STEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6996, 19 April 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

STEWS IN BRIEF.

The Glasgow 1 Bulletin la said t6 have been the first daily paper published at o penny. ■ ; . . : Two hundred thousand people were present . at the coronation of the new Queen of Mada« gascar. , L'Explosion ia the grim and significant title of a new Anarchist journal publiahed in Geneva.

-After much discussion, the-Saxon Chamber have decided to let the public lottery continue.

England spends six times as much money for wars actual and possible aa she does for education. - "

Lamartine's old home in Paris, and tha .chalet presented to him by the city in 1848, are for sale.

The Russian strategic railway along the coast of the Baltic has now been completed as far as Rostock.

The corridors of the new law courts of London are said to require on the brightest days artificial light. ' According to the prophetic Zadkiel, the British Government next month are to bo " nearly overthrown." There are no less than sixty-five lawyers in the- American Senate, though not a few of them have retired from practice. At Panama, men continue to arrive by every vessel for the canal company. The number now employed exceeds 14,000. The export of diamonds in .Natal during the last four months of 18S3 amounted, to 729,000 carats valued at nearly £1,000,000. The latest American notion is a floating theatre, a completely equipped establishment for dramatic performances at seaside towns. Anglo-Saxon skeletons have recently been found at Whitechurch, Hants, the teeth in every case being in an excellent state of pre* serration. There are 6000 joiners in Paris, only 1500 of whom, have work. The remedy suggested for the evil is to put a customs duty on worked wood, The large number of 23,000,000 copies of the War Cry, the " gazette of the Salvation Army is officially stated to have been issued during last year. The Government, it is stated, will submit an estimate for the new statue of the Duke of Wellington. The old one will, it is believed, be melted down! A large and beautiful monument will shortly be placed over the grave of Dean Stanley in the chapel of Henry VH., in Westminster Abbey.

Twenty-seven thousand blind persons in France live in pauperism and mendicity in consequence of the scarcity of charitable institutions for the blind.

Mr. Healy says that the secret of Mr. Parnell's hold upon the Irish people is that it is to their wishes, feelingß, and prejudices his actions correspond.

An alleged grandson of Marie Antoinette, and pretender, to the French throne has just died in great distress in Holland. He was buried in a pauper's coffin. Statistics recently issued by the Dutch Government show that an area of at least 92,000 acres has been recovered from the sea during the last three centuries. . The Royal Geographical Society of London has decided to abolish its annual examinations and to give no more gold and silver medals for competition among public schools. '

A successful Xahkes speculation is the Mackay-Bennett cable between England and the United States, which is expected to be completed about the middle of the present year. From on official account kept at Moscow it appears that on the occasion of the coronation, 7SOO words were telegraphed to the Times, a similar number to the Standard, and 400 to Reuter. ..

The wife of Octave Feuillet, the celebrated novelist, was nearly choked to death lately by a Parisian shopman, who accused her of stealing his mattresses. The man was arrested.

The Weekly Register announces that the Pope has decided to ordain that rosary shall be said daily in all the Catholic cathedrals of the world, and on Sundays in every Catholio parish church.

In the lowest part of London an attempt is being made to interest and raise the tastes of the poor by introducing to them in eight; lectures the comedies of Shakespeare on successive Saturday evenings.. At an auction sale in London recently, the original lease of the farm of Bllisland to Robert Burns, with the poet's disposition of it to another tenant, was sold for the comparatively trifling sum of £33.

It is now discovered that the wrong man has been sent with Gordon as Sultan of Darfour, and that, instead of a youth aged IS, with forty-two wives, the rightful claimant is a man, 32 years old, with only two,wives.

In London in 1831 the number of persona arrested for drunkenness and disorderly conduct was twenty per thousand of the popula-

tion, and in 1881 it was five per thousand of the population. A gratifying improvement; In the last session of the Dominion Parliament, an act was passed authorising the formation of a standing army, composed or three batteries of artillery, one troop of cavalry, and two regiments of infantry, about: 1200 men altogether. Carlyle's prolific use of words is being discussed. In Sartor Resartus alone it is found that the vocabulary contains about 7500 words; whilst the whole of Shakespeare's vocabulary is put down at 15,000 words, and that of Milton at 7500. ' The death is announced of Mies Sherriff, once a famous operatic singer, who took part: in the musical honours accorded to Sir Walter Scott on one of his visits to London. Miss Sherriff had retired from the stage and the platform forty years ago. At a crowded meeting held in Glasgow, recently the following resolution was passed: "That this meeting resolves itself into aa organisation for the purpose of restoring the land to the people ; and that it be entitled the Scottish Land Restoration League." A London journal referring to Mr. Gladstone says he no doubt thinks himself quite blameless for what has occurred in the Soudan, "but unless the faith in which he is believed to live is a lie the time is not far distant when he will be better informed on that point." I The Nation records an amusing incident at | a book sale at New York. The owner of the collection gave £1000 to 10 public libraries to be spent at the sale. Tbe natural result was that the libraries bid against one another, and many of the books were run up to nearly

double their market price. 'A raid was successfully made a shortftime ago on the hen-roost belonging to the vicar of the parish of Stratford-on-avon. The thieves leJi behind them, pinned to the woodwork of the shed, a paper with the words : "You aro rich and we aro poor, When these are gone we'll come for more." The Irish World, in publishing what purports to be a portrait of Mr. Justice Denman, with the inscription, " Justice Denman, the

man who murdered O'Donnell," fell into an extraordinary error. Instead of the features of Mr. Justice Denman being represented, a capital portrait is given of Mr. Charles Russell, who so ably defended Carey's murderer.

From the report published'in tha Indian Official Gazette, it appears that , the total number of persons killed by wild animals and snakes in India last year was 22,125, against 21,427 in the previous '■year, and of cattle 46,707, against 44,669. Of the human beings destroyed, 2606 were killed by wild animals and 19,519 by snakes. Of the deaths occasioned by the attacks of wild animals, 895 were caused by tigers, 278 by wolves, 207 by leopards, 359 by jackals. 202 by alligators ; 18,591 wild animate and 322,421 snakes were destroyed for which the Government paid rewards amounting to 141,653 rupees. ■

A short time ago, at Boulogne, two Englishmen made the singular bet- that one off. thetn would walk a thousand feet before the other could finish eating a penny bun. Three referees were chosen by each and the distance -was measured. One of the men was. placed at the beginning of the ground, and the other took up his station beside him, bun in hand. The stakes were £4113s 4d a side. . Whether it was the fear of losing so considerable , a sum, or merely the excitement the man with the bun;- was seized with nervous

contraction of the throat, and could only swallow three mouthfuls whilst the other finished his task and won the bat. The eleotric light, however brilliant, has at least one drawback. When it goes out suddenly you cannot light it again with a match. A taste of the nnpleasant consequencesattending a sadden cessation of the electric current was experienced by a number of members of - Parliament in the reading-room of the House - of Commons the other evening.■ • The light suddenly went out without the slightest warn- , ing. Without stopping to ascertain the cause, the worthy members immediately . made .a ; rußli for the door in a great state of terror. They imagined that something-dreadful had > happened, a Fenian outrage naturally being uppermost in their minds. : It waa some time ■ before thoy discorered that there waa no„ 1 danger.