NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8986, 25 February 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The library at Zurich contains 120,00 volumes and 4000 manuscripts. - _ The clear surplus of the Edinburgh Exhibition is now stated to be £5504 lGs 2Ad. An Amnti violin, which originally be« longed to King Louis XIV., has recently been sold at Buda-Pesth for £700. The latest statistical reports puts the population of tho non-Christian world at) more than a thousand million of souls. Phylloxera and mildew have so damaged the French vintage that the yield will be 3,500,000 hectolitres less than last year. At a recent meeting of Catholics in Vienna a strong feeling was manifested in favour of the Papacy to temporal power. The Great Eastern has been sold to a metal firm at London for £16,100. The vessel is to be broken up for the old metal. It is said that Alaska will become a great mining country within a few years, and will furnish canned salmon enough to supply all creation.

The Postmaster-General made the customary request to the public not to give postmen drink during the Christmas and New Year season.

The widow of Garibaldi lives in a quieb street in Turin, the walls of her little parlour covered with flags, medals, and other mementos of the dead hero. , Moscow students have become so unruly that lectures at the University have been suspended and Cossacks constantly patrol the streets to preserve order, Down to the middle of December the number of wrecks reported to the Board of Trade during the year was 1618, with an accompanying loss of 3472 ves. It has been decided at the War Office to complete the armament of the Irish militia with the Martini-Henry rifle before the next drill season commences, in March.

The Dean of Manchester Cathedral (Eng* land) has accepted the offer of a well-known citizen to place a stained-glass window in Manchester Cathedral in memory of General Gordon.

The first apple orchard in Kansas, consisting of 150 trees, was brought all the way from Illinois on a waggon and planted in Douglas county in 1855. The state has 30,000,000 fruit trees. Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of a labourer, residing at Wright's Cottages, East Acton brickfields, was delivered by Dr. Good, of Shepherd's Bush, on the 18th December, of three children, a boy and two girls. The Duke of Devonshire has, through his agent, informed the Buxton Liberal Club that in the present unsettled state of political affairs he must cease to be a membet of the club or to continue any subscription to it.

_ At a recent sale of autographs in Paris eight letters of Madame de Stael sold for £20 a letter, a letter of Camille Desmouline, £8 : one of Cromwell's, £6 ; one of Proudhon's, £10; an autograph of Catherine da Medicis, £6. The Russian Government has issued orders preventing Russian Poland from sending addresses, money, or presents to the Pope on the occasion of his jubilee. The Czar and his family will also abstain from sending presents. The _ International Musical Exposition which is to be held in Bologne, Italy, in May next, in connection with the celebration of the University's eighth centenary, will have Verdi for its honorary and Boito for its active President.

Public meetings in favour of early closing are being held in London. It is alleged that the average hours of English shop girls and clerks are from thirteen to fourteen a day. There is an early-closing Bill now before Parliament.

General John C. Black, who has returned to Washington from his trip to California, says : " California cannot be over-praised. It is a land of oil, wine, fruits, and flowers, with the riches of Ophir, and the most energetic people in energetic America." During the performance in the theatre ah Carthagena, Spain, a broker, occupying one of the boxes, committed suicide by exploding a dynamite cartridge. The concussion extinguished all the lights. The audience became panic-stricken, and in the excitement 100 persons, more or less, wore injured. In Liverpool, England, a play entitled, "Who's the Lunatic?" was recently enacted. Before it was finished half the people in the audience was shouting : " The author, the author !" When he blushingly appeared he was greeted with roars of laughter and cries of "He's the lunatic." The King of the Apostles' Islands, Lake Superior, is dead. He passed away at La Pointe, on the Madeline, the largest of the group, where he has lived for fourty-four years, the oldest living pioneer of the historic spot where Pere Marquette founded hia little Indian mission 200 years ago. Mr. Evans' noted stud dog Phaaoah, the winner of several champion prizes, which took the second prize at the late Birmingham show, and for which its owner had recently refused* a thousand guineas, fell dead at Mr. Evans' kennels, Caterham. Temperance circles in Cincinnati are greatly stirred over the discovery that? chapters have been added to the text books in use in high schools of the city, affirming that the daily drinking of alcohol is harmless and stating that a person weighing one hundred and fifty pounds can safely use a pint of wine or two pints of beer every day. Si. Laborde has communicated to the Physiological Society of Paris the fact that! one of his colleagues has narowly escaped death from a dose of cocaine, taken for the purpose of having a tooth extracted. Ho became deadly pale, completely lost consciousness fpr awhile, suffered intensely for some time, and had the sensation of approaching death. The Admiralty have issued the following notice: —All hopes of the safety of H.M.S. Wasp having now been relinquished, directions have been given that her books are to be considered as closed on 6th December, 1887, and the balance of wages due up to that date to be paid to the representatives of the officers ana men.

The wife of Phelix Short, who resided ab Salford, recently died, and her body was "waked" with full Hibernian honours. Afterwards, Phelix, who had had some drink, lay alongside the fire near the body. A spark alighted on his clothing, with the result that he was severely burned and finally died from his injuries. An enormous apple crop was gathered bv Connecticut farmers this season. In some sections of the state the fruit could be had for the mere carting away, and the Meriden Journal cites an instance where a farmer offered £2 to the person who would remove several hundred bushels from his land, that the cattle might get at the grass which the apples covered. Sir James Hannen, in the Divorce Court, granted a decree nisi in a curious case, the suit of Lever, v. Lever and Wilson. The petitioner, who was led into Court, had been blind from his boyhood, of which the corespondent, who was a lodger in the petitioner's house at Westbourne Park, took advantage to carry on an intrigue with the respondent. A desperate fight between Catholics and Orangemen occurred in the village of Killybearn, near Cookstown. Stones, bricks, revolvers, &c.. were freely used. The house of a priest was completely wrecked, and the windows of other houses were smashed. The Orangemen were reinforced and the struggle was becoming serious when the police stopped the fight. Several persons were arrested.

A Belgian recently made a bet wifce some of his lellow-countrymen that he would swallow as many dishes of pancakes as they would care to pay for. The bet was accepted, and an adjournment to an establismentnotedfor the superior quality of its pancakes took place. There the Belgian sab down and swallowed pancakes until ha choked himself and was carried out a livid C °Mr.'jVlundclla, presiding at the annual festival of the Saffron Walden Training College said that when he was President of the Education Department he found that compulsory education increased the attendance of children at Sunday-schools. Ha looked forward with the greatest interest to the proposed Technical Education Bill of the Government, and thought it would bo very useful in affording facilities to those 1 who were willing to work. The Earl Spencer, replying to a correspondent with reference to the question of Fair Trade, writes as follows " Mqmblftnd, Plympton, South . Devon, December ftth, 1887. Sir,l certainly consider that it is a. frave error to make any attempt to revive rotection, and that disastrous results would follow the imposition of a duty on our corn and food supply. Mr. Bright and Lord Derby, in recent letters to correspondent#* clearly put their views on this subject. I entirely agreq with them— truly, Smo£B." -