GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7020, 17 May 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

The decision of Mr. Shiel, at the Hananersmith Police Court, that perambulator* are not allowed on the footway will carry dismay into the nursery. The Metropolitan Police Act imposes a penalty of 40s on " every person who shall draw or drive any cart or carriage, sledge, track or narrow npon any footway." The collocation of words hardly seer£3 to point to a parambuiaior, and "carriage 9 is the only possible category withia which it can come. It has been held that the word " carriage" in a turnpike Art imposing tolls does cot include a. bycicle (Williams v Ellis, 49 Law J. Bep. M. C 47), and Mr! Justice Lush in that case instanced a perambulator as also not included. The question is whether a perambulator is a " carnage" ia the Act intended to prevent the obstruction of the footway. We agree that two perambulators are an obstruction, and that narsemaids combining in the attack will often trample the toes of passers-by under their chariot wheels. Bat it one perambulator is a carriage in the obstructive sense, so is s. toy wheelbarrow or a child's horse. An elephant-shaped hotel, modelled somcwhat after the structure at South Atlantc City, is to be built this spring at Ccruy Island. The entrance and exit are to be through the hind feet; the fora leg 3 and trough out of which the elephant will be eating will be occupied as bazaars ; the saddle-bags are to be 16 feet long, and will contain two rooms outside of the body ; the main hall in the body of the elephant is to be SO feet long by 32 feet 4 inches wide ; the room in the head i 3 to be 4S by 78 feet. The dimensions of the two side body saloons will be 44 feet by 10 feet There will be two thigh rooms, 23 by 10 feet; two shoulder rooms, 22 by 10 feet; two cheek rooms, 32 by 10 feet; one throat room, 32 by S feet, and one stomach room, 55 by 22 feet. This latter is to be a grand saloon. There will be four foot rooms, 12 feet S inches by 12 feet S inches ; six leg rooms, 12 feet S inches loDg by 12 feet S inches iugh and 12 feet wide. A gallery extending out from and encircling the body of the elephant will be 207 feet long.

Hezzofanti's hitherto unique position among linguists, says the Moscow Gazette, is threatened by a young Eussian oSiojr, who at the age of twenty-six years has mastered the French, German, English, Damta, Swedish, Italian, Polish, Fmiih, Serbian, Czech, Japanese, Chinese, and Malay languages. Beaides these, he is acquainted with three different Japanese, one South African, and two Chineie dialects, and is at present occupied with the study of Hebretr. M. Pakovitch has, with the exceptioa of French, English, and German, acquired the knowledge of these languages without suy help after his own method. It is said that he is compiling a Rusao-Japasiese dictionary, but when he is about it, why should he not

compose a polyglot dictionary for all twenty "languages which he has already mastered? If he goe3 on at his present rate, how many languages will he not have learned by the time that he is fifty? Mezzofanti lived till he was seventy-five, and before he died he spoke fifty-eight different tongues. The San Francisco public (says the News Letter) and the outside world generally b disI posed to imagine that hoodlumism here is confined to the lowest classes. Such is far ! from being the case. Only the otaer day, crossing the Oakland ferry, we noticed two young ladies, whose parents hold high social positions, evidently under the influence of liquor. Young girls who once give way to quiet tippling, either with friends of their own sex or with young men, are treading on very dangerous ground. At first they may be able to control themselves, but the time i 3 sure to come when self-respect, if not honour, will be lost. .Any women under the influence of liquor lays herself open to be approached by men who are only too glad to avail themselves of the situation. 'Honour once gone, the down grade is steep, and the course to destruction is swift and sure. " Many a familycloset holds the skeleton of a fair young daughter.who lias thus sunk herself out of view, and many a prematurely old mother has wept away her matronly bloom in mourning a lost and erring daughter, and in vainly regretting that she did not exercise in time that motherly watchfulness which, without being painfully obtrusive or burdensome to the child, still exercises over her a wonderful influence for good. We hope that both mothers and daughters who read these line* will acquit us of any object but that _of disclaiming, nay, protesting, against thi3 habit of tippling, which we have reason to know beyond a doubt is carried on to an alarming extent in our midst. A word to the wise is sufficient, and if this article has made one mother more watchful, or one young girl more regardful of what i 3 dae to womanly self-regard, our trouble will be amply repaid.

