MEW IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8928, 17 December 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

MEW IN BRIEF.

A Ceabbmont, N.H., man died the other day while signing his will. The Nautical Society of Hamburg offers a prize of 500 marks for the best essay on the subject of calming the sea by the use of oil. It is announced in entire good faith that English rule in Egypt is successful because the £22,000,001) of Egyptian stock is now at par. The French Government has ordered from Thorneycroft nine torpedo-boats of guaranteed high speed for the lump sum of 4,500,000 francs. A Michigan girl who recently ohased a robber with a pitchfork and made him drop his booty is said to be overrun with ad* mirers.

A farmer near Virden, Manitoba, has made an affidavit to an average yield of fifty-one bushels of wheat to the acre from fifteen acres.

At Blackburn, the jury awarded Thomas Sutton, a cotton weaver, £100 compensation for having his eye knocked out by a loom-* shuttle.

The Cincinnati Commercial says that a girl who was married reoently at Covington was only II years old, and wore schoolgirl's attire. When the Trafalgar, the new warship, is complete, she will displace 11,940 tons of water, and will have cost not far short of £900,000. Japan is to have her first House of Bepre* sentatives in 1890, and meantime is studying how government by aid of the people is done elsewhere.

The guano on the coast islands is no longer a source of revenue to the Peruvian Treasury. Chili holds the richest guano fields as the spoils of war. In the little county of Cass, in Indiana, 153 women have been freed from the bonds of matrimony within eighteen months, all by order of the court.

A monument to Gambetta is to be erected in Place du Carrousel, in Paris. Two hundred and eighty thousand French citizens contributed to the fund. AWiscocsin jndge, in order to accommodate two lawyers who desired to return home as speedily as possibly, recently allowed them to argue their case on a train. One of the players in the football match between Barrow and Peel Bank Rovers, named Josepn Dean, 19, was kicked in the stomach on the Saturday and died on the Monday. At Quayaquil, Ecuador, it has been found necessary to impose heavy fines in order to abolish the custom indulged in by both men and women of sending chaffing and immoral messages by telephone. A belief prevails in England that John Morley or Lord Rosebery will in the course of time assume the leadership of the Liberal party and become Prime Minister on the accession of the party to power. The Paris Cfoarivart, speaking of the recent report that Bonaparte's ashes had been stolen, remarks :—"Let him sleep in the midst of that French people whom he loved so well, and whom he caused to be so well massacred."

The Mayor of Argonia, Kan., has given birth to a fine boy, As that is something out of the usual line, it may be added that the Mayor of Argonia is a woman, Mrs. Susanna Salter, the only woman Mayor is the world.

An American paper says : — Rev. Mr. Spurgeon, the famous English preacher, is reported to have declined an offer of £18,000 for delivering 100 lectures in America. Mr. Spurgeon must be very unlike some other Englishmen. The oldest tombstone in Germany was hitherto supposed to have been one at Worms, dates 900 A.D. But at Zahlbach, a village near Mainz, a tombstone has just been discovered with a Hebrew epitaph, and dated 806 A.D.

The Salvation Array has commenced operations in Home, and its organ announces that Captain Laura has quite won the hearts of the Romans with her tambourine, although she is yet hardly able to speak a word of Italian. Dr. Barnardo, the philanthropist of London, has secured 5000 acres of land in the north-western part of the Dominion of Canada* and proposes to make of the entire blook an industrial farm where homeless lads of London may be sent. A peculiar liquor law is in force in Rock« land county, Ga, where but one person in the county is permitted to sell liquor. He is appointed by the grand jury, can Bell for medicinal purposes only, and cannot keep on band more than ten gallons of spirits. High license is working satisfactorily to all parties in Arlington, Ga. it fixed the whiskey license at £160, and two men at once paid £320 into the treasury. Of this £200 will be used in building a schoolhouse, and the town feels rich with its balance of £120 in bank, Signor Serpieri, Prefect of Messina, lately fell a victim to the cholera after devoting himself most heroically to the care of the sick and relief of the bereaved. His last words were :—" lam dying contented, for 1 have done my duty." The King will care for his family. The will of the late Professor Spenoer F. Baird of the Smithsonian Institution be* queaths all his property to his widow daring her life, and then to his daughter during her lifetime. Should both die without heirs, what remains is to revert to the Smithsonian Institution,

Padri Luiz, a Portuguese priest, and a peasant were bitten by a mad wolf in July ; the priest hastened to Paris and placed himself under Pasteur, while the peasant remained at home. Lniz recently died from hydrophobia, bat the peasant has shown no signs of the dread disease. An alarming occurrence took place in Old bury Parish Chnroh. Owing to some defect in the heating apparatus, the churoh was filled with sulphur. About 20 persona fainted, and many children and adults had to be carried out. By means of restoratives all eventually revived. Anthony Glika, olerk to Messrs. Vagliano, foreign bankers, Broad-street, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court the othtor day tohaviDg forged and uttered bills of exchange, whereby his employers had been defrauded to the amount of £71,000, and was sentenced to penal servitude for teD years. Asbestos cloth is being used for wearing apparel by the firemen in Paris. The firemen, according to a newspaper report, arrived at the scene of a recent conflagration —the basement of a house—clad in asbestos cloth suits, and were enabled to descend into the basement and master the fife in a short time.

The London Telegraph finds 113 out of 550 peers worthy to sit in Westminster. The balance are black sheep, and they are hopelessly eccentric or congenitally stupid. The Telegraph suggests that the peers pick out a small minority and let them do the legislating for the crowd, and thereby remove a genuine obstacle to real Irish reform, A horrible story comes from Lisbon, through French channels, that an actress, Laura Tempy by name, becoming jealous of two young artists, between whom had been divided some of her parts, invitcid them to a dinner at which poisoned mushrooms were served. She was soon rid of her rivals, bu* she has been arrested for the murders, an» has acknowledged her guilt. Lord Derby, in a letter on Disestablish* ment, writes that the maintenance of th» Church Establishment in England on its present footing must depend on the will of Parliament, and practically on the will of the House of Commons, for the Lords are not likely to take on themselves the responsibility of permanently resisting the decision of the constituencies deliberately expressed at a general election. The Bishop of Exeter, speaking lately at a diocesan conference, expressed the hope that ere long a Bill would be introduced for the compulsory retirement of incompetent clergymen, whatever position they held in the Charoh, compensation being made for existing claims. He acknowledged the value of trained women as workers in the Church, but there must be no setting aside of remembrance of the fact that we were Protestants.

The Coroner's jury which heard the evi< denoe in the Exeter 1 Theatre case was very severe in its finding toward the architect and the municipal authorities, But the fiercest indignation was reserved for the Coroner, or Sheriff, who had left the jury for four hours without the smallest drop of gin or sip of beer. So to the verdict tibere was attached an urgent demand for a law compelling the authorities to servo refreshments to juries. At an inquest at Coseley, near Sedge)y, respecting the death of Alfred Phibbs, a football player, it was shown that when deceased was playing in a football matoh, he ran with the ball uphill, and when dribbling with the ball the back of the opposing team came in contact with deceased, Inflicting serious injuries in the stomach, from the effects of whioh he died. The jury strongly denounced' the rough play, w, returned ft e|' *• Accidental deatfa^ ;■, ; :