GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7515, 19 December 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

■* hoped y »t« •gwiwt intoxicating drinkl w?„ W,tz ' rla <>d reflex action th«e. Dram ahon Pr ? d ** a the street c,„, it ™, is with U !P»« rapidity. Alcoholic patient, A ttaf ul standing feature at the ho3mt--.i ' a vintuers have forced their W i,,toVo, fte ber, aud arc so strong that M L,,i, eChar a candidate, thought well „ „ nty Whe * port their claim to direct ropreVen? U P' The Swiss do not so go far as eden at "". kngiish advocates of local option "y ? ha empower the cantonal authorities t, tll6 the number of public houses, and im re(lucß orohibitive tax on foreitru briudi« P ° a beetroot and potatoes, and to tai- V ma ,' Je of and public-house*. The Dublin 1 eries bar, against this measure, which " J° Ugh(i tually carried. 1,8 evoa. The administration of British ?„ r a polyglottic colony was pit to 1 ,?? m severe test last month a, KimbrV thtr a Africa. At a criminal trial there wJre ? th pusouere, throne .peaking only IV,! tw ° tne other speaking only Jiasutn gefce » under the Illicit Diamond Jhvwj aT & ' 1 trading m diamonds without a li ut H Vl'"* 1 were two witnesses, one , f ? ere Bpoue only Zulu, and the other M,^" 1 liicre were two interpreters, one of could speak a English, """to. zum t Oll , 1 Metapele, and the other English an IP an 4 gese ; aud there was, finally the iudi. ortu ' impartially spoke English. The £t' * h ° interpreter p/oceeded to translate t ". ou 8 u e < l tiona of the Crown Prosecutor from I q ?- et * into Zulu and Metapele, and then n * ilsl! their answers iu to£to'to onel?' Uroe m English to the Court. The L' " . ' and preter then took up the parable an ! everything into Portugese or the'beiietiWf he Portugese prisoner. The trkl ,? °, its alow length along, when suddenly discovered tnat the Portugese nr.! 1,8 not fully understand the interpret ? "poke Portuguese, as he only kuew enw Portugese. Babel, however, could Qot i further imitated, and in the result ° I lu® prisoners received a sentence of seven v mS penal servitude!. /cars A grave disaster has happened in Sicilv jSiculosi, a township lying on th(? Southern side of Mount Etna, containing iiUOO ,nh£ (antei, has been destroyed by an earthquake All the houses have fallen or have been rendered uninhabitable, so that the nonr tenants live in the open, sleeping at niaht in large tubs which have been brought to' them or on the bare ground. It is not the tint time that ivicolosi has been destroyed it having been buried in 15.17 by a terrible eruption of Mount Etna, which overwhelmed it. Ine historians of that catastrophe relate that the victims of a part of Catania and the villages amounted to 27,000. On the ruins of the lormer Nicolosi rose another town more populous, which has now been destroyed. The principal occupation of thr engineers who have now been »ent is that d demolition, while wooden barracks are bene erected as& temporary refuge. A new form of boycotting has been developed in Birmingham. he commercial travellers who make the town their headquarters for the Midland district have had a grievance of late against the rigour with which the London and North-Western Com* pany exact the full excess fare on their sample cases. The company have been interviewed and petitioned concerning it, but all to no purpose, so a large party of Manchester soft goods travellers resolved to start a boycotting crusade, and the y got up a memorial pledging all who signed it to avoid travelling on the obnoxious line whenever possible, and also to use their efforts where possible to have the goods they sold transmitted by other lines, i'he circular has been extensively signed in all the commercial hotels in the town, and if it is carried out it will affect the company very seriously, since Birmingham is a great the company centre for commercial men. The grocers, or moat of them, of Newport (Men.) some time since agreed that they would on certain days of the week close their establishments at seven o'clock, The majority of those who were parties to the agreement loyally carried it out, but at a quarter past seven o'clock some one or two had their shops open, gats burning, and were driving a lively trade. This was too much for the newly-emancipated grocers' assistants, and they resolved to try the effect of a remonstrance i ii muss? t>ii the recalcitrant employers. Forming lacmseives in a body, some thirty of them lirst marched to the stores of -Messrs. Atkins and Williams, in High-street, entered the shop, and apparently demanded an explanation. What transpired inside m unknown to us, but after an interview with the principals of tho firm tile young men quitted the shop, the gas in one window was being turned out, aud the doors closed as they did so. Flushed with the success that had attended their action, they proceeded towards Commercial-street, where it was said two other grocers were still open, but ere they reached these places of business were closed, aud there was no necessity for action. Tho young men were from the first perfectly orderly and well behaved. Of course a

