NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9142, 25 August 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A railroad is being constructed between Jaffa and Jerusalem. ; The weather was so cold in London daring the middle of June that furs were worn by the ladies.

There are 6000 licensed costermongerfl in Paris, and not one has a donkey. The family raw the cart.

At a recent sale in London of rare Anglo* Saxon and English coins a Queen Anne farthing brought £10. _ It has been found necessary in Prussia to limit the cutting of timber by law, in order to protect the forests. It is claimed that the deaths and wounds from railroad accidents are only about onefourth as great in Europe as in America. The new Emperor of Germany is nob afraid of work. He is not satisfied witb less than twelve hours of active labour each

day. The bronze statue of Sir William Wallace, unveiled by Lord Lome at Aberdeen, is seventeen feet high and weighs near five tons.

There was a banquet in honour of Canada's "coming of age," in London, on July 16, at which many prominent persona were present. Some workmen were digging out the foundations of a house in Kara, in Asia Minor, when they came upon £40,000 in Turkish and English money. The more superior of the sunshades of the season have hollowed handles. Hidden away therein are fans and the other necessaries of life to a woman of style. The Chinese are flooding Singapore, They already form the bulk of the population and they threaten to soon oust the Malay and Kling altogether. There bas just arrived in England an eminent Chinese scholar who is a direct descendant of the philosopher Confucius, in the seventy-second generation. Russia's latest effort is an edict forbidding Jews who have migrated from the central provinces of Russia to distil or sell spirituous liquors in the provinces of Turkic-tan. A large number of visitors inspected the 1400 dogs exhibited at the Kennel Club summer show, which was opened in the grounds of the Ranelagh Club, Barn Elms, on July 4. In a recent number of the Berlin newspaper the announcements of the theatres showed that at six out of eight houses plays from the French were the attractions for the night. The reports of the officers on the Afghan boundary say that the Indian soldiers are so much larger than the Russian Cossacks that it would take 100,00') of the latter to contend with 50,000 Indians.

When the Queen llegeut of Spain was passing through Valencia the other day the students of the university presented her with a petition requesting the suppression of the German language in the Spanish colleges. Mrs. Ebre, an Ohio bride of six weeks, wants a divorce because her husband has failed to do all that he promised to do, all that he promised during his courting. The world would soon be without inhabitants on that basis.

The old celebration of Waterloo has faded out altogether in England. The churches no longer ring their bells on June Jhtn, and the military celebration of t'jie day is abandoned. The great fight has faded into history. The new criminal code of Italy, just promulgated, abolishes the death penalty fop murder or any serious crime. ' It substitutes therefor imprisonment for life, The first ten years is to be in solitary confinement at hard labour.

A woman made application at Greenwich, Police Court, with reference to her boy, who, she said, would not go to school. Mr. Shell : Give him six strokes a day with a birch-rod for a week, and then come and tell me the result.

A child's chance of living is at its best) about the age of 12 or 13. Then comes a change. The mortality after 13 or thereabouts rises rapidly till about the 25th year, when there is a slight fall, and then a grar dual rise till the end.

The Madras Government have sanctioned a novel experiment for the protection of district and Talnq treasuries. They are to have a dog at each treasury, which would assist the guard or watchman by giving warning of the approach of any intruder. The New York Herald has printed sundry interviews with lawyers, who have stated that the marriage of the Duke of Marlborough is illegal according to the statutes of New York, which forbid any person divorced, for unfaithfulness to marry again. In England a man may call himself anything he pleases and nobody will object. For something like thirty shillings he may advertise in the Times the taking of a new name, and thereafter he will be John Jones or William Smith, just as he prefers. Samarcand, a city of Central Asia, belonging to Russia, is said to have been selected as the place where the Czar is to be crowned Emperor of Central Asia. As a city it had a history far back in the mists of antiquity. Alexander the Great occupied it.

Clan Gordon's memorial to the hero of Khartoum has been unveiled at Aberdeen. It consists of a colossal statue of Gordon standing erect on a pedestal in front of the Robert Gordon College, an institution which was founded by an earlier member of the clan.

The new clock just placed in the tower ol the Glasgow University is a tremendous affair. The main wheels of the striking and quarter trains are twenty inches in: diameter. The weight of the hammer thati strikes the hour is 120 pounds, and it i 3 lifted ten inches.

The three Emperors of Europe who are preparing to meet each other represent the three great divisions of Christendom. The Emperor of Germany is a Protestant; the Emperor of Russia is a Greek Catholic, and the Emperor of Austria is a Roman Catholic.

The editor of the Cologne Gazette has been sentenced to three months' imprisonment in a fortress for publishing an incorrect statement that a landlord had refused to sell to the German Government laud on which it was proposed to erect a statue for Emperor William I. It is pretty accurately determined that the yearly number of pilgrims to Switzerland averages about a quarter of a million. Of this enormous army of tourists, four-fifths come from England, Germany, the United States, France, and Italy; England alone sending 35 per cent. In the French forest of Esterel, a man and his wife were at work not far from a, cradle in which nestled their babe. An eagle is said to have swooped down, and seizing the infant with its talons, bore ib aloft. The father is reported to have shot the eagle dead, and caught the infant as ib dropped earthward. The Empress of Austria has expressed to the Emperor a strong desire to be relieved of all the official duties of her position. This virtual abdication will, it is further said, be accepted, and the Empress' place will be taken by the Crown Princess Rudolph, unless it is prevented by the personal differences between her and her husband.

There have been twenty-six suicides from the Clifton Bridge in England in the twenty-four years since it was built. The jump is 250 feet, and death is presumably easy, which accounts for the popularity qf the route. The last person who went over it was a young man who was to be married in a week. A shocking case of suicide occurred at Sidmouth a few days ago, an old man, 84 years of age, named William Mortimore, having jumped over the Alma Cliff, a,, distance of about 250 feet. Deceased left his hat and walking stick on a seat near the spot where he jumped over. He had, since the death of his wife, some few months ago» been very much depressed. An extraordinary outburst of savagery occurred in an Austrian village. A girl, a native of the village, was married tq a peasant in another village After the ceremony a number of young men tried to prevent the bride leaving the village for her new home. They set fire to houses, and in the fight which ensued eight peasants were killed and 20 of both sexes injured. A telegram from Darmstadt' states that) Prince Alexander of Battenberg met with an accident while put driving in which ha narrowly escaped being killed. He was proceeding fron) Heiligenberg to the Stettbaph Valley, when the horse slued while passing a steep precipice. The groom sprang put pf the carriage,'' bub the Prince, who w»a driving, had no control over the horse, and the vehicle . was precipitated down 1 W mountain side. The Prince was thrown put, but Jifid the presence of mind, ftfter falling abo;xi 40 feet, to seize hold of a b««h and so " save himself with only slight wiuifjes,' The Jiorst? and carriage fell to fcfce bottom, the horse being killeq, , ,