NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7002, 26 April 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The great coaling- station of"the Far East; is Singapore. "... - ■ ' : Ohio is the third State in the Union in re« gard to crime. '.'. , : ~ ~ -. Doehm, the sculptor, is engaged on a bust of Herbert Spencer. "'.- Last year England consumed 810,868,080^ f or two and a quarter million of eggs per day. " ; In ISBI there were'in India only '88,458 ', true Britishers, of whom 55,760 were soldiers; The Persians nearly al way's chose names for - their womankind from either flowers or germ,* No . European nation, and few Asiatic" nations, are without a John or its equivalent. ' Official statistics show that about one-haH of the population of France lives by agricul-', ture. Paris has a remarkable class in its colony . of ragpickers, forming a total of over 30,000 persons. : The Peruvian Government has named a commission to introduce Swiss emigrants into the country. On the Devonshire coast, in England, a sea grass (Forphyra Jaciniata) is collected and made into bread. A mare in Madison county, Ala., recently ; gave birth to two colts, one a mole and .the other a horse. Out of 90 samples of ground coffee par- . chased in London shops only five were found to be genuine. English capital is beginning to find a profitable outlet in the wonderfully rich gold mines of Venezuela. In the House of Commons 40 members are necessary to make a quorum ; in the .House of Lords only three. "'.. Travellers in Japan are usually struck by , the evident fertility of the soil and the ' variety.of its products. The German military authorities are about to make some experiments with a new system of aerial torpedoes. The British Medical Journal says that a custom of adding magnesia to beer to preserve it is now becoming general. The New York Fish Commission has distributed 79,632,000 fish of various sorts since it waß established in 1869." Armies of rats are ravaging portions of Central America. This is a frequent occur* rence in tropical climates. The Japanese change their names at different periods. The first, given in in. fancy, is called the milk name.' ' The first balcony, or belcony, as it was., originally oalled, was put up in Covent Garden by Lord Arundel in the seventeenth century. The Japanese Government has issued a new loan of £18,500,000 for railway construction, which is redeemable in thirty years at annual drawings. At the present moment there are 4,200,000 children attending Sunday-schools in England and Wales, and they are taught by 450,000 teaohers. , Cleaning the teeth and making the month healthy is as important as, and, indeed, more so in some respects, than the operation of filling decayed teeth. It has been recently estimated that in Great Britain, out of a total population of 26,000,000, females are in excess of males to the extent of nearly 700,000. The Paris Dgbats has been puzzled by the came of the " Black Watch" in the Soudan Expedition, and describes the gallant 42nd as the British regiment of negroes. In France, population does not increase, would, indeed, bat for immigration, diminish ' —the country now contains more "than a million of born Italians, Spaniards, and Germans. • .

Returns which have been presented to the Canadian Parliament disclose a very unsatisfactory condition of commerce and finance in' the dominion under the protective policy of ' the present Government The Princß of Wales has sent Mr. Toole a massive silver " loving oup," bearing the iu» scription—"John Lawrence Toole. From the Prince of Wales, in remembrance of Sandringham, January 8, 1884." - ; Connie Gilchrist, the burlesque actress, ig said to have over £80,000 worth of diamonds,' She very literally skipped into public favour, as she first won fame by her artistic use on ' the stage of an ordinary skipping rope. •' The Worshipful Company of Grocers of' London are offering a prize of £1000 for the : best essay on sanitary science. The prize & awarded every four years, and is open to universal competition, English and foreign. - During last year 4934 prisoners were -tried ■■■ by the French military tribunals put of an army of : 550,132 men, and there were 822 acquittals. The number of men charged - with desertion or insubordination was. 1862. The rolling stock of all the British and Irish lines comprises about 13,000 locomotives, over 27,000 passenger carriages. 10,500 carriage-tracks and horse-boxes, end . 356,200 waggons for merchandise and live stock. . To ensure his good faith with the CSncinV natti public Colonel Mapleston deposited the substantial sum of 10,000 dollars with a local bank to be forfeited in case of the nonappearance of either Mdme. Patti or Mdme. , Gerster. ............ It appears that the famous Indian sapphire mines at Zanzibar have completely given out. The original cause of their discovery was a landslip, in the d&hris of which the gem-bear- • ing crystals of corundum were found, by the inhabitants. In America there are over seven millions , of children attending Sunday-schools, sod altogether between 12 and 13 million children, English-speaking children, partioipat* ing in the blessings of religions eduoation. is Sunday-schools. - The coming into operation in England of the new Bankruptcy Act has been followed by the appearance of a new organ speoially devoted- to the subject, the Bankruptcy Journal, whioh promises to give a record of proceedings in every bankruptcy court..

Cremation is to be tried in France, permiision having been given by the Prefeot of Police, on the recommendation of Dr. Brouardel, to burn the remains of hospital subjects, provided a satisfactory apparatus be constructed in one of the Paris cemeteries. . , Messrs. E. DeMattos and Co., of • London, have, it is said, purchased the Great Eastern',steamer, with the intention of converting her into a coal-hulk to lie at Gibraltar. The , Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has granted permission to seoure her near the iiook. Amongst the Mahommedans, instead of the son taking the same name, as the father, the father adopts his son's, one after the other, with the prefix Abu, which means father of. . The mother takes the name of the eldest , child only, having before it the prefix En, meaning mother of. The bill for the abolition of actions for ' breach of promise of marriage consists of a ■ single clause of four lines. After its passing no person is to be entitled to maintain in sncS actions, 'exceptions being made of causes ' commenced before the bill becomes law. The ' bill is brought in by Colonel Makins, Mr. Boyce, and Mr. Meldon. The latest addition to the attractions of St. Paul's Cathedral is an entablature, bear- ' ing this inscription. It has the merit of brevity, if it is somewhat enigmatioal; but it requires, among other matters, a little punctuation : "In memory of Charles Robert Cockerell R.A. surveyor to this Cathedral and of Ann Maria his wife." The origin of the word tweed is peanliar, and ocourred in this way :—The old established firm of Messrs. William Wilson and . Sons, of Bannockburn, Scotland, tartan manufacturers, in their first invoice to their London agents advised them as tweel. The "1" was mistaken for "d," and in repeating the order the word tweed was used and has... continued, in use from that day to this. The American Government is acquiring,. by an occasional purchase or donation, quite a respectable collection of . revolutionary relics. The sword worn by Washington in • the revolution,- and the cane willed to him - by.Benjamin Franklin, are in the library of the War Department at Washington. At the ' National Museum there is the uniform—dark - blue coat, with buff facings, buff vest and ; buff breeches—worn by Washington when he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief. Among other relio3 there are two shot-guns presented to President Jefferson by the Emperor of Morocco, and the uniform coat worn by GeneralJaokson at the battle of New Orleans.. ,:. A remarkable throne in out glass has beea - made by Messrs. Osier and Co., of Birmingham, to the order of an Indian prince. From the back and arms of the throne there spring pillars, supporting a dome-shaped: canopy, " above, which appears a large star.-- Every.: portion of the surface has been out, the pine-shaped finials which surmount the arms having no fewer than 324 facets. The orna«: mentation of the dome is especially elaborate,:; and as it is at present illuminated by two:: incandescent electric lamps, which are fixed, beneath, it, it sparkles like a/gigantie.. diamond. The work is believed to be :tho: most important example of cut glass that haa.' ever been-made, and the effect, is singularly -brilliant. ...;..:..:; --..i.j