NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7383, 18 July 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

An important case was argued in a New York court recently by a ninety-five-year-old lawyer. Literary productions and objects of art have been placed on the free list of the German tariff. In the English-speaking countries of the wor'd there are 11,000,000 Roman Catholics and BS, 000,000 Protestants. It costs each of the colleges whose crews participate in the annual boat race on the Thames, about £1400 for the sport. In the Greek Church a Christian soldier was debarred from the Eucharist for three years if he had slain an enemy in battle. The Sultan of Turkey recently re-modelled the pharmacy of his palace, calling two German specialists to Constantinople to do it. The Italian Government will erect a monument sixty feet high to the memory of Cavour, the regenerator of Italy, He died in ISGI. The King of Denmark has issued a proclamation prohibiting the possession of fire* arms by any person without speoial permission. The Austrian Government is drafting a Bill for a State recognition of the Anglican Church, which hitherto has only been tolerated iu Austria. A majority of the London School Board has just refused permission to the manager! of a Jewish school in the East End to open their play-ground on Sundays. The Egyptian obelisk, which was for a time the wonder of New York, and the im.poitation of which co3t Wm. H. Vanderbilfc £16,000, has dropped almost wholly out of notice. La Pv6publique Francais of Paris announces that an Indian, and the reputed son of Naua Sahib, is at present an officer in the Russian Army, and that he is treated with princely honours. The Tennessee Legislature at its last cession passed an Act prohibiting the preaching of the doctrine of polygamy in that State. Under this act three Mormon elders hare been arrested. The value of land in the city of London : The freehold house. No. 159, Fenohurchstreet, containing a superficial area of 1400 feet, was sold recently for £15,700, equivalent to £12 per superficial foot. In Italy the fate of agricultural labourers who were on strike in the province of • Mantua excites compassion. Twenty of the men have beeu sentenced to hard labour, and 150 are iu prison awaiting trial. China offers as attractive a field for the work of professional explorers as any other country on the globe. It hes recently been ascertained hat the Chinese coalfields occupy an area of 400,000 square miles. Cock-fights are the national amusement at Ecuador, paying a revenue to the Government, and presided over by the priests, who have the reputation of being the best cock* fighters and the heaviest betters in Ecuador. The subsidy which the Dominion Govern* ment has promised to pay the Allan Steamship Company for the carriage of the British mails amounts to over £25,000 per annum. For this sum a weekly service each way is promised. The French delight in coincidences, and point out that the amount of money voted for the Tonquin expedition is £8,000,000, precisely the same sum as Germany demanded from the city of Paris as her share of the war indemnity in 1871. It is reported that a Connecticut company engaged in the manufacture of watoh movements, had completed £6600 worth of stock, and begun putting the parts together, when it was discovered that all the watches turned their pointers backward. The shortest street in the world is in Paris. It runs from the flue de Clery to the Rue Beauregard, and is a little over five metres in length. But its most remarkable feature consists in the absence of doors, windows, numbers, and sign-posts. The Henley-on-Thames magistrate* have issued a notice warning publicans and tellers of intoxicating liquors that if any person is found on any licensed premises in a state of drunkenness, they have determined to inflict upon the publican the full penalty of £10 and costs. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers reports an increase during the first ten months of from 1893 to 4090 men out of work in England, owing chiefly to the collapse of the ship-building trade, which makes an annual difference in the labour market of £7,500,000. The Arabs of the Soudan grind their coffee as fine as flour, and boil it in a oopper saucepan without a lid. They would not on any account boil it in a covered vessel, as any lid or cover would prevent the deleterious qualities from escaping, and make the coffee bitter. A voluminous report has been made by the Mayor of Marseilles on laet year's cholera visitation. The aggregate number of deaths was 1235 in July, 380 in August, 114 in September, and 43 in October, the total being 1772. The population of Marseilles is a little over 270,000. The tallest house in Paris is at the Passage Radziville, in the Palais Royal; it has nine storeys besides the attios. The most extensive building let out in flats is the Grace de Dieu, in the Rue de Faubourg da Temple, in which there are 13 staircases and 189 separate families of lodgers. It was lately said by Professor Chaumont that in London the streets were filthy and sewers abominable, but the homes were the perfection of cleanliness ; whereas in Paris one might give a dinner party in the sewers, and the streets were perfectly clean, but the houses were abominably filthy. The Argentine Government is more sue* eeesful than that of any other SpanishAmerican country in securing immigration from the Mediterranean countries. It paya part of the passage money, and assigns each family immigrating to the confederating farming lands, to be paid for on instalments. The Balloon Detachment of the German Army have invented a balloon with electrio light nnd telephone attachments, and capable of carrying four persons. The light is sufficiently strong to make the ground perfectly discernible for a distance of more than a mile. Aerial sharp-shooting is to be one of the exciting features of future wars. The Madagascar Government, it appears, have passed laws prohibiting the manufacture or sale of rum in the district of Imerina under a penalty for each offence of ten oxen and £2. Any person foand drunk with rum will be lined seven oxen and 28s; and the introduction of any quantity of rum into the district is punishable with a fine of five oxen and £1. It is predicted that the ivory supply of Central Africa will not last more than ten or fifteen years longer. Its exhaustion will be a good thing for Africa, because the natives will not devote themselves to the development of the natural resources of the country so long as they can find tnsks. The sooner the ivory is gone, therefore, the better for Africa and the Africans. The encouraging replies made by the Prince of Wales to hopes expressed that the Royal Family will more frequently visit Ireland is followed by the statement in Dublin that it ia in contemplation to purchase Ardbracoan Palace, Navan, as an Irish residence for Prince Albert Victor. The palace is capitally situated for hunting and salmon fishing, and has extensive stables and kennels. The American Iron and Steel Association report that the total production of nails in the United States during the year 1884 amounted to 7,581,379 kegs of lOOOlbs. each, as compared with 7,702,737 ke«s in 1883, and 6,147,007 kegs in 1882. Of the total output last year, 393,482 kegs, or about 5 per cent., were of steel nails, the production of which is a riew branoh of manufacture in America, and one which is expeoted to increase rapidly. Several doctors in Valencia have been making numerous experiments by inoculating adults and children with the choleraic virus. The faith of the local physicians and of persons of all claeses in these experiments is so great that in one afternoon 300 persons were inoculated. The Scolapian Fathers brought all their pupils also for this preventive vaccination against cholera. The medical men say the same phenomena have been observed as were noticed in similar experiments in France last year during the epidemic. A commission of Madrid doctors has been sent to report on the experiments.

Tho Connecticut Legislature has passed, with only one dissentient, a severe law against " dynamiters. ,. It presoribes a maximum penalty of £1000 fine, or 20 yeare' impriaonment, for manufacturing dynamite, and like punishment for anyone having the explosive in his possession, knowing it to be used to destroy persons or property ; also like penalties for contributing money or advocating the use of or aotnally neiug dynamite for snch unlawful purpose*. The killing of any person with dynamite is added to the list of crimes punishable in Connecticut with the death penalty. The Bill providee for licensed dealers in such explosives and a rigid supervision ot sales for any purpose.