From the Jewish Chronicle of March 21 we extract the following lint of charitable bequests made by. the lamented Bareness .Lionel de .Rothschild. By its perusal others may perhaps be stimulated to charitable works in their various walks of life :—Jews' Free School, Bell-lane, SpitaTfields, £15,000; Jewish Board of Guardians, £10,000; Hospital, Whitechapel-road, £10,000; Evalina Hospital, Southwark, £10,000; Jens* Infant Schools, £3000 ; Westminster Jews' Free Schools, £3000; Stepney Jewish Schools, £3000 ; Bayswater Jewish Schools, £3000; We3t London Hospital, Hammersmith, £3000; Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum, Lower Norwood, £3000; Jewish Emigration Society, £3000; Jewish Ladies* Loan and Benevolent Society, £3000 ; the Clementina Hospital at Frankfort, £3000; Jewish Convalescent Home, South Norwood, £2000 ; German Hospital, £2000; Metropolitan Free Hospital, £2000; Jews' Deaf and Dumb Home, £2000; Ladies* Conjoint "Visitation Committee, £2000; Jewish Ladies* West End Charity, £1000; Jewish Bread, Meat, and Coal Charity, £1000 ; Institution fer the Oral Instruction of the Deaf and Dnmb, Fitzroy-Jquare, £1000 ; Buckinghamshire Infirmary, Aylesbnry, £1000; Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary, Margate, £1000; Hospital for Incurables, Patnej, £1000; Infant Orphan Home, Wanstead, £1000; Asylum for Idiots, Farlswood, £1000; St George'sHospitaL£soo; JewishLadies'Lying-in-Charitv, £500 ; Institution for the Belief of the Indigent Blind,-£500; Jewish Society for the Belief of the Aged Needy, £500 ; the Charities of Frankfort (other thau the Clementina Hospital above mentioned), £2000; to the United Synagogue, the interest to be applied to increase the stipends of officiating ministers, £5000. In addition to the. foregoing specific bequests the Baroness expressed a wish—which her sons will cor. sider as a command—that in affectionate K" membranee of her, all her benefactions shall be continued by her sons as during her life* time.

Barnum has secured three nautch girls frcm Hyderbad, two fire-worshippers from the hill country, and two sword dancers, said to hal from Afghanistan. The pretence that the animal is a white elephant is to be kept np, and a sumptous car is provided for him, eclipsing everything hitherto turned out m the elephant car line. At either end of it are apartments for the pseudo Buddhist pn"£ who accompany the brute. The car is sixty feet in length, and is a veritable moving palace, if accounts are to be believed, lt« exterior is pore white, in imitation of marh-e, there are mirrors bordered in crystals ana precious stones, heavy carving thick witn beaten gold, coloured marbles set m J«» relievo, and finely wrought metal *«-." various designs. The walls of the intend are reported to be padded with satin-coreKC cushions ; rugs and carpets cover the Koor, and around are groups of Siamese godsi an vessels of gold and silver, the whole b<s== lighted by means of a stained glass roo-. The necessity of so many costly accessories* achieve success is-in itself an ackcoWieu= ment of the science of the criticisms p*-= e upon the exile of Bnrmah. Dr. George Schweinfnrth, the German explorer of Central Africa, who now i**""?*. Beypt, has sent to Sir Joseph Hooker, director of the Kew Gardens, a long acconp of the plants contained in some w^ eafound in the coffin of an Egyptian (mummy). They comprised leaves of tn willow, leaves of the date palm, flowers, and ccrn flowers. Of the POopi«i Dr. Schweinfnrth says that * ha ""£ portions are in a wonderful state of P/ B *".. tion. " Not a stamen, not an anther£ wa« ing; nay, one might almost ssj-thai even a pollen grain is missing. J"™ 1 * oi such perfect and well-preserved ?P ec '°^ 3 . this fragile flower met with in The colour, too, of the petals is «»*£3 in a high degree as in the dried spec the present day. It a a dark brow»» that leaves a deep stain on the flowers have be soaked. " « quo« a translation furnished *° *■•££, we re princess at whose funeral the*. »<>££ &, used lived about eleven centime, bew Christian era ff been employed as funeral * at years earlier, have been found in a vs Thebes.