SCRAPS OF ENGLISH NEWS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 29, 8 March 1866, Page 3

SCRAPS OF ENGLISH NEWS.

An Italian paper says that 1,100,000 francs is the sum demanded by the brigands as ransom for the five Swiss they lately carried off from the gates of Salerno, and that the family are doing their utmost to raise the money. The G-overhor of Brabant reports that within two months the cattle-plague has been extinguished in all the localities in which it had appeared in that province, with the exception of one or two places where it had quite recently broken out. We learn that 24,480 persons will be turned out of ttolr homes should fclie (3-losgow Improvements Bill be passed. This number does not include a goodly population who will be removed by the proposed alterations of the twelve streets to be widened. No provision is to be made for the unhoused. — Building News. In the month of January, her Majesty, with the Eoyal family, will take up her abode at Buckingham Palace, where very extensive preparations have already been commenced for the Queen's reception. It is said that the brilliant festivities of an English Court will be resumed. The " Father of the Gallery," Mr. Thornton, the chief of the Times 1 reporting staff, after forty years of wort, in which he was not absent one night until this year, has resigned his post, at an age but a year or two short of the late Premier's. Mr. William Davies, son of a medical gentleman at Yorktown, near Sandhurst, has met his death by taking chloroform in mistake for chloride of ether. M. 0. Martins, Professor of Natural History at Montpellier, has presented a report to the French Academy on the botany of Spitzbergen. According to this, Spitzbergen, Bituated at the extreme limit of the European Flora, contains 245 species, of which 93 are flowering. Of the former species, 69 occur in Scandinavia, 29 in Britain, and 23 are exclusively Arctic. The Bristol Industrial Exhibition produced £3,253 14s. lid. Of this sum a portion is appropriated to prizes, the remainder goes to the medical and other charities of the city. A project has been started for running a pneumatic railway between Liverpool and Birkenhead, under the bed of the Mersey. Messrs. Coutts and Co., the London bankers, have generously presented to each one of their employes £100. The present high price of provisions has, it is said, prompted the firm to this act of generosity, by which they have expended the sum of £7,000. A death from hydrophobia came under the notice of the Manchester coroner recently. The patient was a little fellow named O'Conner, aged fourteen. He was bitten in the hand by a dog some weeks since. The people of Brussels having determined to abstain from eating oysters in consequence of the high price to which they had risen, that check in the demand has now caused the charge to be reduced from 13s. the 100 to ss. A plot of land in Q-racechurch-street, London, the site of the Spread Eagle Hotel, one of the celebrated old coaching-houses, of which, however, no trace now remains, sold recently for £95,000. It contains 12,600 feet, of which 5,600 are leasehold, the remainder being freehold. An international show of cheese took place at Paris on the 20th and 21st of December, when gold, silver, and bronze medals were awarded to exhibitors of the finest cheeses. A war-ship, under the Ottoman flag, has appeared for the first time these thirty years in the roadstead of Algiers, and after casting anchor, fired a salute in recognition of French sovereignty. The working builders of Paris have established a society, withacapital of IOO.OOOfrancB, called "Entreprise Gwndrale deTravaux de Magonnerie etTravaux

