NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8980, 18 February 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Switzerland sent 27,925 watches to Japan in 1886. The London firemen are to be uniformed with asbestos cloth. - - ! Last year England paid £3,000,000 to the foreign farmers for eggs. A white collie has been presented to the Queen as an unheard of rarity. . There were five sales of wool in London last year, amounting to 1,180,000 bales. Erard's piano factory in Paris took fire on Jan. 4. Fifteen hundred pianos were destroyed. From Bombay the death is announced of Maneckjee Cursetje, late Judge of the High Court of Bombay. The United States fisheries are the most valuable in the world. Those of Great Britain come second. A congress for the study of tuberculosis in men and animals will be held at Paris July 25 to 31, 1888. M. de Villars claims to have invented a balloon which can be guided. The French Government alone will utilise the invention.

According to Truth, the Pope has received upwards of 14,000 pairs of slippers from female devotees in various parts of the world.

A law has been passed in Waldeck, Germany, forbidding the granting of a marriage license to a person addicted to the liquor habit. In two London churches actors have been invited to read the lessons for several successive Sundays lately with great satisfaction to the audiences. Since this time fifty years ago the production of pi".iron in the United Kingdom has increased seven-fold, while the price has come down one-half.

Attendance at the London Zoological Garden has greatly fallen off during the past year, owing in a large measure to Buffalo Bill's entertainment. The Times of India says that a general order is about to be issued by the Comman-der-in-Chief directing that cavalry, like infantry, shall henceforth cheer when charging. Two Seventh-day Adventists are on trial at Halifax, No via Scotia, for performing labour on Sunday. Their defence is that Saturday and not Sunday is " the Sabbath of the Lord."

In Newcastle, since 1837, the working hours have gone down from 61 per week to 54; while the average wage per hour has increased by 26 per cent., comparing the first 25 years of the half-century with the last 25.

Recently some experiments have been made in St. Petersburg with the idea of slaughtering cattle by electricity, the results of which have been highly satisfactory—death being in all cases instantaneouus.

The Spanish National Theatre at Madrid is to be pulled down because of its dangerous condition. It has stood for over three hundred years, and has seen the masterpieces of Lope de Vega and of Calderor produced on its stage. A despatch from Belgrade says King Milan, in addressing the Deputies at the recent Servian celebration, said —V The horizon is dark, and a fearful war seems to be impending. Servia must be prepared to defend her interests." In 1840 the tonnage of British shipping entered and cleared from the ports of the United Kingdom was 6,505,000 ; in 1885 ib was 46,390,000. In 1846 there was 58 per cent. British to 42 per cent, foreign; in 1885 the percentages were 73 and 37. The annual conference of professional musicians was held in London on Jan. 4. The Lord Mayor of London presided. Pro fessor Calixa Lavallde,' of Boston, Mass., read a paper on " The Advance of Music in America. The conference tendered Professor Lavallee a cordial vote of thanks.

Some days ago a peasant ploughing ab Tjoring, in Denmark, unearthed a handsome armlet of pure gold weighing 12 ounces, which, according to the Director of the Museum of Antiquities in Copehnagen, dates from the second or third century A.D. The-infant so: of Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield, Wakefield, Mass., is stated to have weighed but eight ounces at birth. At its death, which occurred when the child was several weeks old, it weighed but two pounds. The child was described as perfectly formed. With the Gazette of January 9 is published an appendix and two sheets containing illustrations of the several marks which the Assay Offices of the Kingdom are henceforth to place on home-made and foreign watch-cases brought to them to be stamped. The cherry, the peach, the plum, the apple, and the pear are believed to have been brought to England by the Romans. The three last as well as the cherry, in all probability, reached them from Armenia, the peach from Persia, the fig from Syria, the orange from Media, and the apricot) from Epirus. Colonel Alikanhoff, accompanied by several French and Russian travellers, has left Merv to inspect the Russo-Afghan frontier. The Russian railway bridge over the Amu-Daria at Chardjui, which is approaching completion, will be about four versts in length. The City Press states that the Marquis of Salisbury has sold to Mr. T. J. Steel, of 31, Gracechurch-street, his freehold property, consisting of Cecil-street and Salis-bury-street, in the Strand, together with the lower land extending to the Embankment Gardens, a total area of 86,000 feet, for the sum of £200,000.

In South Lincolnshire the demand for allotments under the new Act is assuming gigantic proportions, and it is feared it will not be met without considerable difficulty. Requisitions have been signed by labourers in the Spalding division for over a thousand acres of land from three central towns. Seven hundred applications have been made. December 8 being the anniversary of the Ring Theatre Fire in Vienna, a wreath was laid on the common grave of the victims in the name of the Vienna Town Council, and on December 9 a solemn mass was said in the Chapel of the Atonement, erected by the Emperor on the §ite of the theatre. The Duke of Devonshire has issued a circular to his tenantry in the counties of Cork and Waterford, informing them that, on account of the agricultural depression, he will be pleased to give an abatement of 30 per cent, at the forthcoming audit. For the past two years His Grace gave 25 per cent, of a reduction.

It is stated at the War Office that the important duties of Lord Wolseley will at> present prevent his proceeding to Australia to make an inspection of the local military forces. It is, however, understood that) Major-General Sir Evelyn Wood will shortly go out with that object, and that he will be accompanied by Major-General Brackcnbury and other officers. A wealthy firm of tea merchants, one of the largest in Russia, has acquired extensive tracts in the netobourbood of Soukhoum Kaleh, and along the Circassian coast, on which they are about to raise tea plantations. These will shortly be placed under the care and direction of Russian experts, who have been sent to China to study the tea culture and are now about to return. An unusual spectacle presented itself recently at the Royal Albert Dock, a huge consignment of wild animals being shipped by the steamship Ludgate Hill for Barnum and Bailey's new show. The lot consisted of lions, tigers, black panthers, zebras, tapirs, a young hippopotamus, ostriches, baboons, gazelles, antelopes, &c. ; all supplied by Mr. Charles Jamrach, of Rat-

The Rev. P. W. Phipps, Rector of Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks, has received a letter from Sir Henry Ponsonby, informing him that the Queen will be happy to give £20 towards the fund for the purchase and presentation of the cottage in which Milton finished " Paradise Lost" and began " Paradise Regained and saying that he will be glad to hear further when progress has been made. . , During her recent visit to Balmoral, Princess Christian drew the Queen's attention to the work carried on upon the high seas by means of the Medical Mission vessels of the Mission to Deep-sea Fishermen. The Queen not only intimated to the founder and director her approval and consent to become the patron of the institu- : tion, but also contributed a donation of fifty pounds to the funds. *» •'' _ The mannir in which the Egyptian Government recognises the services of General Gordon is, says a telegram from Alexandria dated Dec. 7, shown by tho following factßills drawn on the Government by General Gordon during the siege of Khartoum, amounting to £40,000, have been dishonoured by the Government, which obtained a decision from the Cairo mixed tribunal in their 'favour. The holders of tho bills have commenced an action against the private estate of General Gordon for payment.