ODDS AND ENDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4748, 3 February 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

ODDS AND ENDS.

Frv£ young women applied for admission to Cornell Univetsity-this year. Paris has five regularly-established matnNew York has more than thirty mileß of river front. ~ , „ San Francisco is to have a million-dollar opera-house. . ■ • , Criminals at Dallas, Texas, are to be executed privately hereafter. An English " hair-cuttfir and shaver to the queen," has established himself in London. Since the Cuban war commenced,. 130,000 Spanish soldiers have died or been killed in battle. ~ King John, the reigning monarch of Abyssinia, claims to be a lineal descendant of the Queen of Sheba. , Turnstiles on the New York street-cars have turned out to be a nuisance, and will be used no longer. The first prize fight in America was between Jacob flyer and Thomas Beasley in 1816. • The last New York bankrupt had twentytwo servants in the house, enough to eat him out of house and home.

King Alphonso, of Spain, has invited the ex-Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial to visit him at Madrid.

Tt was said of a certain judge that he was so reserved in his manners that one would never suspect he had any. Wedding in a balloon, with a bridal tnp among the clouds, was one of the attractions at Indianapolis recently. Candidates for athletic games in Greece were dieted on new cheese, dried figs, and boiled grain with warm water. They had no meat. ;

Pope's villa at Twickenham, purchased from the proceeds of the "Iliad and the "Odyssey," is to be sold to the highest bidder.

The Brooklyn School Board have just decided that the German language shall be taught in the evening schools of that city on the application of twenty pupils. ' The intermarriage of two families in Maine is remarkable. One, consisting of fear sons and one daughter, has married all of a neighbour's children, four daughters and a son. Discussion between a wise child and its tutor : " That star you see up there is bigger than this world." " No, it isn't;" " Yes, it is." "Then why doesn't it keep the rain off?"

Mrs. Breckinridge, ■widow o£ the widelyknown Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, is erecting at her own expense a Presbyterian Church upon the family estate in Madison County, Kentucky.

Professor Bastian has returned to Berlin from a tour of ethnological research in Central and portions of North and South America. His labours have been crowned with eminent success.

The winner of the Prix de Rome this year is M. Wencker, a pupil of the Geroine ; another of M. Gerome's pupils has also carried off the first prize in sculpture, a double triumph said to be unprecedented. The Nortli Carolina Journal reports that, iu consequence of the scarcity of money, cows have become almost the medium of exchange in that State, a thin cow. passing for £1 12s, one in good winter order for £2, and a fat one for £2 12s.

A sea turtle weighing 760 pounds, seven feet and a half long and six and a half wide, the largest ever seen on the northern coast, has been caught in Vineyard Sound, near Wood's Hole, Mass. . It is to be placed in the Cambridge Museum. A Boston dog has attached himself to the jiolice force of that city, and daily reports at roll-call with the policemen, and starts out afterward with them for a beat, which he imagines his own, and which he patrols with dignity and decorum. A little four-year-old oirl having been instructed that the angels were clothed in white, surprised her parents by the remark after a recent shower followed by fleecy clouds, that the angels were hanging out their clothes to dry.

Norristown Herald, an exchange, says— " New York ladies wear nothing but the gipsy hats." And unless the brim of the hat is at least four feet deep, and turns down all round, we should think a modest man would want to leave that city. A sad scene took place on aa Erie railroad car the other day! A young girl, who was sent from New York to Port Jarvis for her health, was returning home, and whilst on her way became weaker and weaker, and finally expired in a car-seat, in the arms of her mother.

In the island of Ivica, Balearic group, the popular emblem of love is gunpowder, and the most brilliant accomplishment a young damsel can display is to stand without ilinching while her lover firos at her legs, which often, after a lengthy courtship, asuume the appearance of a Christmas plum-pudding. In the other islands gallantry displays itself by the usual offering of sweetmeats; in Ivica the tributo is gunpowder.

At a meeting of the London Aeronautical Society, several schemes were propounded for the construction of flying-machines, and one gentleman, who expressed an opinion that balloon sailing was a game not worth the candle, announced that he had in proEaratinn a machine, to be worked by a thirtyorsepower steam engine, whichjwould travel through the air at the rate of two hundred miles an hour as safely as a railway train.

Lime-water and milk, according to the testimony of an experienced physician, is a most useful compound, not only for infants, but for a later period of life, when the functions of digestion and assimilation have been seriously impaired. A tumbler of milk, to which four tablespoonfuls of lime-water have been added, will agree with any person, even when other food is oppressive and fails to afford nourishment.

An excellent system of teaching cooking has just been adopted at the Watford schools, in England. A kitchen has been erected in the playground, at a cost of about £115, furnished with utensils all within the reach of the working-man, and lessons aro given twice a week to a select number of the pupils. A dinner is prepared, to which the teacher, the cooks, the cleaners, and as many of the children as are needed to furnish the table, all sit down, each child who dines paying twopence. ,The cost of the dinner is limited to threepence.

A Narrow Escape.—One of our citizens, who has just returned from the West, was telling in Merrill's grocory of a narrow escape ho had from a terrible death. He was crossing a long railway bridge on foot, when ho was surprised by a locomotive coming round a curve, and tearing toward him at a terrible speed. The bridge was too narrow to allow of escape at either side, and he did not dare jump into the yawning abyss below. In a Hash he took iu the situation, and formed his planofaction. Heatartedonaswiftruntoward the oncoming locomotive, and when within a few feet of it, he concentrated all his muscle and nerve into one effort, and leaped straight up in the air. Tho fearful monster shot under him.and he came down on the bridge, saved from death, but seriously shaken up by the descent. There was a moment of deep silence upou tho the close of this narration. Then one of the company sighed, and shut up his knife, and unexpectedly said, " What's the use of presence of mind when a man can lie like that?"— Danbury Naos.

Singular Property of Tomato Leaves : "I planted a peach orchard," writes M. Siroy, of the Society of Horticulture, Valparaiso, "and the trees grew well and stroagly. They had but just commenced to bud when they were invaded by the curculio fpulfjon), which insects were followed, as frequently happens, by anta. Having cut some tomatos, the idea occurred to me that, by placing some of the leaves around the trunks and branches of the peach trees, I might preserve them from the rays of the sun, which were very powerful. My surprise was great upon the following day to find the trees entirely free of their enemies, not one remaining, except here and there where a curled leaf prevented the tomato from exercising its influence. These leaves I carefully unrolled, placing upon them fresh ones from the tomato vine, with the result of banishing the last insect and enabling the trees to grow with luxuriance. Wishing to carry still further my experiment, I steeped in water some fresh leaves of the tomato, and sprinkled with this infusion other plants, roses, and oranges. In two days these were also freo from the innumerable insects which covered them, and 1 f olt sure th%t, had I used the same ineans with my melon patch, I should have met with the same result. T therefore deem it a duty I owe to the Society of Horticulture to make known this singular and useful property of the tomato leaves, which I discovered by the merest accident."