NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XV, Issue 5335, 21 December 1878, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Edison has been seriously ill. Sankey is going to make a religious tour in England. Tho last of the English Fenian prisoners has beeu released. Mr. Henry B. Foot, J.P., of Carrigacauna Castle, Cork, has died at the alleged age of 100.

George Sand's eldest sister, Madame Cazamjou, has just died at Chatelerault, in her 79th year. At Glasgow 300 men in the shipbuilding yards on the Clyde struck against the 74 per cent, reduction. Loudon has l.cen gradually making all her bridges free. Last month Waterloo bridge was put on the free list. The German Government proposes to increase the duty on wines, hides, grain and some other articles. MohamedHnism has 150,000,000 followers. In Syrian universities ttiere are 10,000 boys who study nothing but the Koran. It is asserted that the German government is abuut to permanently appropriate the funds of the late King of Hanover. A new style of shade hat, with a wide, flexible brim, to be bent to suit the wearer, is called the " Ninety and Nine." Stanley, the explorer, has been engaged by Mr. D'Oyley Carte to deliver 100 lectures iu England upou his last journey in Africa. The Duke of Norfolk has set apart twentysix acres of land as free and open spaces for tho recreation of the people of Sheffield. The total number of cases of yellow ferer since the outbreak in New Orleaus is estimated at 30,000 —of which 12,000 have proved fatal.

The gold medal awarded at the Paris Exposition for dre3se3 was for a lavender silk embroidered upon satin, with silk of the same shade. Captain Hill, chief constable of the North Riding, was fined £10, at Darlington, on two counts charging hiua with fishing without a licence. The Duke of Westminster has hung a peal of twenty-eight silver bells in the tower of the chapel attached to his seat at Jfaton Hall; coat £30,000. A destructive prairie fire has traversed from 1G to 20 counties in Dakota, between Jim river and the Missouri river. The destruction of property is large. The Queen has signified her intention of conferring the honour of knighthood or. the Hight Hon. Thomas Scambler Uwden, late Lord Mayor of London. There are now only two ex-Lord Chancellors— Lord tlatherley and Lord Selbouroe. By the death of Lord Chelmsford a pension of £5,000 a year ceases. On tho morning of Oot. 23, a frightful hurricane swept along the region between the Atlautic and Al?eghanies, damaging property to the amount of millions. It is said that many of the Lancashire millowners are looking forward to the time wh-rn they may b* tempted to move their capital and their machinery abroad. Lord Beacoiibfield has done a very generous thing. He has sent his cheque for 1000 guimas to the survivors of the agonising dibanter of the Princess Alice. Mr. J. William Miles, son of the late Sir W. Miles, Bart , has died at Bristol. He sat for Bristol for a short time in the Conservative interest in 186 S. ! Colonel Henderson has issued a notice in Loudon warning publicans that all Christmas ; draws for geese, &c., are illegal, and that offenders will be prosecuted. ! The first tramway cars ever run in Scotland on tho Sabbath were started in November List by the Glasgow Tramway Company between Patrick and Glasgow. Between 0,000 and 7,000 hands engaged in the engine works at Crewe have just had notice of resumption of short time, the ; reduction consisting of 7J hours per week. The proprietors of the Wesley College, Sheffield, have resolved by a majority of thirty six, to continue the use of the liturgy of the Church of England in their services. j A bust of the late Commodore Goodenough ! who was killed by the natives, on landing at Canta Cruz island in August, 1875, has been placed in tho painted hall at Greenwich Hospital. A man named Clapham, of Tailor-lane, near Bolton, who was bitten three months ago by a dog, has just died in great agony from hydrophobia. At the Paris Exhibition, among the philological curiosities is the famed Papal Bull of the Immaculate Conception, translated into 110 languages. Originally it was intended for a gift to Pius IX. Owing to the depression of trade, Mepsrs. John Elder and Co., the Clyde shipbuilding firm, have resolved on a large reduction in labour, and it is stated that 1,200 men will be discharged. The bishops have, it is understood, come to a resolution that in future licences shall not be granted for the re-mairiage, according to the rites of the Church of England, of divorced persons. The American Arctio exploring ship Princetown has returned to New York in a leaky state, without provisions and her crew exhausted. The men suffered great distress during their explorations, Messrs. John Elder and Co., at Govan, Glasgow, owners of the largest shipbuilding yard in Scotland, employing three thousand men, have reduced the working hours from fifty-one to forty-fiveper week. Priucn Albert Victor, the eldest son of ihe Prince of Wales, a boy with an erect figure and a heavy face, is to enter a military academy by-and by. When he is seventeen he will go into the army. * The master builders of Liverpool have given six months' notice of a general reduction of wages in all branches of their business, and in some cases an extension of the hours of work to 55 hours per week. A warrant of arrest has been issued at Munich against Baron Ernest Kindon, King's Chamberlain, for circulating a pamphlet insulting to the ICing, entitled 41 The Regeneration of the German Empire." The Merchants' Bank of Prince Edward Island closed its doors on the 10th October, at Charlottetown, and will probably be wound up. The bank's gross liabilities to the public are $366,000; its capital was $146,000 ; total assets, $564,000. At Guilford, Sarah Ann Bampton, a ladylike woman, head mistress of the London Board school, pleaded 11 Guilty" to stealing a tin of preserved meat from the shop of Mr. Shillingford, grocer, Guilford. She was sentenced to a month's hard labour. Joseph Abel, watchmaker, Farringdon, has been summoned under the Vaccination Acts for refusiug to have hie two children vaccinated. He was fined £5 Is., or two months' hard labour. This makes the 25th time he has been convicted within 32 months. Sir Mosea Montefiore. who was 30 years old when the battle of Waterloo was fought, aud who still at Ramsgate, has a college whereiu ten aged Jews, pious and learned in Jewish law, live in pleasure. Sir Moses believes in the re-occupation of Jerusalem.

