GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8556, 2 May 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

- A PUBLIC TRUSTEE. Mr. Goschen's Bill' for : the creation of ' public trustee has been issued. It enabW existing trusts to bo devolved upon a pubil officer who is a corporation sole, and \yh° has all the powers of existing bodies of trustees. The securities, which are poor in the case of the private trustee, are in th case of the public trustee absolute, for an fraud or negligence on the part of th« public officer will render the Consolidated Fund liable. The fees are to be fixed bv the Treasury. On the other hand, the public trustee may decline any trust or retire from a trust. MR. SPDRQEON AND THE LIBERATIONISM. Mr. Spurgeon refused (so the London correspondent of the Manchester Examiner says) the use of the Metropolitan Tuber, nacle for the annual meeting of the Liberation Society, which, consequently, it j 3 announced, will be held at St. James' Hall under the chairmanship of Sir George Trevelyan. Further, Mr. Spurgeon )^ s ceased to subscribe to the society, which is he says, becoming for him too political. ' A sensational cask. London, March 5.—A curious and startling case will shortly be tried in the courts here. It appears that Mrs. Cathcarb, a wealthy lady of Stafford, mysteriously dy. appeared some time_ ago and all efforts of her relatives have failed to discover hot whereabouts. Quite recently, however friends traced her to a lunatic asylum' where she had been confined at her us *. band's instigation. Mrs. Cathcart is the possessor .of an estate valued at over £1,000,000, which reverts to her husband if he can have her certified as of unsound mind. Mrs. Cathcart's relatives insist than she is in the full possession of her senses and consequently a long and interesting trial is cxpected. 3

ILLNESS does not stop WAGES. Henry Chorley sued Waterlow Brothers and Layton, in the City of London Court for 16s Gd. Plaintiff said he was a clerk in the counting-house, and was away ill. When he came back to work the defendants stopped him the three days' pay. The solicitor and accountant of the firm having given evidence that it was their invariable rule to deduct wages when employes were absent, no matter what cause, except ati the board's discretion, Commissioner Kerr, in giving judgment for plaintiff for tha amount claimed and costs, said —" Yon will pay a favourite who is ill, but you would not pay a man if ho is not a favourite! No, that won't do. That is a queer kind o£ custom, which may b<* varied at the discretion of the board. That is all rubbish. Pay the money and be done with it, and pub your customs in writing in future. Stick them up in the office so that there may be no mistake about them."

MARRIAGE ON' BOARD SHIPS OF WAR. A cherished privilege of English folk settled-in foreign countries is the facility offered for the celebration of marriages on board Her Majesty's war-vessels, which is regarded both in fact and in law as equivalent to a marriage upon British soil. Without any reason being assigned, the naval commanders-in-chief at foreign stations have (the London correspondent of the Manchester Examiner says) received an order from the Admiralty prohibiting marriages on board Her Majesty's ships after the end of the present year.

a fortune-teller's DUrE. A tall woman of gipsy-like appearance named Patience Wood, described as a licensed, hawker, aged forty-seven, was charged at the Westminster Police Court with going about pretending to tell fortunes, and with unlawfully obtaining from Emily Hall £2 10s and a silk handkerchief. The prosecutrix deposed that she was in service in Ebury-street, Pimlico. On July 30 the prisoner came to the house hawking jewellery. She informed the cook and the witness that she could tell their fortunes. The witness gave 2s for a brooch, and ultimately admitted the prisoner to the kitchen to have her fortune told. The prisoner talked the usual nonsense aboub her planet, and persuaded the simple servant girl to give her £2 8?. The witness gave her the gold in the handkerchief, and she promised to come back in half-an-hour when the charm was complete. She never came back. (Laughter ) The magistrate: What future did sne predict for you '! The witness (laughing): Oh, she told me a lob about a young man, and said that I should not be in my place three months longer, because he would marry me. And sha said we should go across the water and be very happy ; and a great deal more 1 can't say here. (Laughter.) Mr. Dutton : Well, I suppose you had a young man then J The witness: Yes, I had at the time, (Laughter. ) Mr. Dutton : And 1 hope, my girl, all the good things you were told will come true. The witness (smiling) : I hope so. A remand was granted.

SLKKP, The sleep question is again exercising Continental journals. Sleeplessness is supposed to be peculiar to this feverish age —for it is a time of incessant mental activity, which, say the doctors, drives the blood to the brain. Dr. I'reyer, of Jena, used to advise people who could not sleep to keep a limb outstretched until it ached—no matter how painfully— which the brain would be relieved by the flow of blood from it to the overstrained muscles. The great traveller Von Humboldt never slept mora than four hours a day. It was quite enough for him ; he never complained of " insomnia." Frederick the Great never required more than four or five hours' sleep. Mapoleon took seven or eight; but he often took them by snatches, and he had the curious knack of sleeping at will.

IMPORTANT ARCII.COLOCICAL DISCOVERY. According to a Dalziel's telegram from Rome, an important archaeological discovery has been made in the Vigna Nuova, off the Via Salara, outside the Salara Gate of the city. It is a tomb containing two sepulchral urns, and, from the inscription, it appears that one of the urns contains the ashes of Eclogc, the nurse of the Emperor Clsadius Nero, and the other those of hia mistress. Acte, who was converted to Christianity by St. Paul. The tomb i? in the cemetery of Dimitians family, where the ashes of Nero himself were also buried. The inscription mentions that Ecloge's ashes were placed there in accordance with her request, that they might be interred near those of her nursling, the Emperor.

JUDCK AND JURY. At Lincoln assizes, the jury, after hear* ing a case of felony from Gainsborough, brought in a verdict of " Not guilty," when Mr. Justice Grantham at once discharged them from their duties, and swore another jury. Addressing the defendant, his lordsaid: "John Regan, the jury which has tried you has said you are not guilty. 1 don't suppose there is another individual in this court who will agree with them, \ou are a lucky man, and you will bo discharged. It used to be said when a case '.vu- perfectly hopeless, and a man's guilt qui*-* Hear, that nothing could save him but 1 e Cardiganshire jury.' In future it will be said that nothing bun ' a Lincolnshire jury' would save him."

MR. GLADSTONE AND LADY HAMILTON"

A lady living in Liverpool has lV*r some time been engaged upon a life of had)' Hamilton. Knowing that she had passed the early years of her life in the "iiiage of Hawarden, where she was in domestic ser vice, the lady ventured to write to Mr. Gladstone, to ask him if be could assi J J' ' 10t to obtain any information that might ling el on the spot. Mr. Gladstone was (the London correspondent of the Liverpool I J s ' hears) at some pains to satisfy his unknown correspondent. Be certainly put her in tlis way of getting all the information that was available. The girl was, it appears, phenomenally untidy, and Mr. Gladstone laughingly relates how, amongst other thing 3 still told of her at Hawarden, is that rather than be at the trouble of mending her stockings she used to pin the rent.

A HEROINE OF THE COMMUNE.

There was an unusual scene in Tooting Cemetery when the remains of Madame Malenfant, the octogenarian heroine of the Commune, were interred. There were some fifty persons present, almost all wearing the emblematical red flower. I-?- draper rouge having been hoisted over the grave, and the services of the cemetery clergyman having been, much to his astonishroen » dispensed with, Louise Michel, attirecl 11 usual in mourning, delivered an orauo over the body. Madame Malenfant ha , she said, taken an active part in the ban ending in the revolution in Paris, in * & "' and.again in 1871, standing shoulder shoulder with the men. She had the £ fortune to escape to England, and had e - living for some years with her son-iu* » Professor Brochot, at Brixton.