NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 5997, 5 February 1881, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

c gZ,rffi ~* ** inS^^iSt^" 312 arrived benefit instead of %£» £ and £3«-i,OOO respectively.^- 0,000 The Cape Government arc sendiu" ]™~ reinforcements to Gu-io<-il i e »t volunteers and ' o£ Kailway in one year tram Ist June next. li-1 ■if! 10 " 0 ," 113 aix ; owuti »S a monument to lulgar Allen l'oe. It will be a bronze basleiiet, re[Hoseuting the scene of "The-

In ocasecjuence of the deficient harvest in Russia vessels are being chartered at \ewcountrv Uo " Vei " !U " :e of whe:tt to that It is estimated that in from twentv-five to forty years the last pine tree between the cut down 1 '" y Mouutains - Miu ke A well-finished Aberdeen granite monument has been erected to the memory of Flora church»ard tlle Jacobite heroine, in Kilmuir The Governor-General of Kasan T.ill be supcreeded and tried shortly, for forcibly attemptiu - to convert 700,000 Tartars "to the orthodox laith. °' The police restrictions on the Russian preys' are still stringently exercised, and several papers have been warned and some still more heavily visited. The number of languages spoken in the known world is a>23, oi which there are f>B7 V'^ u . ro P e - m 9 5 » .A 5". 370 in Africa, and l'M-1 in America. A report was current in Paris that two of the Imperial head cooks had been arrested or suspicion of having attempted to poison the Emperor of Russia. The trade in store cattle between Ireland and .Scotland is largely on the increase, beottish farmers finding they can buy cheaper than they can breed. Alexander Stcddall, the trusty cashier of a Liverpool firm, has got five years for embezzling so £11,000 from his employers. Stock exchange hambliug did it all. The Natal Legislature was opened by Sir G. Colley. A Loan Bill is proposed for railway purposes, and to get a final contribution of £250.000 for the Zulu War.

It is positively stated that ti<e Eeforn Club raised £270,000 for election purposes. The Duke of Bedford gave £15,000 and the Duke of Westminster a larger sum. The Pope's new journal, tho Aurora, started at Rome in the beginning of IS7SI, has now a large circulation. It is contributed to by personages at the Vatican. The war between railroads has cut down rates southwest from Chicago from 40 to GO per cent.; some reductions are even greater, and one even reaches 5 cents from $3.50.

A practical experiment with an air engine at Woolwich was so successful as to atford hopes that before long atmospheric power ■will be substituted for steam on railways. Small-pox is sweeping off by hundreds the Canadian Indians on the north shore of the fct. Lawrence, and such is the panic that those not afflicted flee from the dead and dying. The Land Leaguers at Cork are reported as saying that the country farmers would Jo well to poison all game covers, and thiis spread consternation among the land gentry thereabouts. The Russian agents are purchasing corn in large quantities in the North Persian towns,' and it is dispatched to "the Russian camp at Duslum. The permanent occupation of the country is evidently intended. Captain James B. Eads, accompanied by his wife and daughter and others, has gone to Mexico. The mission is to make a survey of the Isthmus of Tehuantepee, to determine its adaptability for an interoceanic ship railroad. Heresy-hunting has broken out again in Scotland. In the Established Church of Scotland proceedings are being taken against the Rev. W. Leckie M'Farlane, and in the Free Church against Professor Robertson Smith. One of the instructors on the training-ship Formidable, at Bristol, missed catching a rope cast by a passing steamer wishing for help ; the rope twisted round the man's leg, tore the limb quite off, and dragged him overboard. The system of renewing bills, now carried on to such an extent in Australian ■warehouses engaged in the Manchester trade, has developed into so great an evil that a stand is going to be made against it by the wholesale British houses.

At Dungeness a military balloon was anchored at an altitnleof SOOft., andat a range of 2000 yards wa.s iireil at by one of the new ■'■3-pounder field guns ; the balloon was shot I. ,fj?-d," having no less than seventeen rente initwfc'iit^J 1 :. . A,, . The widow oTflie murdered . _ . aI " morris has received a threatening letter, arid the people of the neighbourhood refuse to sell fuel to her, so that the police employed for her protection have had to cut down trees on the property. From the frequent of strikes iu England the Philadelphia Record argues that these difficulties show the great impolicy ; and unwisdom of allowing the manufacturing i interests to overshadow other industries and ! crowd them to the wall. After escaping all the dangers of the Balaclava charge, the horrors of the Crimean winter, and the perils of the Indian mutiny, John Cornelius, of Plumstead Marches, one of the " Xoble Sljx Hundred," dropped dead the other day as he was running iioine to escape the rain. The Bolivian Congress lias sanctioned a law authorizing the executive to mortgage or sell all national property, and all municipalities are also authorized to proceed in the i-aine way with the consent of the Government, the proceeds of such sale to be applied to the expenses of the war. The Poet Laureate is about publishing a volume of ballads in the northern dialect, after the manner of the "Northern Farmer. 7,

• Many thousand persons assembled in Paris to witness the arrival from Xe»' Caledonia of the Communist female leader, Louise Michel, with the last bach of the amnestied. Perhaps the most shocking balloon accident ever recorded was that which happened near Paris the other day.. A young man named Navarre ascended in a balloon, to which was attached a trapeze in lien of a car. He was advised t? have himself tied 1 -orv but declared that, 'jcingan acrobat, he could peK* form without danger. On reaching, however, about ISOOft. in height he fell, his body being fearfully mangled by the force with which he struck the ground: The statue of Spinoza, lately unveiled at Hague, is the first sculptured effigy of a Jew ever erected. While the Jews were a nation their abhorrence of idolatry prevented a prastice so common amongst the Assyrians and Egyptians; since then they have been hardly popular enough for others to do for them what they omitted to do themselves; and now, after the numberless monumental "representations of Christ and the apostles, the first statue of a Jew is that of of a Pantheist. At the Ada mine in Salt Creek, in driving the tunnel, which is now over 100 ft. (says a Canadian paper), a strange formation was encountered. \t every stroke of the picks the tunnel was Trilled with a luminous vapour, aud the weird liu'lit made the blcxxl chill in the veins of the superstitions miners. It is needless to ?ay that the contractors dropped their tools and left, could^ot