crowd collected at the various places of business that were visited, but beyond this there was nothing to mark that anything unusual was going on, and the police had do difficulty in dispersing the people who from curiosity were drawn to the scene of action.

The London City Press, in an article on "Social Parasites,'' says the Mendicity Society, Red Lion Square, Loudon, has had over 200,000 begging letters—good, bad, and indifferent— referred to its committee, and that over 60,000 impostors, tramps, and vagrants have fallen into the hands of iti constables. Some curious instances are given of street impositions. In one case a man, who represented himself as having lost his tongue by an operation, exhibited in a bottle of spirits of wine what turned out to be a sheep's tongue. An Italian resident applied for charitable under various pretences, and at last wrote representing himself as dead, and that money was requited for his funeral. The Liberal jourLals of Denmark complain of the one-sided accounts that are given in the German Press of the present crisis between ttie Cabinet Ministers and the Folkethinjj, or House of Deputies, in that country. The Danes claim tbat Estrup, the Prime Minister, is the sole cause of the present estrangement between the King and his people, and that aside from the arbitrary and unparliamentary measures taken by the Government, the Danish royal family is very popular among the people; Estrup is undoubtedly a man of courage and decision, for when he was shot at by Julius Kasmnsßen, and the button of his overcoat stopped the bullet, he closed in on his assailant, thus saving himself from a serious wound from the second shot. He gave the would-be assassin into the hands of the police, and then went to a grand dinner, where he delighted the guests by his keen wit was polished conversation. Rasmussen is » young printer, and tried to justify his action by claiming that his sole aim was for the good of the country. The Skyo crofters, like the disaffected inhabitants of the islands across the Irish Channel, have come to the conclusion that they possess some rights that their landlords are bound to respect. For years past the crofters at Sconair have complained of the damages done to their crops by the deer in the neighbouring forests owned by Lord Macdouuld, and last year they claimed £150 for damages, and the sum »vas allowed but never paid. Hecently a number of deer were observed feeding on some corn and potato ground, and the inhabitants gathered and drove six deer into the sea, where at the time some twenty boats were lifting herring nets. The deer were soon surrounded by boats and either drowned or killed by the fisherman. The spoil was then divided between the pursuers aud the captors.

A curious instance of a treasure trove is reported from Svendborgen, in Denmark. From time almost immemorial, it had been reported that in an old castellated building in that neighbourhood a treasure lay buried, but although several explorations had been made, they were all without success. The proprietor believed so implicitly in the truth of the story, that when he sold the property some years since, he reserved the right* to the treasure, should it ever be discovered.

Recently the house was torn down, and hidden away under one of the foundations there was an old oaken box in which were teii bars of the finest silver, some 400 pieces of the name metal, and a number of gold coins of the time of Eric, who reigned in Denmark from 1396 to 1412. Thus a piece of folk lore, passing from generation to generation for nearly f>oo years, is found to be true at last. Another case in reported from Alost, a small Flemish town, in the discovery of & true Rubens in the shop of a poor tailor. The picture had been in the possession of his family for some time, without their being aware of its great It represents "Christ Blessing the World, and bears the name of the artist and the date of 1614. Large amounts have been ollered for the picture, but the knight of the needle declines, as yet, to part with his treasure.