NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6147, 30 July 1881, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The. New York skeet cars carry annually v.! about 100,000,000 jjiassengers. ~ Last month iWo were 1,«00 small-pox . cases in the LondoY hospitals. * ■* ._ Seventy millions in money aod property ho unclaimed inJErigland, America, raid* Austraba, at '46* An insane rayeician poisoned two men to death at Lyon* Mui,n.,jbefor»hia malady was discovered, * r *% A petition is in circulation on the American ', side of the Niagara: Falls, to have theriamoirf *l the place changed to that of Cfctaract Citv. A sect of Bible Christians iaUServia, who are called Nazerencisfthave long suffered, on account of their unwillingness to bear anus. H. Wiemans and, hi? wifo wcro found sit- 1 ting upright and dead in their buggy, near Desplames, 111., having been killed by lightning. ~. '' e

Recently there ciied at Preston Mr. E. H. Harris, one of thti prothpnotaries of Laiica- 4 shire. Ho left a sum of ovßr £ 200,1)00 to bo applied to charitable purposes. Some of the plate glass mirrors in the now Grand Opera .houue in Paris are 45ft. by 52ft. equal to 0kfl) square feet of unbrok' n glass. Eighteen of them would cover an acre. " "'

Greece seems determined to fight Turkny at any cost. She went to war with Tutkoy five years ago, andl'had one man killed ai J two died of sickneiss, but experience has Sjtt taught her anything. A sad proof of l;he insincerity of modem ' ornament is the fanst just discovered that onehalf of the armour which it is now the fashion to hang in tho libraries is only etamped leather or pastebonrd. A newspaper mun has discovered that tho word "spondulix" is not a slang term for money. A spondulix is a gold coin, or substitute: for coin usedjin Africa, and is equivalent in value to eight iilaves. London never contains more food than is sufficient for two days' consumption. Were the railways to 'be cut off, in leS3 than a fortnight it would bo suffering from the extreme agonies of famine.

Tho Now York Tribune is very much alarmed at the prospect of tho American oyster becoming lixtinct. It seems that the Virginia beds, which are the principalwiirco of supply, are being rapidly destroyed. Tho Bill compelling tho removal of .ill screens in front oli bars in liquor saloons, thus making the purchase of liquor as open to tho public eye as the purchase of sugar, has passed both houses of tho Massachusetts Legislature.

Benjamin Cudcleford, one of the two survivors of the Eurydico disaster, died in Plymouth, recently. Cuddeford, who seems never to have irealUt recovered from tho shook of his lonji;. immersion, had left tho Royal Navy.

A machine has been invented which can make 100,000 cigarettes a day. The consumption of cigarettes in America in 18S0 amounted to 450,000,000, and it is estimated that 1,000,000,000 will bo required to supply the demand for 1881.

Interesting now discoveries have, Nature says, been made; at Pompeii. A house has been excavated which was in course of construction when the terrible catastrophe occured, and which- differs materially from all other Pompeiian houses in its plan. The Kansas newspapers declare that a physician of La Cynge, in th.it State, narrowly escaped lynching because lie invented a - would instantly sober a drunken mai™ Fubb'c sentiment was against anything that tended to cause a-waste of liquor. .

The great pariiih. of St. Parieras (London), which contains about 100,000 people, maintains a farm of eighteen acres for the instruction of the modem Oliver Twists in agriculture. By a report just made it appears that the establishment netted £2,000 tor tho last kilf-yeai

Lord Solbourm;, tho Lord Chancellor, oxpresses the opinion that tho revised Testament cannot be lead iu tho English church until it has been recommended or authorized by some sufficient!; public authority, and any clergyman so using it incurs a penalty as an offender against the law. A blind man, lit his own request, was lately permitted to go (town a thousandJeet in ono of the California!* mines to " taktFa look at the underground workings." An attendant gave him a light, remarking afterwards that he " always did it to visitors—it was tho right and proper thing to do." . ■> The London Ijmes says :—lt can scarcely be doubted that all London, along its main thoroughfares, will discard gas for the electric light within the present century. Tho really cautious and hesitating progress of the invention must rcminil not a few of the equally cautious and hesitating progress of gas. A gentleman in Montreal, who offered tho « £4,000 as a permanent bread fund for tho poor, without respect to creed or nationality, had much difficulty ingettinghisgencrousgift accepted, some of tho aldermen contending that the city council is not appointed to administer a fund for charitable purposes. Among the eccentric visitors to Parisian libraries, a French paper mentions a monomaniac who frequented the Arsenal library for 20 years for tho sole purpose of reading "Paul and Virginia." He laiew the tale by heart, and recited it on summer evenings as ho paced to and frci in the Jardin des Plantes. Z It is fashionable just now in England to organise all the new companies with £1 shares. Indian gold-mining companies seem to havo sot tho fashion. The English papers think the idea is a good one, as it cnaules smnll capitalists to invest, and gets many shareholders who will be lively to attend meetings of the companies. A torpedo wiis placed in the grave of a young lady at Elasn City, Ohio, as a security against grave robbers. Several nights afterward a party of body-snatchers went to tho grave and bega.n digging. Tho torpedo exploded, tearing up tho ground for some distance around. One of the ghouls is supposed to have been fatally injured! Tho religiousi papers give accounts of a ; "remarkable revival" iu Indianapolis. It \ began in Roberts Park MethodjsjL.CJiurch ; some months ago, and nearl£.U<?9 conversions - —i were made. M actings arc now carried ou in. j the Baptist and Pjjci.'oyterian churches, and j tho buildings arosaid to be too small to ac- j commodato the [jreat crowds. j Bishop Short 'says :—" There is unquestionably at tho present time a great revival of spiritual life in the Established Church of England, and a very large number of eminent i Christian ministers are working at home. The sacred fire, never quenched even in tho era of the Georges, has burst forth with re- j newed vigour during the hist thirty years." j A Bill has hem introduced in the French ' Legislature providing that any citizen who | loses his life while saving property at a fire, ] any physician who loses his life while labour- j ing in the hospitals in time of epidemic, and ,' anyone who dien while endeavonring to save ■< a fellow-being, sihall be regarded as a soldier , slain on the battle-field, and insure a double •] pension to his family. ~% How publicly and as a matter of course tho ; traffic in "black ivory" is carried on by tho ! Dutch Boers in South Africa, Lord Kim- i berley recently showed in Parliament by a } quotation from a letter written by the wife of ■ a Boer, in which she states that a'' Boer had i come home with six head of cattle and one j Kaffir girl," and that another "camo homo \ with 32 large Kaffir girls, whom ho was sell- j ing for half a sovereign a-piece." | Lazarus Stem lost £4000 during sevcra -■-; years of business in Chicago as a money lender. : He wa« old, want stared kfm in the face, and j he desired to diti, but did :aot wish to leave ; behind him the reputation of ;>> suicide. In I this dilemma, he broke open tho money box t in his room, tied hia own hands and feet, „■ wrapped a quilt about his face in a way -\ indicate that he had been smothered, then swallowed poison. Tho real cause * death, however, was readily discovered. ~ ,; King Enianuell/umm, a barber on »'-^ iw - Avenue, New York, announces Y to live ten hours with his no hermetically sealed. Their to isapopularbariber on tb and is well known aleMany." Those a,c<no reason why'■ plish what ■' able to b mouth his'th