained by them bo long as they continue to nap it for the growing o£ medical herbs. They were also to present annually to the Eoyal Society, of which Sir Haus was President, specimens of fifty new plants, until the Society's herbarium should be enriched by this means to the extent of two -thousand varieties; but this is a condition long since fulfilled. Chelsea in these days is too near town for the profitable growing of medical plants. On the other hand, the Apothecaries must continue to grow Gome, for otherwise this valuable plot of ground would, under the conditions of the devise, revert to Lord Cadogau, who is descended from one of Bioane’s daughters. For more than half a century efforts have from time to time been made by the parties to come to a compromise, hut always without success. Thus the old Phjsick Garden, which has existed ever since 1673, has been spared—with no great advantage, however, to the neighbourhood, the enclosure being hidden from passere-by behind a tall, grimy brick wall.

The latest acquisition of the London County Council—the forty-two acres of breezy upland known as Hilly Fields, at Broebley—may bs made one of the most delightful of suburban pleasure grounds. At present it is merely an irregular grassy hill, with a few ragged hedges and scraggy trees about it, and the West Kent Grammar Schoool perched on the summit of the hill. In all directions the view is very extensive, and the capabilities of tbe land—as <f Capability Brown” would have said—are considerable. There will be a good deal of work to bo.done here, however, before those capabilities may be said to be in a fair way for development, and it is understood the Parka Committee will make all the haste that may bo practicable to get men to work upon it. The land has been in tho possession of builders, and up to the very time of tho final settlement of the business, the possibility of coming to any sort of terms seemed so dubious that it was thought to .be not worth wbile_ to give any consideration- to plans for laying out the ground. These plans are now, however, being pushed on with, and as early as possible tho Council will set some of the unemployed to work. The additional farm which, es it has been publicly stated, yet remains to be acquired, bslongs to tbe Ecclesiastical Commissioner s. One great reason for desiring to add this to the rest is to guard against the land being eo built over as to obstruct the view from the land behind it. People in the neighbourhood say that from the top of Hilly Fields they can look across the valley to the Crystal Palace grounds, and see the firework displays almost as well as by going to Bydeabam. A correspondent writing on Oct. li from Eio $o ;the Rondos Pv'iy eayai~-By

this time you will have some idea of thf state of matters existing here. The RevoJ lution, to all appearances, may last a good while longer.. At first it was rather a but now it has turned into cruel earnest for both Brazilians and foreigners. Every, day accidents, and deaths even, result from the shots fired by the Revolutionary squadron. The shots are supposed to bo directed only against the fortified points,but the practice of the gunners iis so exe-' crable that projectiles of all descriptions fall all over the place. Yesterday one of the London and Brazilian Bank fellows was killed instantaneously by a splinter from a shot which had cannoned off three walls before it struck him. The same sort of thing might happen to any one of us. Several days, shots here have been flying over our office. Nearly every day there is an intimation from the fleet that they are going to bombard—business stops, and the commercial population puts up its shutters and clears. The British Minister has given his opinion to oar manager that our office is a dangerous place under present circumstances, and to-day at any rate we shut up at eleven o’clock. As it is, we have not been open more than five full days in the last three weeks. It is possible that we may. not be open officially until quiet has been restored. All guarantees of life and property are suspended. There is more danger from the soldiery in the streets firing off random shots for their own amusement than from Custodio de Mello’s shells. The loss to commerce is already incalculable; the foreigners will lose a great deal, but thecountry itself will be the greatest loser. . .