GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8056, 17 September 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

A NEW GOSPEL.

A VERT extraordinary case is about to come before the high tribunal at Malaga. A few months ago a woman, a native of the village of Torrox, declared that the Virgin Mary had appeared to her and had ordered her to preach a new gospel for the salvation of mankind, as the end of the world was at hand. The woman's story seems to hove baen believed without hesitation, and soon the whole village was in a state of religious frenzy. The woman preached in favour of abandonment of earthly possessions, and ad* vocated a return to the mode of life and habits of primitive man. During the height of the frenzy a fire was lighted in the village, into which the converts to this fantastic superstition threw their valuables, furniture, and clothes; men, women, and children dancing and shouting around the fire in a state of nudity. Warned of what was going on, the local gendarmerie arrived only just in time to save the infants from being thrown into the fire by their frenzied mothers, and to prevent the houses of the village from being set on fire. FLYC.ITCHING FOII A LIVING. Flycatchers have a busy time of it in Paris just now. According to a correspondent of a daily contemporary, the calling is not a recognised or classified one, nor do parents as a rule bring their sons np to it. But there are hundreds of experienced hands employed at it during the dog days, and a good haul of flies is often profitable enough. The fly. catcher is generally a declasse, or a good-for-nothing rascal from the suburban lanes and alleys, who does not want to leave Paris and is too lazy to go in the country for the haymaking or the harvesting. Sometimes he is a person who unites in himself a variety of callings, being by turns a corner errand runner, a bootblack, a dog shaver and clipper or even a I'roUi'itr or fi >or waxer out of employment. His modus operandi is as follows : He takes a tolerably large-sized box with a little hole in its top, and stations himself outside a grocer's shop where the winged insects are busily buzzing against the windowpanes on the look-out for stray drops of molasses., or chance grains of brown sugar. These the catcher dexterously imprisons iu his palm, in the schoolboy fashion, and, digi locating some of their antenna?, puts them into his box. Sometimes he is allewed to pursue his calling inside the shop, when customers are not numerous, and is thus enabled to fill his box w:th celerity. After a few hours of this exciting kind of sport he noes off with his spoil, and disposes of it to the people who sell or keep birds. His best and most open-handed customers are the frail denizens of the Quartier Breda or the Qaartier de l'Europe, all of whom keep leathered pets. They of'-en pay so good a price to the fly-catcher for his spoil tlut he is enabled to go home after a suoces.'ul day with ample means in his pocket to defray the cost of bed and board for half a week in one of his dingy haunts. EFFECTS OK HEAT. An Americau paperof July IShasthefollowing: —Yesterday the beat in the Eastern States was without a parallel. At eleven o'clock last night at Chicago sixty-two persons had died either in or on the way to the various hospitals in the city since Saturday moruinj from the heat. Six cases of sunstroke, a score of prottrationa, aud a number of suddeu deaths occurred at Pittsburg. Eleven fatal cases of sunstroke and fifteen cases from prostration in St. Louis. At Philadelphia there were fourteen deaths from sunstroke; in Kalamazoo three; at Indianapolis there were four cases, two fatal ; at Cincinnati f»rty-eight cases, eighteen fatal; at Joliet fourteen convicts were affected aud two died ; at Uleveland one fatal case of sunstroke, and four deaths at G*!eshurg, 111. Numbers of cases are reported where people have succumbed to the heat with no fatal results. At Cincinnati aud St. Louis people suffered inside rheir doors, and many occupied the sidewalks all night ion,;. MARY QUEKX OF SCOT-!. The Exhibition of Relics in connection, with the tercentenary of the execution of Mary Queen of Soots, which is under the patronage of the Queen, who has also contributed numerous iclics, was opened by ths Dowager Marchioness of Huntly on July 13 in the presence of a numerous company. The Dean of Peterborough in describing the relics said he would not attempt to take a side in the world-wide controversy as to the merits or demerits of the unfortunate Queen of Scots. Impartial historians had pointed out, and it was impossible to forget, that at the time of Mary's execution there wr.s a groat game of politics being played iu Europe, It was not a mere question between Mary and Elizabeth, but a question whether Mary was or was not to be Queen of England as well as of Scotland, and lurther, whether the Romish religion was to be established here instead of the Protestant religion. But, whatever might have been the faults on both uides, no one would deny that much commiseration was due to Queen Mary. Th: company then proceeded to the cathedral, when, standing by a stone marking the position of Mary's first interment, the Dean read a contemporary account of the burial of Mary. The Mayor (Mr. H. P. Gatss) subsequently entertained a distinguished company at his residence, after which a conversazione was held, when the Rev. E. Bradley (" Cuthbert Beae") read an appro* priate paper. The relics form a unique historical collection exhibition, which will re« main open for a month. THE SEW AMERICAN YACIIT. Keen interest was felt iu New York, a cor« respondent says, in the success of the trial last week of General Paine's new steel sloop the Volunteer. She completely outsailed the New York sloop Priscilla and the fast cutter Bedouin in a four-mile brush off Marble Head in an eighteen-mile wind, Everybody who saw her behaviour iu a splendid run down the coast was amazed at her wonderful speed and sea-going qualities. Mr. Burgess, the designer, is entirely satisfied. He remarked : "1 said that I could make a yacht which would beat the Mayflower twelve minutes in a forty-mile race. 1 think I have done it." The Xvew York Times says' " Her towering mast, taller than any of the chipping in the harbour, her immense bow* sprit, her gigantic boon), gave an impression of strength and power. If inclined to be captious, fault might be found with her somewhat full sides, and there were not wanting those who felt inclined to criticise her graceful bow and departure from the straight lines of the earlier Burgess type. One point in her model seriously open to criticism is the stern. This is almost shocking from a yachtsman's point a view, a nondescript modifies" tion of the old poop-deck of the Spanish galleon. From whatever point examined i would seem to be nondescript. Ihe stern o the Volunteer must prove a serious impediment in anything but smooth water. Heavy seas rolling nnder her ought to impair heronward movement, as they must apparently lift her stern and plunge her bow under water, To say that this result was not appa* rent in to-day's trial is only fair, however. This stern impairs the symmetry and beauty of the yacht if it does nothing else."

THE AFGHAN BOUNDARY. The Afghan boundary question has at last been satisfactorily settled on the basis o mutual concessions. Russia receives toe territory between Kusk and llurghab, 0 which the Penjdeh Turkomans were deprived by the recent demarcation, In return 8 8 accepts the English frontier lire 011 the Oxns, and renounces her claims to the districts 0 which she would have been entitled according to the terms of arrrangement in I°' ' Abdurrahman loses neither revenue nor su ■ jects, while all parties concerned have advantage henceforth of a fixed frontier, pe» fectly defined and guaranteed by ' D er " national compact. Much patience ant » have been necessary on the part of Mr Ri'igeway aud his colleagues to bring long.negotiations to a satisfactory couc.usi » and they may well be congratulated 011 . success that has at length crowne efforts. All that will now be necessary to erect a few boundary pillars upon ,in spots agreed upon between Sir VV est » way and M. Zinovieff, and it is to be hope that we have now heard the last for time to come of Anglo-Russian diuere Central Asia.'