NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9094, 30 June 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Algiers is about to begin the exportation of clarets.

Mount Etna has begun to show signs of active eruption. Emperor William left £150 to each battalion of theregiment of the German Guards. A proposition is being agitated to make a closed season for fur seals all over the world,. The records of the Patent Office show that) women have obtained patents on 1900 inventions. t Edwin Wild, aged five months, died at> Sheffield Hospital, through injuries inflicted by a tame ferret. ' More than two hundred thousand bird skins are now shown at the Natural History Museum in London.

Tolstoi's last work has been suppressed, in Russia, pending an investigation of it.* religious doctrines.

We learn from Rio that the Bill for the abolition of slavery in Brazil has now been passed by the Senate. The lady whom New York rumour names as the prospective Duchess of Marlborough has a yearly income of £50,000. Her lato husband left her five millions. The Queen has sent a wreath of primroses to be placed on the grave of the late Lord Beaconsfield in Hugheden churchyard. Coburg papers announce that the Duke of Edinburgh will leave Malta for good in tho autumn, in order to take up his residence at Coburg.

An Austrian firm has accepted an order for 500,000 cartridge cases for the Bulgarian army, and will probably receive orders l6v as many pairs of shoes. Twenty-five crofter families, with a total of 113 souls, left Stornoway, a few days ago lor Manitoba. Pipers played mournful airs as the steamer left the harbour.

The Queen's Championship of the Army, the great rifle contest of the regular forces, which has just been introduced, is to bo competed for at Aldershot in July. The wire gun, invented and fashioned at Lord Armstrong's Elswick works, has, on trial, thrown a 3801b projectile nearly l'J miles—that is to say, 21,000 yards. The Parisians are so dissatisfied with tho weight of the English high hat that their hatters have invented a silk hat weighing little more than an ounce and a-half.

The Hawaiian sugar crop this year Mill amount to over 100,000 tons, of which about) 60,000 tons come to the American and the balance to the San Francisco refinery. Lessons in cooking seem to be extremely popular in England. One school has had 35,000 pupil? since 1874, and another school has been teaching cookery to 10,000 persona each' year. Mr. Chamberlain, writing to a Glasgow gentleman, states that publicans are entitled to equitable compensation if prevented from carrying on business in which they have sunk capital. One by one the barriers between men and women are falling. The National Association of Journalists has just admitted its first) lady member in Miss Lillie Harris, of Now-castle-on-Tyne. A woman, whilst travelling on the Metropolitan Railway a few days ago, gave birth to a child. On the arrival of the train at Royal Oak Station mother and child were removed to a house.

At a Liberal demonstration held ab Keighley, Mr. Isaac Holden, M.P. for the division, was presented by the Liberals of Keighley with a congratulatory address on his attaining his 81st year. The ladies of Penmaenmawr have presented the Princess of Wales, as a souvenir of her silver wedding, a pair of silver sugar tongs manufactured in the form of a leek, the national emblem of Wales.

Mile. Ferry, a French bailer, dancer, re» ceiuly celebrated her ninetieth birthday. She is still in the front row. The managers of the '' spectacle '' have promised her a benefit if she lives to be one hundred.

A Mandalay telegram states that Caption Patrick .Joseph Cunningham, paymaster of the Ist Battalion Rifle Brigade, died on the 1 lth May, from the effects of a cobra bite received while out hunting in the jungle. Among the last sentences which Matthew Arnold penned was a reminder to his readers that the word " Esquire" he held in repugnance— out of the " great frippery shop of the Middle Ages." A London dealer in birds prepared for the adornment of ladies' bonnets makes the statement that last year he sold 2,000,000 of them, ranging in variety from the robin and the wood-pigeon to the splendid tropical bird.

M. Pasteur is still very busy at his laboratory in Paris treating cases of mad-dog and wolf bites. He says that, out of :>oo recent cases but two were unsuccessful. These failures were owing to carelessness of the patients. A young woman at, Kilburn actually killed herself on Good Friday by eating hot-cross buns. It is some comfort to find that it takes twelve to make a fatal dose, and few of us are able to take so large a quantity at one sitting. Robert James Thompson, one of a gang of American thieves, was sentenced, ab Liverpool assizes, to five year's penal servitude for stealing £70, which was being handed over the counter of the Adelphi Bank, Liverpool. The returns of efficiency of regiments of the army in signalling have just been issued. The 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders take 7th place in the 72 battalion's of the line which were exercised, with a figure of merit of 348 '22.

Boulanger has started a boom in flowers of the clove-pink variety, which he always wears. Parisian pedlar florists are making large purchases to supply the demand, and the price of clove-pinks has suddenly strangely advanced. The young Scotch pianist, Mr. Frederic Lamond, has just completed a brilliantly successful tour in Germany, and will shortly reappear in England. The German critics speak in high terms of his ability alike as a pianist and a comix>ser. A medium oub West achieved great success in materialising spirit flowers that she showered upon those who attended her seances. Her followers began to waver in their faith when the local florist sued the medium for a big bill for flowers furnished her.

Efforts are being made in Dublin society to bring about a visit of the Queen to Ireland this year. It is pointed out that Her Majesty has now reigned some 15,700 days, and out of that extended period the total time she has resided in Ireland has only been eighteen days. Here is a choice sample of American pulpit oratory. The Rev. Dr. J. W. Lee, of Atlanta, said in a sermon the local papers saythat "the reason the lions didn't eat Daniel when he was cast into their den was that he was two-thirds backbone and the rest pure grit." Argonia is a Kansas town that is preaching a sermon. Argon people thought it a good joke to elect a woman Mayo". She has driven gamblers out of town, shnlt up most of the saloons, and forbidden all cow-boy jollifications. And the local politician has no longer a " pull." The old Victory, Nelson's famous flagship, will cost over £10,000 for repairs, according to the report just made on her condition! Most of her bottom planking is good sound elm which will last for many a year to come, but the sides are rotten, and must be planked throughout with hard wood. At Luton sessions a police-constable named George Bent, a member of the borough force, was fined 20s for assaulting a young woman named Roadnight. She was leaving her work late at night when the defendant offered to see her home, and it was alleged that on parting he kissed her. The Emperor Francis Joseph opened the Industrial Exhibition at Vienna, on May 10, which commemorates the fortieth anniversaryof his accession to the throne. A laro-e anil distinguished company was present. In reply to an address, His Majesty spoke of the development of the manufactures of the country, which he attributed to the encouragement given to technical education and to exhibitions. Probably the most expensive opera cloak worn by an American lady this winter is that which belongs to Miss Leifer, a ten million dollar heiress, who now claims Washington as her home. The cloak is of white moiro plash, brocaded in silver, outlined with silver cord, and trimmed with white goat's fur. Its great hie depends, however, on the jewelled clas ps, which art in antique gold set with large j>earls. To what amazing lengths duelling is carried on in Hungary is illustrated by a fatal meeting reported from Nyiregyphaza. A district official named < Paul Orchva,ry, aged 24, lived on bad terms with his uncle, Edward Hegedus, a local judge, aged 50, and as the result of some recent dispute, challenged the latter to a duel. Pistols were chosen, and the duel, ab 20 spaces, took place. Orchvary fired first, and killed his uncle on the spob.