NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9064, 26 May 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

In 1887 thirty-five new British ehipS were of iron and 257 of steel. It cost New York 10,000 dollars a day lot snow shovelling during the week after the blizzard. A Kentucky man has invented a procee* for making five-year-old whisky in three months. Myriads of dead fish are floating in the Des Moines and Skunk rivers, lowa, having been frozen to death. The Queen has sent a marble bust of herself, together with an autograph letter to Viscount and Viscountess Cranbrook, upon the attainment of their golden wedding. The world says that Mr. Goschen intends imposing a tax on foreign securities in such a manner as to insure a material addition to the revenue. The loss of 79 British vessels (71 sailing) was reported to the Board of Trade during March, there beine , an accompanying loss of 173 lives. Her Majesty's Jubilee presents will shortly be removed from Bethhal-green to Glasgow. After the close of the exhibition there they will not be again lent. The extent of the damage to property by the prevailing floods in Germany is estimated at 400,000,000 marks, and 75,000 persons have been rendered homeless. Statistics appear to show that in England domestic servants are growing compara* tively fewer. In 1831 there were 1,000,000, but in 1888 there are 1,250,000 only. A Norwegian physician claims that), whooping-cough may be readilv cured, even in one nigh*, by causing the patient to sleep, in a room in which sulphur has been, burned. Eleven Perthshire farmers who had cat*, tie inoculated last season as a preventives against pleuro-pneumonia, with one excep-. tion, report favourably of the result of the, experiment. England's railway earnings during the. last half of 1887 were £500,000 more than during the corresponding period of 1886. The increased British ship tonnago was 2,100,000 tons. Truth says that a peer whose revenues have been reduced to a minimum has lately accepted an engagement as "town traveller" to a well-known firm of pianoforte manufacturers. That effective teacher, Dame Experience, so it is asserted, has shown that compartments in English railway coaches intended only for the fair sex are by no means popular with the latter. Mary Prince, aged 101, has died in Sheffield poorhouse. Prince was born in Paisley, Scotland, married a soldier in the 05th Regiment, accompanied him to Waterloo, and witnessed the battle. Some of the shepherds in the mountains of Bulgai-ia live for ten and fifteen yeare attending their flocks, and never know what it is to sleep in a house or to enjoy any of the comforts of civilisation. Alexander Dumas' eldest daughter recently played in her father's Visite de Noce*, m a theatre fitted in her own apartments, before a picked audience of notabilities. The chief men and women of Paris were there. She made a hit.

Seventy-two villages and five towns are submerged in the country of the Lower Elbe. The chief centres of misery are Domitz in Mechlenburg-Schwerin and Lenzen in Prussia. The population affected numbers from 50,000 to 80,000. This inscription was found upon a tabled in an English cemetry : " Here lies the body of , who for many years conducted a highly respectable general business in an adjoining village, which is now continued by his widow. N.B.—No trust given." A match manufacturing company of Akron, Ohio, has arranged with a number of physicians for an inspection of their employees three times a year, to guard against the ravages of a disease which, it is said, attacks the jawbones of those who have handled matches for several years. When the Staten Island ferryboat Southfield reached her slip one day lately, on her first afternoon trip, it was found that the number of passengers had been increased by a big, bouncing, eleven pound boy. Mother and child were placed in a carriage and driven to the residence of the former at Clifton.

According to the Corunna papers, the civil authorities of the province of Galicia have taken proceedings against the parish priest of the rural district who insulted and assaulted a Protestant clergyman, who is a British subject. The same priest some time ago fired a revolver at another Protestant pastor. Madame Tussaud and Sons have added a group to their exhibition which gives a picture of the lying in state of the late Emperor of Germany. His Majesty is represented reposing on his camp bedstead, and the catafalque is veiled with purple velvet and gold, .surrounded by candelabra with burning lights. The demoralising influence of an income tax is thus recognised by the English bench : Justice Stephen recently said in a case before him tnat "the standard of public morals was so low with respect to income tax returns that the admission of a false return should not invalidate a man's claim to be believed on oath in relation to private transactions."

The Jubilee gifts offered to the Pope have been valued by experts and, including the numerous money presents, they are estimated at nearly four millions sterling. The monks of the Chartreuse sent £'20,000 in gold ; and one of the most valuable gifts is the large ring presented by the Sultan, which contains a magnificent and very large diamond. The oldest man in the world hails from Germany, and is a farm hand in the little village of Hutta, near Gnesen (Posen). His name is Wapniarek, and his certificate of birth bears the date of March, 1764. He was recently brought into court as a witness, but owing to his "somewhat impaired memory," as the papers state, " his deposition could not be taken."

A new settlement will shortly be established in the Cape Colony. It will consisb of a number of selected families taken from one of the southern counties in England. The first party is expected to leave in Juna next. The settlement will be called Tennyson, after the Poet Laureate, who for many years past has taken great interest in South Africa and other British Colonies.

Mr. Chamberlain has, it is said, received from Her Majesty the Queen a direct and most gratifying recognition of his recent eminent services in connection with the Fisheries Treaty. It consists of a photograph portrait of her Majesty, bearing in her own handwriting the inscription :—''Tα the Right Hon. J. Chamberlain on his return from Washington.—Victoria R."

A leading article in the Times upon military hygiene quotes Sir H. Norman'a conclusions that a soldier is ot his greatest value when from 25 to 30 years of age ; thab the age and length of service which produce the most enduring soldier may be said to be from 25 to 30, wjth from three to eighb years' Indian service; and that deterioration commences after from 30 to 35 years of age. Mr. E. Brodie Hoare, the new M.P. for the borough of Hampstead, has contributed £100 to the fund being raised for the purchase of Parliament Hill and the adjacent! meadows as an extension of Hampstead Heath for the use and enjoyment of the public for ever. Only a little over £3000 is now required to complete the sum necessary for the purchase, and it is hoped that this will soon be raised.

The Luton Borough Magistrates, a few days ago, fined Joseph Wright, a local shopkeeper, 40s, for selling elder wine without a license. The Superintendent analyst from Somerset House said the Sheriff had had the density of the wine tested, and found it to contain fifteen per cenb of spirit. The Supervisor said it was a drink taken by some of their temperance friends, thinking it not spirituous. The Austrian Emperor has conferred the rank of Honorary Colonel and titular Commander of the Twelfth Regiment of Hussars on the Prince of Wales. The last English man appointed commanders of Austrian regiments were King George IV. and the Duke of Wellington, who were nominated at the time of the coalition against the First Napoleon, a time of most intimate alliance between Austria and England. During the next winter, which closes the two-hundredth year since the last of the Sbuarb Kings was driven from the English throne, it is intended to open in the New Gallery an exhibition of pictures and other objects connected with the Royal House ?f Stuart. The management of the matter is in the hands of a highly influential committee, of which the Earl of Ashburnham is president, and Her Majesty has graciously consented to be a patron. The exhibition will include portraits, documen|s, persona relics, coins, medals, and seals, anq cannot) fail to be of great historic interest.