Publics." The project is strongly supported by the architects ami civil engineers of Paris, who have offered some important works to the society. It is rumoured that an English whist-player has challenged the French whist-players to play 100 rubbers at £100 a rubber, and £5,000 extra on the greatest number of rubbers. It is stated in the Lancet that M. Bitofc has pro* posed perchloride of iron us a cure for cancer. The French savant considers that this salt is a specific remedy, and that its action is somewhat similar to that of iodine in cases of scrofula. An Italian delegation has presented to President Johnson a petition, signed by Garibaldi and 362 other Italians of distinction, all residents in Italy, urging him to abolish capital punishment in the United States, and to begin by pardoning Jefferson Davis. The election of a new Lord Provost of Edinburgh has just taken place, when Mr. William Chambers, . head of the well-known publishing firm, was elected. A model speech, for brevity, was that of the St. Salvador Minister, in the Guildhall, lately. In good English, though with a strong Spanish accent, he said, "My Lord Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, God save the Queen." A National Society is about to be formed for the encouragement of Athletic Exercises in England. £1,000 a-year is to be subscribed for distribution in prizes. According to the Phare de la Loire, the Viceroy of Egypt has given to the American mission at Cairo a block of houses worth £8,000. His Highness is also said to have given the missionaries free passes for the railways, and to have decided that religious journals and books shall not be subject to any tax. The march of progress in America is indicated by the letting of the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the well-known negro lecturer, Frederick Douglass, for a lecture to negroes, for the benefit of the freedmen. The proposal to sell a portion of the' gardens of the Luxembourg has created quite a commotion among the past and present inhabitants of the Quartier Latin. A petition is being got up against the project, and has been numerously Bigned. It is expected that the sale will bring a sum of 30,000,000 francs to the Government. A French engineer, M. Paulin Gay, has lately perfected a machine, on the disc principle, for sawing or cutting through the hardest rock in quarries and tunnels. Experiments have been lately made at the Conservatoire dcs Arts de Mitiers of Paris, which prove the utility of the invention. A wedding took place lately in the Temple Church, Fleet-street, where weddings hare not been solemnized for the last hundred years. It was the marriage of Miss Robinson, daughter of the Master of the Temple, with Mr. Hornby, of Hampshire. The little books published in France by the Society of St. Vincent of Paul, represent the cholera as a judgment of God on those who do not believe in the devil. The Convention of the American Episcopal Church have added a clause to the Litany :—": — " That it may please Thee to send forth labourers into Thy harvest ; We beseech Thee to hear us, Good Lord." It follows the supplication for bishops, priests, and deacons. Mr. Emanuel, the Hebrew Mayor of Southamptom, has appointed the Rev. Dr. Bradshaw, a clergyman of the Church, of England, as his chaplain. France has now seventeen large commercial steamers running between Europe and the American continent and her colonies. Only a few years ago the Mediterranean service was all that that country produced in the way of a steam commercial navy. In May next, five steamers will run constantly between Havre and New York. The Egyptian Government has decided on supplying all cavalry regiments with revolvers. The preference has been given to the Colt's revolver, several thousands of which are already in use in the Egyptian service. The inventor of the Swedish needle rifle is coming to England to pay a round of visits to military arsenals and manufacturers, as he has received from his Government an annual large allowance for travelling purposes, which, it 'is hoped, will be beneficial to the Swedish Government. There is at present living in Sweden a young man aged nineteen, who is 9 feet 5 inches in height ; at eight years of age he was 5 feet 4 inches. In Ireland there is one policeman to every 420 persons. In England and Wales there is but one policeman to every 887 persons. Austria, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, and Electoral Hesse have decided on introducing into their .States a uniform system of weights and measures, in case the committee, which is now examining that subject, should not come to any practical conclusion. The Times has deputed a special correspondent to Madrid, who reports that the three divisions of the Liberal party are unanimous in believing that nothing can be accomplished in Spain, without the overthrow of the dynasty. They are not, however, decided as to a successor, or even as to the next form of government — a somewhat serious difficulty in the way of a successful revolution. The Dowager Queen of Hawaii visited Wells the other day, and the local volunteer band turning out to do her honour, played — probably regarding it as the xiaiional alx- of the eonnby " The King of the Cannibal Islands." L'EXTINCTEUB— A PATENT POBTABIE SeliJ-AOT-ing Fise-Engine. — We have pleasure in vailing the attention of our readers, wherever* fires are frequent and insurances high, to the above most simple and yet ingenious contrivance. The machine has been subjected to the most rigorous public trials, and has acquitted itself in such a manner as to have acquired at once most cordial testimonies as to its usefulness and reliability. Its merits consist in its portability, its simplicity, its compactness, its cheapness, and its thorough efficiency. It may remain in any corner ready for action, and the gaseous compound with which it is charged is emitted upon flames with surprising force and effect. The fire is at once extinguished. " Delay makes the danger," is the apt motto the inventor has applied to his contrivance. Here we have ready at hand, when emergency arises, an engine powerful enough, to ex-* tinguish a fire at its outset, and such a fire as would become a great conflagration by the time that ordinary fire engines could arrive on the scene, affix their hose, and got fairly into play, not to extinguish the flames (for they come too late for that), but to prevent them spreading. When a fire gains certain headway, water, as is well-known, serves but as a feeder to the flames. Torrents may be, and are applied, without producing the slightest perceptible effect. But it is not only to smother the incipient fire that the Extincteur is of value. It may be applied with powerful effect in arresting the progress of the flames, and in cutting off communications between contiguous floors. It is gratifying to observe the readiness with which the value of this property-saving and life-saving invention has been recognised ; and many insurance offices, the Hercules leading the way, are already reducing the rates on risks where the extincteur is kept at hand. Emigrant vessels are using it, and none should be suffered to proceed to sea without one or more, a regulation already adopted by the French Government. There is no excuse for neglecting to provide this safeguard against fire, as it positively costs less than a set of buckets, and occupies so little space that even in a merchant ship's cabin the room it occupies need not be grudged. — Morgan's Trade Circular. A Stobx o* the Confession.— A young man, who, for his sins, was about being married, presented himself for confession. As he appeared rather embarrassed how he should proceed to enumerate his errors — " Come," said the good Abbe" G., kindly, "do you ever tell falsehoods ?" " Father, lam not a lawyer," proudly replied the penitent. " Did you ever steal?" "Father, lam not a merchant!" " You have not committed murder ?" " Sir, lam a docter," conscientiously replied the young penitent, casting down his eyes. — American Paper.. Too Bad. — An elderly gentleman travelling in a stage-coach, was amused by the constant &c of words kept up between two ladies. One of them at last kindly inquired if their conversation did not make his head ache, when he answered, with a great deal of naivete, " No, madame, I have been married, twenty-eight years."