NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6829, 6 October 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Thb Queen's-"messenger" trains cost bet £65 a-week.

Great activity prevails in all military gnaw, ters of Germany,

. It is stated that 90 per cent of the Russian people are illiterate. ' A Jew has for the first time gained a Hebrew scholarship in' Oxford..

The streets of Paris areunaafe as they haW never been since the Mif)(Ue Ages* A quarrel over a game'oF cards resulted in a murder and suicide id St. Louis.

There are 113 newspapers published, in Japan, besides 33 miscellaneous publication®. The great bridge joining New York and Brooklyn is lighted by sixty-four electric lamps. '■«

One hundred and fifty-fonr million tonn of coal were taker* out of the British mines Last* year.

In France every man /who has been imprisoned three times is transported to New Caledonia.

Mr. Gladstone has notified his intention o£ presenting a bell to the new church at Penmienmaur.

Forty-two Krupp cannon and other material of war from Russia have been landed in Bulgaria.

It is stated that the farmers in tho United States have over £488,400, invested intheir business.

The French have taken a railroad idea front America. One company has a system o£ .dinner cars on its line.

The population of New York has doubled' six times within a century.

Mrs. Scott-Siddims is giving reading® through the English provincial towns. In San Francisco hotels the bar, so prominent in ours, is kept entirely out of sight. Despatches from Montreal announce soma wonderful cures of sick pilgrims at the shrine' of Ste. Anne de Beaupre, Professional swimmers of liondon have arranged a series of performances for the benefits of the widow of Captain Webb.

The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg is the only state in Europe where the Bible is for* bidden by law to be sold.

The Royal Family, with the exception of the Prince of Wales, are said to be getting very frugal, as if rainy days were coming. The Albanian Salja tribe, which numbers 1200 men, has, refused to make submission to the Turkish authorities.

One match lumber factory in A merica modern the year ISBI 400,000,000 boxes of matches, and paid £900,000 in taxes.

The Duke of Albany has, consented to become the President of Eist London Union for Advanced Education (evening classes). The National-Zeitung reports that seven of the European Powers are negotiating for the: establishment of an international sanitary board.

The safety of Mottley, the hatter, a witness in the Phosnix Park murder trial, is nowproved. He is alive and well in Quebec.

The sale of the furniture and other effects, at Strawberry Rill, the residence of the late Countess of Waldegrave, realised about £14,000.

The cost of meat in Italy is so high as tor make it a decided luxury for the middle classes and its taste must be unknown to the poorer people.

The Duke of Westminster has given £1000 and a site of six acres of land towards the erection of a church at Caerfallwch Northop, near Chester.

The Free Church of Scotland is educating lady missionaries in medicine with a view tomore effective work among the women in the. zenanas of India.

l.ouipe Michel was recently transferred from the Prison St Lazare to Clermont -where she will pass the six years'seclusion to which she has been condemned.

The Sultan haa presented Hobart Pasha and Madame Hobart with the sum of 750 Turkish liras (about £680 sterling) as a special mark of his favour.

The Governor of Eastern Siberia has asked for eight additional regiments of .Russian troops, because of the superiority of the Chinese frontier guard. A statue of the late Earl of Beaconsfield has h?en placed in the Conservative Club. The statue is erected hy subscription of the members, and is the work of Count Gleichen. Mrs. Garfield has given the horse thafc General Garfield rode at the battle of Chickamauga to O.C. Moore, of Kent, who assisted the General to mount it the first time he iodo it. . .

A terrible tragedy is reported from Pueblo, N.M. A gambler cut a woman's throat, and as she jumped out ef a second story window to escape from him he out his own throat.

Honry Edwards, M.P. for Wev mouth, baa presented to the-Corporation of the town a sura of £5000 to be invested in the bands of trustees for the perpetual benefit of the poor of Weymonth.

Messrs. Bass & Co. employ abont their premises 2250 men and boys, and the weeklywages amount to £2550 ; there are 185 managers and clerks, the weekly average o.t whose salaries is £760.

Since the breaking out of the glanders among the horses of the 3rd Hussars about 18 animals, valued at £1000, have been. shot. The regiment has-been isolated at Bourly Bottom, Aldershot.

Mr. Edison is reported to be constructing an electric locomotive of 375 horse-power and six-foot driving: wheels, to be used on the underground railway in London. Ismail, the ex-Kbedive, will be one of tho Duke-of Sutherland's guests at Donrobin during the shooting season. He does not do much shooting himself, but he is fond of lookiDg on from a respectful distance.

An awful domestic tragedy has just occurred in Paris. A bootmaker in the Hue St.. Dominique, in a fit of jealousy, cut hia wife's throat, and then handed himself. Their little boy was found crying beside the mother's body.

Professor Elliott Coues, the Washington naturalist, says it is now too late to rid the country of the English sparrows. An effort to exterminate rats or cockroaches, he thinks, would be just as effective. The rate of increase is limitless.

Scotland, out of a population of "4;000,000, sends 6500 students to ksr nniversiteß, while the two great English universites have but 5000 students. Germany, outof apopnlation of 43,000,000, has 22.500 university students. It is found in the hospital that surgeons and physicians who make a specialty of certain diseases are liable to die of it themselves and the mental power is so great that sometimes people die of diseases which they onlyhave in imagination. M. Dupnis," whose explorations on behalf of the Chinese Governor of Yunnan were the beginning of the Tonquin difficulty, is abont to return to Tonquin at the request of a Chinese mercantile company to rcsutne his commercial operations on the Red River.

Two Dublin ladies were bathing at Bray when ono got out of her depth, and beiog seized with cramps was rapidly drowning. A. lady named Whyte, who was passing at the time, plunged in with her clothes on, and swimming to Miss Wilson held her until both, were rescued.

The inhabitants of various Russian provinces are aghast at the devastating ravages of the locusts, which are swarming over and. utterly destroying the crops o£ large and fertile tracts cf country. ■ Six thousand soldi era sent to the assistance of the inhabitants have proved powerless to check the appalling diatruction.

An American named Haine, who was in Paris with his wife and a friend, lost his way in the streets. Being lame he became nervous and_ much distressed. Tho police noticing his agitated condition, believed him to be insane and arrested hhn. He was consigned to a madhouse and only recovered by his friends after several days confinement. What is alleged to bo a piece of the- true cross has come to light at Poitiers in an old chest. It was sent to a saint in the second half of the sixth century by the Emperor Justin from Constantinople. It is mounted in gold and enamel of exquisite Byzantine manufacture, and excites great interest. It disappeared during tho resolution ot 1789. The battle-club with which Sitting Bull haa split the head of many a prostrate foe was recently bought by Sergeant Edwin Ham, o£ the Seventh Cavalry, stationed at Fort Yates. It is an ugly weapon, in shape resembling an adze-handle, about 2ft. long, and thickly studded with brass nails. From its upper edge project two keen knife-blades 7in. longy and set into the two flat sides are small I mirrors for signaling by means of the sun's rays. Sitting Bull accepted £2 in exclyuiga for this sanguinary relic.

The recent tragic death of Captain Matthew "Webb will lend a melancholy interest • to an artiole on " S<-a-Bathing and Floating,'*: from his pen, whici appears in'■ the current number of H».rper's Yonng People. It ia a pleasant and readable paper, fall of useful hints to the young batfier. Curious to say, ono of tho loiisoss- which the ill-fated swiminer eodeavoTfers to impress upon the readers of,his article iB tho difference between "pluck'*' and" foolhairdinea!,"