NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6003, 12 February 1881, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Tiieke are 1-40,000 more women than men in Ireland. ~ or< ) of iragdala strongly advises the retention of Candahar. £-200,000 were paid last year by the Australian colonies for cablegrams to Europe, The German Government is about to complete a number of branch railway lines over the country. •j °i tiz 7\ of Surre y. Hampshire, has jaicl the debt of that town, and given £1000 besides towards a library. Two aboriginals in Queensland foueht a duel with waddies. One was killed, and the other was seriously injured. • °/, Eldon, grandson of the penunous Chancellor, has just built a church at A cost of £30,000 to £40,000. The Meynell hounds (England) tr hile in I, wci ;°, riln into b y a railway engine on the -Uidland line, and several were killed. It is said that the value of the offerings at a rccent heathen festival in India amounted to £200,000, most of which came from poor people. r The Chiddingford foxhounds, while in full pursuit, went over a precipice forty feet high, several being killed and eight seriously injured. ... J Several of the English bishops have issued addresses to their clergy advising them to carry out the new Burials Acts in a loyal and cliaritable spirit. The London Hospital Sunday Fund for this year exceeds by £474 the largest previous collection in the metropolis, the total amount being £30,411. Mme. Scottis, while crossing the Ebro at lortosa on a rope, fell on the rocks, in the prestnee of 5000 spectators, but there was some hope of her recovery. A Roman Catholic priest, who stated that he had quarrelled with his bishop and "was quite destitute, was admitted into the Nottiugham workhouse as a pauper. In the W allingford election petitions the Judges decided that, although bribery was proved, the evidence of agency was' imperfect, and therefore thev confirmed the election. General Sherman, the American Com-mander-in-Chief, has found it necessary to make an earnest appeal for the impartial treatment of coloured officers and privates in the service. It is said that the annual income of Great Britain amounts to two thousand .millions sterling, and that two hundred millions are yearly added to the already stupendous mass of British capital. Going to a ball in Ireland now-a-days is like travelling across Hampstead Heath last century. The gentlemen go armed to the teeth, and on arrival give up their revolvers with their great coats. Count Melikoff declares the origin of the Nihilistic organisation to be of Je.vish creatiou, and he adheres to the order banishing the Jews from St. Petersburg in spite of the remonstrances of Continental ambassadors. The whole of the wharves at St. Louis (America) are now illuminated after dark for a distance of some miles by the electric light, . so that the loading of steamers goes on day and night without a moment's interruption. . A new steamer, the Furnessia, was. launched recently at Barrow. This vessel, the largest ever launched in England except the Great Eastern, is intended for the Anchor Line between Glasgow and New York. The work of expelling the unauthorised French monks from their establishments is now nearly completed. Of 354 monasteries, with 7400 inmates, only a few remain unmolested. The popular commotion in some disti iets was very great. Messrs. William Cooke and Co., of Sheffield, have just secured the largest Government order for telegraph wires that has been given out for many years. The order amounts to £20,000, and the wire is intended for telegraphic purposes in India. A heartless scoundrel named Oldham, living at Rochdale, England, pushed his son, 10 years old, into the river to drown him. The boy on rising to the surface clung to a floating log, and was saved. Oldham was sentenced to 25 years' penal servitude. The result of the first trial in turning the gigantic turret of the H.M.S. Inflexible has, it appears, at last been made, and the success has exceeded anticipations. By all accounts, the turret, containing the two ninety-ton guns, made the complete revolution in sixty seconds. A man named Robert M'Gibbon, while working on the steeple of the new Free Church, Greenock, lost his footing and fell to the ground, a distance of 150 feet, and was killed instantaneously. His brother ! was killed some three weeks before by a fall from the same steeple. One of the Atlantic steamship companies is fitting out the whole of its fleet with dryair refrigerating chambers for the conveyance of fresh meat from America to Liverpool and Loudon, the present method of cooling the chambers by kcmis of ice being found to injure the meat. A saddle of mutton sent as a "present,' by someone unknown, to Mr. Ashdown, agent in Shropshire for the Duke of Cleveland, was, after it had been cooked and brought to table, found to bo poisonous, and an analysis showed it to contain strychnine enough to poison fifty persons. A peach tree grows in Rockingham, North Carelina, that sprang from the seed of a peach that the late General Garland held in his hand when he was killed at Boonsboro. He was eating a peach when he was shot down, and Captain Guerrant got the seed and planted it on his place in Rockingham. During the seige of Caudahar meat and drink were plentiful, but beer and Scotch whisky were more precious than rubies. At the sale of General Brooke's effects a bottle of the former was knocked down to a thirsty Lancer for eleven rupees, and the mountain dew fetched over fourteen rupees a bottle. Two brothers named Power, farmers, at Lougliatoher, Gal way, Ireland, had a dispute while mowing, respecting certain boundaries. After quarrelling some time the elder brother rushed at the other with a . scythe, cut off both his legs, then hi 3 head, and frightfully mutilated the body with the same weapon. The first o " a series of meetings in favour of free-trade ivas held at Madrid on Sunday, January 2. Signor Prendergast made a speech in which lie gave an account of the commercial negotiations between Spain and Great Britain, and highly praised the reforms proposed by Mr. Gladstone in the Spanish wine duties. New Orleans lias neither cellars nor sewers, because the city rests on a substratum of marsh. The gutters have carried off the drainage, or failed to do so, according c the frequency of rains. The Sanitarians, a local society for the preservation of health, have now brought a steady flow of water from the river through most of the streets. A few days ago, as some men were trenching a piece of moss land at Ardsheallacb, North Ballahulish, they were not a little startled on encountering a very curious "find." At a depth of four feet under the lowest peat stratum, they came upon human figure carved out of solid oak. Th« "image" is about five feet in length, and has a couple of rounded quartz pebbles sunk into sockets for eyes. It is said that a similar grant of money to that given to Sir Garnet Wolseley will be General Roberts' reward, instead of the talked-of peerage. A year's full batta, the command of the Madras army, and the rank of lieutenant-general have already been thrown in. Who shall say now that pro motion and rewards come slowly in tti British army, and that the scientific branch of the .service has no chances ? A farm labourer at Goldberg, Germany, while having a drink of milk, took a wasp into his mouth, and, although ne promptly spat it out, the angry creature found time to plant its sting in the back of throat before he could get rid of it. The interio of the unfortunate man's larynx swelled rapidly that, ten minutes later, he died suffocation, after enduring terrible agonies in. the vain endeavour to breathe and to force open the air-passages in his throat. If the populations are arranged in the order of the great divisions of the globe, Asia, with its 834 millions of inhabitants, stands first on the list, followed by Europe with less than half as many—namely, 31a millions; Africa" has 205 millions, an« Amcrica only 95 ? whilst Australia ant Polynesia contain 4 millions, and the Pola. regions only 52,000. These numbers, added together, with the fractions which we have omitted, give the grand total of 145G millions. - - -- '"lie .American" Hour says t ;thafc eleven Siitrtaus of a leading club in London, whose united ages amount to 900 yc-yrs, issued a challenge to play a cricket mr.teh next summer against any other eleven boyy whose ; united ages shall not amnunt' ihjuSOO years, thus generoc sly'jlia^ Jicappmg themselves to the extent of a The match is to be played as Y before the Eton and Harrow Iii.SIOBT Bets are being made that the united ages of the survivors of the twenty-two will not be snore , than 700, instead of 1,700, within two days after the match. ;