Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 18 June 1898, Page 2

Notes and Events.

News from England shows what an extraordinary climate is experienced there. The writer says this year the spring began early in January, and now (April) we are enjoying the winter which, Bomehow or other, was not ready to " come on" when it was " called". A few dajts ago we were all welcoming the fast-growing croonses and admiring the wealth of almond -blossom. Now one can hardly see them through the gusts of driving snow and sleet whirled hither and thither by an Artie wind.

The Queen's touching respect for the dead, as ebotvo the other day at Nice, is a good deal commented upon in Pari- j i.«t now. It appears that as hs?r cirriage was about to cross the Fu?ponßion-ljridge over the Paillon tit Nice the other day a funeral cam? up. The Queen, instead of driving forward, gave orders to follow 'he mourners at foot-pace. This p-irii-'p.ition in tfco oulte de» morts met with immediate reoognini.w. It was prompted by personal

ictiiui^, wuu pcuuiuieu wivu Biuipiiuiby and has gone to the heart of France. A pretty story of an Afridi baby which was found by the Ghoorkha scouts on one of the hills outside B tgh is told by the Calcutta Englithman. If appears that after being icep 1 ; alivm for four days by a kindly Mes* President,. it was eventually deposited in a prominent position when the enemy were following up a picket. Ti.e tribesmen have evidently ap« predated this act of humanity, for it was an Akka Khel baby, and the vkkaKhel Jirga brought it in to show Mr Hastings, the Politioal Officer at Mamani the other day.

When the first-lass battleship Goliath was launched at Ohatham at the end of Marob, there were fife tons of Russian tallow and over a ton of oil and soft soap nsed in greasing the slipway. The total coat of launching amounted to £2000. The total move weight in launching was 6000 tons, and the new battle* 1 ship is the heaviest vessel that has yet been turned oat of Ohatham Dookyard.

Mes«s Kynocb, of Birmingham* .'; have for some time past been en- l gaged in perfecting the mechanism of a new qaiok-fidng gun, and they have succeeded in producing a weapon a long way ahead of any other gun of a similar type. By turning a wheel the whole mechanism is set working and fIOQ magazine bullets are discharged per minute. The gun, which only , weights a hundredweight is single '. barrelled, and while in action is kept cool by a water jacket which is filled automatically. The firing aofcion is supplied with cartridges by an endless belt, which passes through a box and collects the cartridges. The gun will kill at three miles, and as the barrel is made to swing from right to left it will probably prova to be one of the most deadly weapons of modern warfare.