NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7650, 29 May 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Phylloxera is reported in the Cape o£ Good Hope vineyards. Population has increased nearly 4 per cent, in Prussia duriug tho past five years. A £400 tree fern from New Zealand wae recently a horticultural odditv in New York. Herr Palisa, of Vicuna, has discovered another minor planet, thus bringing up these email bodies to 254. The Duke of 86. Albans will take charge of the Deceased Wife'e Sister Bill in the House of Lords. Pope Leo XIII. intends to hold at the Vatican an exhibition of all the presents he has received since hi 3 accession. The Danes are making their second invasion of Ireland. This time they are selling in Oork, butter made in Denmark. A Bill now before the lowa Legislature provides that before a man marriea in that State he must show his ability to support a family. The Tower of London, which has been closed to the public since the dynamite explosion in January of last year, has been re opened to visitors. Austria in taking steps to swell her army to 2.200.000 men, counting all reserves, and Russia is preparing to meet the Hapsburg Empire at all points. The Portsmouth Town Council have decided to spend £120,000 in the erection of a new Guildhall. They reeolved to copy the design of the Bolton Town Hall. Franz Lizst has completed a new oompoei« tion in honour of Richard Wagner, to which he ia said to have given the strange title, " Die Loichen oder Todtengondel." The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury have lowered the rentals of their agricultural estates 10 per cent., in addition to the 25 per cent, abatement granted in 1885. Much interest is just now taken In the goldfields throughout South Africa. It ia oatimaled that the exports of gold from Natal last year were of tlie value of £120,000. The continued experiments at Vienna with, the new repeating rifle invented by Herr Worndl, have given excellent results, forty shots per minute being put on to a target with ease. A maiden lady named Heathorn, known as the Maid of Kant," has juet completed her 103 rd year at Maidstone. She possesses all her faculties, aud still holds spectacles ia contempt. The late Rev. A. G. Grayatono, of Tankertou Castle, Wuitslablft, whose death oocurred in London the other day, has, it ia stated, left property to the value of four million pounds. Prince Bismarck wants the Duchy of SaxeCoburg Gotha so much that he has offered the Duko of Edinburgh £100,000 for hie rights. The Duke doee not want to sell them, however. A man aged sixty-eight years, who had previously led four bride 3 to the alt&r, was married to a girl fifteen years old at Little Fausse Pointe. La. After the wedding the pair were mobbed. Experts in Vienna declare that there are autograph letters of Mahommed among th* papyri acquired in Egypt by Arohduke Rainer, the Administrator of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ono plank nine feet wide and twenty feet long, without knot or blemish of any kind, and another twelve feet wide, are among the contributions of British Columbia to the Liverpool Exhibition. The body has just been found, stiff and stark, of a farmer named Lewis, aged 71,wh0 evidently perished while attempting to cross the sheep-walks on the Trawafyudd Moun" tain, Merionethshire. At the bird show recently held at the Crysial Palace there were 1856 exhibits. Canaries formed the largest section of the exhibition, and of foreign birds tho finches attracted most attention. The hostile legislation undertaken by Congress against the Mormons, has practically stopped all Mormon immigration from Europe. No Mormons have arrived at Atlantic ports since November. The Kingdom of Italy is spending four million pouuds in redeeming Naples, driving new streets and eewtre through the poor quarter, and removing the poor people to a newly-built section in the suburbs. Mr. Barling, of Twickenham, a well-known follower of the Queen's hounds for over 4G years, was killed on March 30 whilst hunting. His horse fell in taking a fenconear Chesham, causing his rider to break his neck. The reverend author of " How to be Happy though Married" doui -.a the report that he it at work upon another book, "How to be Jolly though Buried." The latter subject, he says, is at present too deep for him. Tho Duke of Sutherland's steam yacht has been equipped with a double-barrelled gun to kill whales. One barrel tires au explosive bullet and the other a harpoon, both beiDg discharged at the same time. At Exeter, on March 31, a man named Thorn was fined £5 for deserting his wife 13 years ago. and was then remanded on a charge of bigsruy. It was remarked that his desertion of his wife had cost the city £120. Walter Ledger, a man with several aliaacs, of Nottingham, was sentenced at Derby to five years' penal servitude for stealing a lady's jacket. Tho prinoner offered to toss the chairman whether the sentence was 10 yeara or nothing. During the past year the Paris morgue received SSS bodies, of which 659 were males and 99 females. This shows a slight falliDgoff from the previous year. August is, as a French paper terms it, the most popular month for 6uicides. A terrible tragedy took place at Belleville, Paris, on April 1. A carpenter named Vaubier strangled his mistress and then shot himself through the heart. The couple agreed to die together, and drew lots who should kill the other. An elephant called Madame Jumbo, belonging to Messrs. Bostock aud Wombwell'e menagerie, now at Aberdare, on April 3, struck with her trunk an old man named David Watkins, aud injured him so severely that he died from the etTecta. At WolverhamproD, on March 3J, three local Eolicitors, Messrs. Henry launders, Wolverhampton, anil William Bowden and Johu Fellows, of Bilstou, were each fined £5 and costs for practising as eolicitors without having taken out the necessary certificates. It is reported that the Girton girls have proved so faithless to Mr. Browning as to dissolve their Browning Society, and spend the balance of the funde in hand upon chocolutes. Surely the latter part of the statement, at any rate, must be a heartless libel. A correspondent says that most of those who prosper on the Monaco gaming tables apprehend their disestablishment at no distant date. Preparations are being made to fouud a grand, but of course disguised, gambling hell, at Ahasio, on the Italian side of the frontier. A butcher named John Letherland, 20 years of age, at Bulwell, a suburb of Nottingham, was slaughtering a sheep, and when about to plunge the knife into the animal's throat he slipped and fell, the knife piercing his own side, and inflicting a wound from which he died. The Lower House of the Prussian Diet have adopted, on the second reading, clause 1 of the bill placing £50,000 at the disposal of the Government for the purpose of establishing German agricultural colonies in West Prussia and Posoq, with a view to arresting the growth of the Polish element. A number of members of the English Legislature who object to wearing Court drees have senu a communication to the Speaker on the subject. In this communication they express their regret that owing to the requirement of Court drese they were not able to attend his levee. A curious " duellists' dinner" was lately given at Pesth by a famoua Hungarian Bwordeman to celebrate his thirty-fifth affair of honour. Kach gueafc had fought at least six duels, and bore honourable scara. some lacking an eye or an ear, while one Frenchman had lost hia nose in an encounter with Count Andraeey." A sad discovery was made at Longridge, Preston, on April 4. An old man named Sharpies lived alone in a cottage which was snowed up. A way was cut, and the old man was found in his nightcap and shirt, with scarf round his neck, suspended to a banister. Hβ had become dejected at his loneliness, and committed suicide. The Postmaster-General has been authorised to pay tho eum of £20 to Mrs. Robinaou, wiie of the postmaster at Hawarden, as of the Queen's Royal Bounty, on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone, for the special snd onerous duties she has discharged in connection with the post-ofllco at Hawarden for the past 20 years. According to recently published statistics, there have been fought in France since 1870, no less than S-17 duels, besides many between officers and between private soldiers, which arc- scarcely ever mentioned in the papers. Out of these 547 duels, only nine resulted in one of the parties being disabled. In 98 per cent, of the cases the combatants left the field unscathed, thouah riihahilihataA,