NEWS IN BRIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9452, 24 August 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF

Mind-reaiier Bishop's estate was worth only £50. England own 3 514 per cent, of the world's ocean tonnage. There are 170,000 Mormons and 40,000 non-Mormons in Utah. Queen Victoria has announced that? she never again will sib to a sculptor. A confirmation dress was recently described by a French fashion paper as -extremely " coquettish." On the same Sunday recently one missionary and 50,000 cases of liquor were landed at an African port. The 33rd exhibition of sporting and other doe's, held under the direction of"the Kennel Club, was opened lately atOlyinpia. The German painters who sent pictures and the sculptors who sent statuary to'the Paris Exhibition hive already been boycotted at home. The Inspector of Fisheries in England states that 33,500 regular and 11,100 occasional hands find employment, and 15,692 fishing boats are used. The Observatore Romano indignantly denies that there is any truth in the report that objects of art in the Vatican College are. being secretly sold. _ Sunflower seeds are said to be an irresistible bait for rats. Traps baited at night with these seeds will be found crowded with rats in the morning. The reduced copy of Bartholdi's statue of " Liberty Lighting the World" was to be inaugurated on the island off Grenelle (Paris) on the 14th of July. ' Mrs. Booth, of the Salvation Army, underwent a third electrical operation for cancer. She is in a very precarious state, but with a slight improvement. The contrasts in the rainfall in India range from more than forty feet at Cherrapunji, in the Khasi Hills, to four inches, and sometimes one inch, at Jacobabad, in Sincl.

General Gourko's propositions to erect a series of new fortifications in Poland are finally adopted, at an estimated cost yof between twenty and thirty millions of roubles.

The paying visitors to the Paris Exhibition in the month of May numbered 2,208,045, or 938,370 more persons than during the first month of the Exhibition of IS7S.

At Philadelphia two boys have been killed by the explosion of an old range boiler with which they were making experimental attempts to drive a miniature engine. A petition three miles long has been presented to the House of Commons urging Sunday closing of public-houses. 225S distinct petitions have been presented on the subject. The Highland Society of London lias voted the sum of 250 guineas as bursaries to 20 students selected from the Highland counties, pursuing their studies at any ol the Scotch universities.

Sir Edward Boehm lias executed for Queen Victoria a colossi:* bronze statue of John Brown, which has been erected in the grounds at Balmoral on a wooded bank near the garden cottage. The Rev. A. Jerome P. Matthews, for the past two years Roman Catholic priest at St. Mary's, Bath, has seceded from the Roman Church. He was ordained by Archbishop Eyre at Glasgow in 1576. The British Nurses' Association lias been formed, where trained nurses shall be registered. Of the 15,000 now estimated /to-be in England, nearly two thousand five hundred have joined the association.

The number of guests present at Mr. Irving's supper to the Prince of Wales "was about thirty. It is said that the party "was prolonged by the Prince in spite of several attempts to break it up as the morning grew. A few months ago the King of Eboe died, and the traders from New Calabar, West Africa, found that about forty persona-had been slain to appease the gods, and that they had been subjected to the most shocking cruelty. A man with an artificial face has been attracting attention at) an English-watering-place. He has an artificial cheek, eye,, and palate, fitted upon him by a Bristol surgeon. He eats without difficulty - and speaks distinctly. Herbert Hay don, aged 21, a Stock Exchange clerk, lately residing at 170, Evering Road, Clapton, while playing cricket in Wanstead Park, Essex, was struck 'by the ball with great force on the left temple. He died next day. It is a significant commentary on the uselessness of universal exhibitions as"'promoters of permanent peace that the "'War Palace" in the great -Paris show this year is more popular with the French visitors than any other department. At the forthcoming trial of the action for libel brought by Mr. Win. O'Brien against the Marquis of Salisbury, the defence will be conducted by the Solicitor-General, while Mr. Gully, Q.C., M.P., has been'retained on behalf of the plaintiff. The ancient Egyptians have never been equalled for their skill in the manufacture of perfumes. Some of their ointment preserved in an alabaster vase in the museum at Alnwick still retains a pungent odour, although its age cannot be much less than 3000 years. The fastest locomotive employed in carrying the Scotch mail, where the highest rate of speed in England is attained, has three cylinders, a new departure in loco-motive-building, and a 7-foot driving wheeL It has been made specially for high speed with heavy trains. A . match of 1500 up for the amateur championship of billiards was decided .-at the Westminster Aquarium on July ■ 12, between Mr. A. P. Gaskell (the holder 'of the cup) and Mr. E. W. Alobone, Mr. Gaskell proving successful by 222. Neither made big breaks. Twin girls, weighing together only five pounds eleven ounces, were- born in New York a few days ago. The attending •■physician, in his report to the Bureau of vital Statistics, said that "the babies were healthy, possessed of good lungs, - and pleasant in appearance." A lady novelist, whose novels are very painstaking studies of real life, is just now confronted by a demand for £20,000 damages because a West j End tradesman imagined that he could descry that he had served as the original for one of the characters in her latest novel. Ascot week is a perfect godsend to the owners of houses in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Mackay, the wife of the Silver King, paid no less than £100 for a small villa, which she engaged lor the week at theedge of the Heath, on the understanding that, she should also provide her own servants. Charles Perris, a small farmer, living at Leigh, near Sherborne, Dorset, while hiving a swarm of bees which had settled in the garden, was severely stung and died in a few minutes. A doctor found that a bee had got into the man's throat, and stung ifc, and a rapid swelling ensuing, he dieS of suffocation. A curious feature in ornithology is reported from Eckington, Yorkshire, where a hen has hatched two chickens from one egg, both chickens being in a perfect state except that they are joined together on one side of the membranes of the wing. Beyond this, they walk about and feed in the usual manner. The appeal to Parliament in the Nineteenth Century for June against the enactment of a Woman Suffrage law, and signed by Mrs. Humphry Ward and others, has had the effect of producing a flood of papers on the subject in nearly all the English reviews for July. Most of them favour Woman Suffrage. At Clerkenwell Police Court, the charge against Lord Mandeville of obtaining money by false pretences was heard. Mr. Mead' prosecuted on behalf of the Treasury. Mb. Horace Smith, after hearing the evidence in support of the charge, said he did not think any jury would convict, and he accordingly dismissed the summons. A Central News telegram from New York announces with apparent gravitv that the " American Executing Company" has just been incorporated at Chicago with a capital of 25,000 dollars. "It is started to take over from the sheriffs, as a going concern, the execution of criminals throughout the States," and the promoters say that those taking up shares may reasonably expect a good dividend. * . Now that consumption"isslowly coming to be regarded as a contagious disease, people are beginning to ask how it is to bo prevented. Dr. Cornet, of Berlin, stronglyadvises that phthisical patients should use their own spoons, glasses, &c., and should avoid kissing. If death occur, the room occupied by the dead person should bo rubbed with new bread, and all furruturOj • bedding, &c., should be disitufjc ed«