Major Malan, writing to the Daily News with tho authority of military experience in South Africa, does not hesitate to charge the Cape Government with the whole responsibility of the late war. He protests against the treatment of tbe Kaffirs and other native tribes of South Africa. The daughter of the late Archbishop Whately, of Dublin, has for some years past been engaged in missionary labours in ISgypt. Among other projects for the elevation of the peoi'le there, Miss Whately has established schools at Cairo".!, in which nearly four hundred children are taught. Sir Henry Tufton, of Hothfield, who has large estates in the county o? Kent, has notified to his numerous tenantry that, owing to the indifferent h .rvest, low prices realised for corn, &c., aud high rates paid for labour, he will this year allow a deduction of 10 per cent, on the rent of all arable land. According to the Almanack de Goth, the subjects of Queen Victoria, exclusive of iUrac in the British Isles, number iaftOOC.&NX l)i thsse there are upwards of 5,0(!0,000 iiJ America, nearly 2,500,000 in Australia, 2,000,000 in Africa, and 170,000 ':> K" ; and in At i - 1 T:* : : 000 000.

i'ui! tii-4 <•' 11."aii i for tho pricc of two stalls which ho had bought, but which he left when his wife >vas required to take her bonnet off and leave it in the waiting room. He demanded his money back on leaving the theatre, aud not getting if, brought a suit for its recovery. Subscriptions are iuvited (-ays the London Observer), from ladies: only, to present to Mr. Gladstone, at a cont of £2000, a handsome testimonial in silver representing "Peace with Honour," the design, &c., to be carried out by Messrs. Hancock, of New Bond-street. Subscriptions must not be under 10s. 6d. each, paid to the hon. lady secretary, from whom all particulars may be hsd by addressing to the care of Messrs. Hancock. " Peaoo" to be represented by cornfields, with the lion lying down with the lamb; " Honour," British soldiers with the British flag, and cither " Britannia" or a figure with a wreath of laurel. If sufficient is not collected the subscriptions to be returned.