NEWS FROM ALL SOURCES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2090, 31 January 1896, Page 4

NEWS FROM ALL SOURCES.

Chinese printing is certainly as early as A.D. 593, books of that date being now In existence. The organist's fee alone, at the marriage ceremony of the Dnke of Marlborough and Miss Vanderbilt, was £SOO. * The Japanese method of lacquering Is said to be at least 2000 years old. Pieces made 10 centuries ago are still exhibited. • An American paper states that twenty of Uncle Sam's warships are in the Caribbean Sea, ready for an immediate call. The wife of Joseph Langdon. of Delta, Ohio, lately presented him with five boys at one birth. All the infants are healthy and well formed. Whales usually come to the surface for breathing- every eight or 10 minutes, but they are capable of staying under the water for half an hour or more. A New York correspondent telegraphs that the first and only cotton mill owned and operated etirely by negroes will shortly be opened at Anniston, Alabama. The principal county in England for fruit cultivation is Devon, where there the 26,955 acres of orchards. Hereford come next with 26,538 acres; Somerset, 24,520; and Kent, 23,260. King Prempeh has been summarily ordered to report himself to the Commander of the British expedition now on the boundary, and to come prepared to pay the cost of the expedition if he would save his capital. Mr 11. C. Fulford. who was elected to represent the Lichfield division of Staffordshire in the House of Commons at the general elections in July last, defeating Major Leonard Darwin, the former member, by 44 votes, has been unseated on the ground of bribery. The largest quantity of rice imported into London comes from India; while Japan, Siam and Saigon come next. As regards the relative superiority of the cereal, Italy ranks first, then Java and Japan. Italy and Java do not grow rice in large quantities, and Japan has therefore a good field before it in the European market. The "new pauper" has been found in the person of one Amelia Fegg, who, at the Westminster Police Court,was given seven days' hard labor for idleness at St. George's Workhouse. When told to do some washing and scrubbing, she replied, "The weather is too hot for that kind cf thing," and repaired to a summer house, where she was discovered asleep.

The old Market Cross of Peebles, which dates from beforie 1320, and which has been many times shifted durin gthe past half century, has now been restored to its original site at the junction of High street, Northgate, and Eastgate at the expense of Major Thorburn. The shaft of the cross stood for many years in the quadrangle of Chamber's Institution. A French doctor has just discovered in rocking-chairs a new and potent agency for good. The gentle and regula~ oscillations of these chairs have, it appears, "a wonderful efl>ct in stimulating the gastro-intestinal peristalsis." If your digestion is sluggish, and you suffer from "atony of the stomach." all you need to do is to rock yourself for half an hour or so at a time, and all will be well.

New York '"World'' properly says that Great Britain possesses more territory on the American continent than does the United States. In North America alone Britain owns 600,000 square miles more. The area of British America is 3.300.320 square miles without the lake area, which would bring it to 3.500.000 square miles. The area of the United States is 2.970,000 square miles.

The great "Ferris Wheel" of the Chicago Exhibition was an enormous merry-go-round, made like two bicycle wheels joined together side by side on the same axle, and having their tyres connected by thirty-six suspended coaches, which, as the wheel revolved, kept the vertical. In this way thousands of persons were raised to an altitude of nearly 400 feet, and enabled to iew the surrounding country as well as the Exhibition.

The ex-Queen Liliuokalani, of Hawaii, has caused a site between Torbole and Malcesine on Lake Garda to be purchased, on which she intends to have a villa, erected as her winter residence. The ex-Queen has also purchased the Gastel di Pianelli, in the province of Udine. as a summer residence. It is announced that her Hawaiian Majesty will arrive in Austria in the autumn of next year, after making a long stay in London. "An Enthusiast for Imperial Federation," writing to the St. James's Gazette loth November) says, in reference to the marriage of Sir Henry Parkes, "Technical and legal reasons influenced Sir Henry Parkes. A few years ago, after a series of unforeseen misfortunes had compelled him to go through the Bankruptcy Court, Sir Henry's many friends and admirers in the colony subscribed £IO,OOO, and vested it in trustees for the use 'and benefit of Lady Parkes,' beyond the reach of the old statesman's creditors. The second Lady Parkes died. The creditors were thereupon advised that, since there was no longer any 'Lady Parkes' in existence, they might possibly attach the fund. The heroic old man promptly married his housemaid." In the "Nineteenth Century" for November is an article by Mr H. Somers Somerset on Venezuela, a valuable contribution to our knowledge of that South American Republic, because making it less difficult to understand the obstinacy displayed by it in its dispute with Great Britain. The conclusion of Mr Somerset is that the Venezuela of to-day will remain such as long as the present system of Republican Government continues. Socially, Venezuela is a moral and refined aristocracy, supported by a penniless, but contented half-breed population. Politically, it is a mass of violence, fraud, and* corruption, utterly untrustworthy in its promises both to individuals and nations, and liable at any moment to overthrow such promises when a new Government arises by force of arms antagonistic to the political creed of its predecessor. It is with such a country that England has now to deal. A palace or a prison ? In the current " Fortnightly Review " Mr Richard Davey,who claims authoritative information, tells, inter alia, of the " Yildiz Kiosk," to which the Sultan so lately desired to send Said Pasha. This is what Mr Davey says " The Kiosk holds more people than some British Crown colonies. The male and female population of Yildiz cannot be less than six thousand persons, all fed at the Sultan's expense. One of the most amusing features of a visit to such portions of the Palace, as strangers are allowed to see. is the procession of meals going from the kitchen to the various apartments. Each meal is enclosed in an enormous wheel-shaped box, divided into compartments, and covered with a piece of black calico, tied over the top, the whole transported on the head of a slave. Under the black covering is another of silk, or velvet, more or less richly embroidered, according to the rank of the person who is to consume the viands. There are—so I was credibly assured—over 400 cooks and scullkme employed within the Palace.