NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6296, 21 January 1882, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

CniAßija'a circus is in India.— - A seal was found in the Thames at Brant* ford, near London, recently. William, Jiathbone Grey, a ' well-known political writer of England, is dead. It appears that France can in a few days send forward a total fighting force of "about 922,200 men A report is current in Berlin that Krnpp's cannon factory at Essen is about to pass into the hands of a company. The Jewish papers are rejoicing over tho fact tlint two Jew's are members of tilO Municipal Council of Sophia, in Bulgaria. The Union Pacific will put on a side track on every five miles of their road. This is to 1 prevent the long delays of trains waiting to pass. n Tho assertion is made that at r Harvard University, in the last fifty years," no smoking student has graduated at the head of his class. Four thousand citizens of St. Joseph, Mo., waited all-the afternoon one day recently on the river bank to see Paul Boytou float down. France has taken a step toward protecting labouring women and children by the ( passage of a bill limiting their hours of factory " labour to eleven. A man in his 102 nd year has been successfully operated on for cataract in Vienna, and at the end of ten days he was able to return to his native village. The estimate is made that in London tho deaths among Christians number twenty im. the 1,000, while among tho Hebrews ifc'is only one in the I,OUO. The reports of Guiteau's trial eici'e tha utmost astonishment among tho English lawyers that such continued violations of decency are permitted in Court. M. de Foville, in the Economists Francafs, estimates the heritable wealth of France, as shown by the yield of the Succession Duties, at 200,000,000,000 francs. Almost all "the'financial' writers of the London press talk of the possibility of a gold famine, and declare positively' that there is too little gold to go around. It is in contemplation at the War Office to issue medals to officers " for long and faithful service," after eighteen' years from the date, of their first commission.

A traiu on the Northern Pacific was twice obstructed by buffaloes some tiraa ago .near the border lino between Montana and Dakota, and was'forced to 'come almost t& a standstill, The .Marquis of Lome, replying to an address in London, said there was hardly a person in ten' thousand in Canada who did not attach the utmost value to its Imperial .connection'. •. ; • \ Out of every ten of the weather-messages from America to Europe predicting storm?, nearly six' are 'discredited by the' event, according to Professor Abbe, of tki American. Signal, Servico. Recientreturns Bhow' that jinstralia is, next to China, the greatest- tea drinking country in the world, the consumption pec head being. 71b. as against 4.810. in the 'United Kingdom. ' Mr. Locke ("Nasby"), who has recentlyreturned from a tour of Ireland, declares that the squalor, misery and helplessness of the poor people of Ireland exueed the power of words to describe. In Sweden the smallest town possesses its open-air band, which plays on a platform or kiosque. In Stockholm there are five or. six public gardens whore excellent music may bo heard in the evening. The famous lime-tree at Stamford, which, tradition says Queen Elizabeth planted, was destroyed by the October hurricanes, as well as thousands of other old trees in Scotch and English park and forests. The Kussian Church has ordered its priests to administer the rites of religion to those who kill themselves with excessive use o£ stimulants. To this date the Russian clergyhave classed such persons with suicides, and left them unblessed. Philadelphia has already prepared a programme for the celebiation, a year hence, oE the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of William Pcnn. There will he three days of processions, naval displays, historical tableaux, fireworks, feasts and speeches. The great diamond robbery at Hatton Garden Post-office has tilled the diamond merchants and jewellers with consternation. It is how seen that they have to reckon with foes more dangerous than the old-fashioned burglar armed with his crowbar and jimmy. Mr. C. M. Clay says in the KentuckyLive Stock Record that the finest carriage horses he ever saw are the Russian Orloffs. They are heavier than English and American horses, and aro blacks aud dapple greys. Mr. Clay advises breeders to import thatstock. . . Before the coronation of Czar it is proposed to dispose of all the political prisoners now in jail. It is estimated that from forty to fifty of both sexes have been implicated ia Nihilistic and Socialistic propagandi for the last six years. The first trial will be of negligent police officials. The custom of carrying arms has become so general and caused so many crimes in that the Chief of Police has determined to enforce the law of 1859, which forbids the manufacture, sale, purchase, carrying or use of daggers, dagger-knives, pocket pistols, sword-canes and other arms. Captain Borda, of the Portuguese Guilherme, reported on coming into harbour that three of his sailors were washed overboard by a sea in a high gale, aud washed back, again by the next one. He considered, it an act of Providence, •' as lie would have been short-handed without them !" , . . The Paris Electrical Exhibition, which ' closed its doors recently, is estimated i to have produced a net profit of £16,000; and Menrs. Siemens' tramway, running i from the building to the Place da- la i Concorde, conveyed no fewer than 84,000 ' passengers during the three months it has i been running. The much-abused dragon-flies are perfectly harmless to human beings ; they neither bite , nor sting, but they destroy vast quantities of • gnats, flies, and other insects. They can be - brought into the house to catch flics and mosquitoes, which duty they perform if un- ; molested. While in the larval state they perform the same good work. j Girl housebreakers are among the -atest > criminal novelties. Two of these, aged 13 t and 14 years respective, are in jail at r Greenwich for breaking into a house in that ) locality and stealing a purse containing a ) small sum of money. Five fences had to be climbed before the door was reached, ana the t locks on it had to be wrenched off to gain an 3 entrance. B Lord Adelbert Cccil, the Marquis of fczei ter's brother, is on a preaching tour m Jing* j land in connection with the Plymouth . Brethren, of which he is a prominent rnember. His lordship has been holding religious i services in the Lincolnshire towns during: the s last few weeks. The noble lord ' l *^° • about 40 years of age, was formerly as s officer in the Rifle Brigade. _ ; . lt Taking a photograph. in a moment fias e been thought a great achievement but it ia B nothing to what Monsieur Muybndgeisrc ported to be doing at P*™- * \ photograph in the hundredth part .of.jv f second, and is showing a series of six obtained { during the leap of a clown. Jhe figures are projected on a.screen, and the .clown m e* t Eibited as in motion, with-all his changes of *°Priuce Teck, the husband of the Princess Mary of Cambridge, is believed to have accepted the presidency of a land. ° I for Ireland, with a capital of several nuUwns, the object being to purchase large states and reclaim waste landsespecialy district of Connemara, dividing these tatateg y into lots and reselling them on easy terms, 8 thus establishing a peasant proprietary with e out injury to any one. . _ It appears from a retnrn that w Eng and Wales there are 394 old buUdingsocieties r„ JL™»ftsajsWtf been formed since 1874, mi 80ci0t ie® 1267. The nn amount to £21,813,0 Aavos itaTß and " shares, and £14,07'J,/"- of je7 societies other creditors. £47,209.; The there is ldeficlt AT ffn a t £36,950,383. , -Xpedo boat afloat recently been built in England for Denmark. Her displacement is fifty-five tons and her armamcnt comprises four of the largest Whitehead torpedoes, each carrying eighty pounds of gun-cotton, and a Hotchkiss revolving gun. She has a coal capacity of ten tons, which is equivalent to 1200. miles at eleven knots, but her full speed is twenty knots. Despite her great size, the boat is capable o£ transportation by rail. There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, the latest illustration being the case or the medical attendant of the late Mr. Henry Dodd, "a golden dustman," who has died worth upwards of a hundred thousand pounds. Mr. Dodd left a legacy of £2000 to s his doctor, but only on condition that he, the testator, lived two years after making his will. If he lived' five years thedoctar i was to have anaffditlbnal thousand pounds. Unfortunately for the doctor the patient aia. not live more than a week.