NEWS IN BRIEF,

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8538, 11 April 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF,

The Prince of Wales is said to be £200,000 in debt. Pour members of the House of Peers are* brewers. In Great Britain 190 cities tax themselves for public libraries. Emperor William has abandoned his contemplated visit to France. Germany is said to be planning to secure control of the Gilbert Islands. Ten days per annum is the * average amount of sickness in human life. The population of Vienna is about 800,000, an increase of 100,000 in ten years. Garibaldi's family have refused £12,000 for the patriot's former islet home. In France there is a Government tax of 2 per cent, levied on all bets on races. It is estimated that 90,000 pianofortes are manufactured every year in London. The German Government does not allow Russians to work in its powder factories. A Young Men's Christian Association has been established in the city of Jerusalem. The average annual payment to British soldiers in pensions for wounds is £16,000. A petition to repeal the Liquor Law of Maine has been introduced in the Legislature.

A woman just committed to gaol in Dublin has been convicted of drunkenness 327 times. Seventy-eight per cent, of the population of Ireland profess the Roman Catholic faith. Brazil has enormously increased her paper : currency since the establishment of the republic. There are 222 Temperance Associations in connection with the Established Church of Scotland. Some colossal sculptures are to be removed from the Island of Cyprus to the British Museum. Iron bolts exposed to water in the bridges over the Thames have, in twenty-five years, been eaten away one-half. A mass meeting at Palestine, Texas, demanded the resignation of Mayor Ward for caning Sam Jones, the evangelist. Another unfortunate soldier has lost his life while trying to desert by letting himself down the side of Edinburgh Castle. A society for the prevention of cruelty and neglect of pet birds and animals has been started in London under royal patronage. Mrs. W. H. Lairo, a leading society lady at Winona, Minn., committed suicide owing to scandals which had been circulated about her. The stone aqueduct at Queretaro, Mexico, built in 1738, has seventy-four arches, the highest of which is ninety-four feet from the ground. Mr. Thomas Brown, a New South Wales merchant, who had a : London house in Hyde Park Terrace, left a personal estate worth £599,000. A tablet is to be inserted in the floor of Westminster Hall marking the spot where the " Royal martyr," Charles 1., stood when on his trial. Sir George Chetwynd, in his new book, gives this advice to those who bet?— Try and lose and win your money with equal imperturbability. The Principality of Wales has an-extreme length of 135 miles, and a breadth varying from 35 to 95 miles area, 7378 square miles, or 4,720,000 acres. About five hundred veterinary surgeons in Great Britain signed a paper condemning over-head check-reins as painful to horses and productive of disease. Emperor William still refuses to recognise the social status of journalists, whom he has designated as "press vagabonds, who poison public opinion." The Times has now a daily column of " Ecclesiastical Intelligence," and the Pall Mall Gazette a weekly instalment of " Church and Chapel Notes." The number of students attending the winter session of 1889-90 at Aberdeen University was S4O; Edinburgh, 3570Glasgow, 2180; and St. Andrew's, 208. No less than "66 of the men married in Edinburgh in 1888 were able to append their signatures to the registers, and 97 "64 of the women were equally able to use*their pens. The King of Italy has accepted the Presidency of the Christopher Columbus Committee, which is arranging the celebration of the fourth centenary of the discovery of America. N Chicago contains nearly 20,000 unemployed, most of whom are attracted by the World's Fair, not a sod of which is turned yet. Thousands of the unfortunate men are starving. Mrs. Schliemann says she proposes tcrcontinue the excavations at Sissurlik, and- that they will be carried out in conformity with Dr. Schliemann's plans under the* direction of Dr. Dorlfield. The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland benefits to the extent) of £62,000 by the wills of Mr. Charles Trotter, of Woodhill, Blairgowrie, and Mr. Donald Gordon Stuart, of Liverpool. The Spanish Government has decided, instead of erecting a monument to-commemo-rate the discovery of America, as was first proposed, to rebuild the port of Palos, from which Columbus sailed. Her Majesty's sloop Melita, which recently embarked at Salamis a colossal piece of ancient sculpture, representing a bull, destined for the British Museum, has sailed from Larnaca for Malta. "The oldest clergyman" in the Church of England, the Rev. John Elliott, Vicar of Riindwick, began his hundredth year on December 19th. He has served in Randwick for moro than seventy years. Potato-growing experiments in France show that the crop from whole seed is about seven hundredweight per acre more than that from cut seed, allowing the difference in weight between the two seeds. A remarkable feature in the Irish potato return is that 78 - per cent, of the acreage consists of Champions, which were* first introduced into Ireland in the year 1880, after the failure of the crop in 1879. The St. Petersburg correspondent of the London Telegraph repeats the stories of the cruel treatment of the Jews in Russia. He says they are treated like horses, cattle, or swine, and that the Czar is fully aware of their condition.

Nearly thirty thousand violent or sudden deaths occur every year in England calling for inquests, twice as many as the number of Germans killed in the Franco-German War, and for every violent death there are at least fifty accidents. The spot in Rome where Nero committed suicide is said to have been discovered. It is on the Pincian Hill, and was identified by the discovery of a stone with an incription fixing the location of the villa where it is known the deed was done. Berlin, in voting Von Moltke a large sum of money in honour of his 90th birthday, unwittingly aided the cause of benevolence. The venerable Field-Marshal has devoted the entire sum to the foundation of the Moltke branch of the Home for Old People. Of all big cities Berlin probably gets the most vegetables from a distance. Her winter cauliflowers come from Italy and Holland, her new potatoes from Malta, her beans from North Italy, her pickles from Holland, her onions from Russia, Hungary, and Egypt. i France is steadily being depopulated. The repofb for 1889 shows that the birth- . rate is still on the decrease. In 1889 only 880,579 births were registered, against 966,682 in 1876 and an average of 937,00fl ' from 1881 to 1884, 900,000 in 1887 and 882,639 in 1888. A Router telegram from Washington says :—An important feature in the programme of the future treatment of the Indians is a scheme which the War. Department is preparing for the enlistment in the army of about 2000 young Indians, including 600 to 700 scouts. An eminently practical German scientist is said to have applied a mild current of electricity to a swarm of bees, quickly causing them to fall to the groundjin a stupefied condition. The bees could be safely handled while in this condition, and if the electrical current was not too strong no injury was done them. There is a rare case of "sleeping sickness" in the London Hospital jasb; now. The patient is a negro, and inherits the peculiar disease which bids fair to terminate his life. So strong is the propensity for sleep that no efforts can arouse the man. Galvanic batteries even are useless. ; The case is exciting considerable interest. in. medical circles.