NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9220, 24 November 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

•An organ in a ftew York church is blowi* by electricity. ...» J,:--The sights of the new British rifle allow for an elevation up to 2800 yards. . Boston was two hundred and fifty-eight; years old on the 17th September. ' Philip Beaubien, who was the first white child born in Chicago, lately died there. i For the first six months of 1888 the English railways killed 165 people and injured I 957.

The largest carpet in the world is at the Cincinnati Exposition. It measures 2700 yards in area. In 1837 Ireland's tillage land decreased 18,000 acres, and the grass land increased by 50,000 acres. Bergjn. a town in Norway, with a population of 50,000 inhabitants, has only six or seven spirit shops. The total registration of women in Bos ton is 25,140. They have the right to vote on school questions. There are still on the pension rolls of the Government over eight hundred men who served in the war of 1812. The war ended seventy-three years ago. Fully 150,000 Jewish immigrants have landed in New York since 1880, and 100,000 of them remained there.

The population of Ireland is declining at the rate of nearly 00,000 per annum. So reports the Registrar-General. The Japanese have invented a method of manufacturing very strong and nearly transparent, paper from seaweed. Lord Moncreiff, who presided over the second division of the Court of Session a* Edinburgh, lias resigned his appointment. Judge Davenport, of Kansas City, has decided that women can wear trousers whenever and wherever they please in Missouri. During a lifetime of three score years and ten the blood of a human being travel* 4,292,400 miles; his heart beat 3 2,538,848,000 times.

The Vatican has summoned Bishop Strossmayer to Rome to give explanations concerning the message which he sent to Kieff last month.

Dr. Tanner, of fasting celebrity, is about to found on his ranche in New Mexico a vegetarian institution for rearing infants on one meal a day. The brutal husband in New York who, in a drunken passion, gouged his wife's eyes out, has been sent to State prison for twenty-seven years. The statute of the late Earl of Shaftesbury, which has been placed in Westminster Abbey, was unveiled by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts on October 1.

The funds which provide for the tolling of the bell at St. Sepulchre's Church when executions take place in Newgate are to be diverted to the use of released prisoners. An aeronaut who made an ascension in Ohio a few days ago has not been seen nor heard from since, and it is generally supposed that he has gone 011 a starring tour. The Governor of Gibraltar and Com-mander-in-chief has christened the first lifeboat ever launched at Gibraltar. The boat was built by subscription to commemorate the Queen's jubilee. The Grief, one of Germany's armed cruisers, is the fastest in the world. Its displacement is 2000 tons, and its indicated horse-power is 5400. Recently it covered twenty-four knots in an hour. Under Government regulation of oysterplanting and gathering, the industry ir» New York has grown immensely in import ance, until now 7000 men and $6,000,001 capital are employed in that state. The Japanese Government have decided to expend ten millions sterling during the next five years in the purchase of ironclads. With this sum it is estimated that fifteen ironclads and thirty torpedo boats can be obtained.

It will interest not a few to learn that Mr. Crowe wrote "See-Saw" merely for his children, and had such an opinion of its merits that he sold the copyright to Metzler's for £30. The publishers cleared over £15,000.

Advices from India say that the widow of a Brahmin near Cawnpore recently burned herself to death upon the funeral pyre of her husband. She mounted the pyre unnoticed after the departure of the funeral party. Stratford-upon-Avon is to have another big Shakspere event. The Shakspere group presented to the town by Lord Ronald Gower will be dedicated. Such little items as the above must .be peculiarly distressing to Ignatius Donnelly. At one time not very long ago buffalo swept over the Western plains in herds of countless numbers ; now the killing of a solitary bull in Dakota is considered such an unusual occurrence that an account of of it is telegraphed across the Continent. The Erie Railway is trying the experiment of running trains through from Jersey City to Buffalo lighted by electricity. The Faure accumulators are used, and sufficient current is stored to furnish what light is needed in a round trip of eighteen hours. Dr. Freyer, a civil surgeon in the N. W. Provinces of India, has received a- : fee of £10.000 in recognition of his successful treatment of the Nawab of Rampur and General Azimudeen Khan, the largest fee probably ever received by a medical man. An old man was watching a balloon ascension at Centreville, Mich., when his feet became entangled in the ropes and he was borne 1000 feet aloft, head downward. The aeronaut drew the old man upon the trapeze bar, and the two made a safe decent.

The movement to 'collect funds for the erection of a memorial in the new cemetery at Ev6re, Brussels, over the remains of the officers and men who fell in the Waterloo campaign has resulted in the collection of £2400, of which the Government have contributed £500.

While trying to avoid being kissed by a woman, George Vindle, of Baltimore, fell down a stairway and was instantly killed. This is probably the first instance of the kind on record. A man sometimes is willing to give his life for a kiss, but never to avoid one.

A revolution is rumbling in English landscape gardening. There is a movement to abolish the irregular features of casual lawns, flower-beds, and shrubberies, and to establish the style of old Italian and Dutch gardening with everything in straight lines, terraces, balustrades, and all. Jerusalem is rapidly growing as a trade centre. One hundred thousand dollars' worth of objects of devotion in mother-of pearl and olive wood are exported to America and Europe every year. Vine cultivation is being and the price of land has risen sixfold within a few years. Printers who believe in as few hours as possible in a week's labour would enjoy Central America. An ordinary newspaper, announcement is that "owing to there having been three feast days, during which the compositors did not work, the publication of this number has been somewhat delayed." . Madame Patti, when in Philadelphia, was attracted by the voice of a little street singer, and the father reluctantly allowed the prima donna to take away the girl for the purpose of giving her a musical education. When on the way to England it transpired that the charming child was not a girl at all, but a boy dressed in female attire. Madame Patti lost no time in sending the youth back to his father Captain Webster, of the Danish schooner Harbot, which has put into Crookhaven, reports that after leaving Iceland, and when about 200 miles from land, the atmosphere became suddenly darkened, the gloom being so intense that for several hours they did not know where they were going, and lost their course. Captain Webster e thinks there must have been some terrible eruption of Mount Hecla, and cannot attribute the phenomenon to any other cause.' « J In the Lord Mayor's Court, the case of Hedger v. Gordon came before the Common-Sergeant. The plaintiff sought to recover payment of £17 16s 6d from the defendant, Sir Maurice Duff Gordon, a baronet, carrying on business as a stockbroker at Draper's Gardens. It was stated by the plaintiff that the defendant had a castle in Scotland, and he never paid until' he was compelled. The judge ordered him to pay the amount in two monthly instalments. ■ The conferenco of the Scottish Horns Rule Association was held at , Glasgow 'on the 18th September. Dr. Clark, M.P., who presided, said the only possible settlement of the Home Rule question was based upon feudalism. They must have a Parliament doing solely Scotch business,' as the Imperial Parliament had now completely broken .down. Local Parliaments might elect the Imperial Parliament. A telegram was read from Wales stating that opinion. was advancing by leaps and bounds in the Principality, and was favourable to. Home Rule ail round. J v "' """ *. • * *■■ '* ■; • ■ . *