NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8986, 17 September 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A man died in Edinburgh through drinking poison for whisky. In France last year the deaths exceeded the births by some 40,000. In Paris nearly one quarter of the population live in apartments. Fifty thousand women belong to the trades unions in England. Over 300 sheep were poisoned near Newent by the use of a wash to cure scab. The number of certificated schoolmasters employed in England last year was 19 199 and mistresses 28,624. " ' '

Annam has adopted the guillotine for the execution of criminals, and the natives were delighted with the first execution. A tradesman at Croydon, on learning that the Tory candidate had been returned entered his shop and hanged himself. ' A French scientist set out on a voyage of discovery in his yacht. The vessel, after leaving Brest, mysteriously disappeared. Cargoes of live lobsters are now brought from Canada. Some, being forwarded" to the Queen, were served at the royal table. Certain American congressmen are de sirous of reforming the mode of spelling. A Bill is now before Congress having thai object. If the Russian peasants' bread is half as bad as it is said to be, they would be justified in casting it upon the first water they came to. A Cambridge undergraduate, aged 19, was sentenced to 8 months' imprisonment for stealing 36 books, valued at £8, from the University library. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1890 will be given at Chicago during the World's Fair for six months, and 230 Bavarian peasants will participate. More men have died and are buried in the Isthmus of Panama, along the line of the proposed canal, than on any equal amount of territory in the world. The mice plague is said to be spreading over England. In Bristol and other towns people are complaining that their houses have become overruu with the little rodents. Dr. Norman Kerr estimates that of 260,000 deaths occurring amongst children below the age of five years, 65.000 are directly or indirectly due to intemperance. A lady name Payne, who was riding a bandem tricycle with her husband near Ilkley, was killed through the machine colliding with a waggonette. The husband escaped uninjured. " Moderate prices and no persecution" is the motto adopted for a church bazaar ab Kensington. The legend is not copyright, and may be commended as an attraction to other bazaar promoters. Patti has several birds ab Craig-y Nos which she took from New York. One is a parrot that accompanies her songs, nob merely imitating the trills and roulades of his mistress, bub putting in some original touches of his own.

Someone has invented a self-acting brake which prevents perambulators from starting down an incline if left - alone. Several children have been killed of late by perambulators running into the road when left on a sloping pathway. A man, attracted by the subdued cries of a child, scaled a wall in Birmingham. Following the sound, he removed some ashes from a dust-bin, and found an infant buried alive. The child was removed and is expected to survive. Terrific thunderstorms broke over Lancashire and Yorkshire recently. Enormous hailstones fell, and there was a tropical downpour of rain. At Manchester a young woman who ran into a passage for shelter was killed by lightning. The number of men who presented themselves for enlistment during IS9I was 69.902; but of these only 36,003 were actually enlisted, 10,980 having failed to come up for attestation, and the remainder being medically rejected. As a party of visitors were returning in a brake along the promenade at Rhyl the horses took fright at some "nigger minstrels," and dashed through a group of little children, killing one, and injuring several others, four of them seriously. In & cable .despatch to the New York Recorder, announcing the fact of Lord Orkney's marriage, nearly a column is given bo the personal history of the new countess, and this alleged fact is also recorded "Connie never went to Sunday-school." Dr. Brown-Sequard ha? not lost faith in his famous elixir, despite the attacks made upon it. At a recenb meeting of the French Academy of Sciences he declares thab its use has made him ten years younger and that thousands of people had been cured by it.

Mrs. Maybrick, writing to a lady friend, states that a petition in favour of her release- has been signed by member* of the United States Cabinet. She asks her friend to have some half-mourning clothes ready for her to wear, as she might be re leased any day. A Mrs. Markham, of Roxby, Lincoln shire, who has just died in her 108 th year, was bornu in St. Albans. She was in possession ! of all her faculties, her death being accelerated by a fall. She was the widow of a gamekeeper, having survived her husband 21 years. A female tamer had been putting a lioness through a performance in a menagerie at Bradford when the animal sprang upon her, burying its teeth in her arm. There was great excitement amongst the spectators, but the lioness was beaten off with iron bars and pitchforks. The whole breadth of Buchanan-street, one of the most important thoroughfares in Glasgow, suddenly sank owing to the collapse of a tunnel which was being constructed for an underground railway. A cab filled with passengers went down with the roadway, but no one was injured. A waterspout broke over the village of Langtoft, near Driffield, doing immense damage. Three houses were demolished, farm buildings, horses, cattle, and pigs being washed away. Many of the inhabitants had narrow escapes, and the furniture in the cottages was destroyed. During the year, 5916 courts-martial were held at home, and 7666 fines for drunkenness were inflicted. In the matter of drunkenness, the Household Cavalry stand easily at the top of the list with only six per 1000 men in the year, while the Infantry on the Line are lowest with 59 per 1000 men. A notorious outlaw in North Carolina has been killed by a Baptist jlttiniriter's daughter. He entered the ministiw*s house a few days ago, and at the point of a pistol ordered the girl to cook him a dinner, which he ate. . "Bub as the outlaw was leaving the house the girl shot him in the back with a shot-gun. A husband, for robbing his wife, was sentenced to 18 months' hard labour, and . will have to serve, in addition, 19 months of an unexpired term of penal servitude. He had been separated from bis wife, but came back to live with her, and on learning that she had saved £45, robbed her of the whole sum and decamped. The highest salary drawn by an officer of the Salvation Army is £200 a year and the , ?$% rent of an eight-roomed house, which in the v"■ emolument of Mr. Bramley Booth. The " War Cry yields a profit of £10,000 a ■ vear, and it all goes into the funds of the Army. The profits of " Darkest England " hare already reached £8000. Herr Weisraann, a distinguished German biologist, has pointed out that the average duration of the life of birds is by no means well known. Small singing birds live from eight to eighteen years. Ravens have lived for 100 years, and parrots still longer in captivity. Fowls live from 10 to 20 years. The wild eoose lives over 100 years, and swans are said to have attained the age ol 300. < - ■■ r ■■- . . Miss Nina Cromwell, of Detroit, who claims to be a lineal descendant of the great Oliver Cromwell, owns a venerable bible which is thought to be the identical volume which the Protector used. .It was printed in 1591, by John Wolfe, for the; assigns of Richard Day, and was brought to America in 1750 by Benjamin Cromwell, the great V uncle of the present owner, who has refused £60 for it. • -* ,•-■■;•■'. ' < ' A young rancher in New Mexico was about to marry a Spanish girL After the wedding had been fixed he altered his mind and married another. .So enraged was the discarded lover that she made her way to the ranche, and entered the* house during the siesta. Ci Finding the bride and bridegroom asleep, she s chloroformed them and then cut their tongues out. She also killed one policeman before she could be arrested- ■: :V :! ::■•■■.■■■■■:•: '.-■•■■•■.' v .. --■' ■ ■ ■':■■ "• ■ ■ •^;.::-v--:U^;;;;# i a "■*■ ■ ■■•-:" ■-' ' '.■■'"■■ ■■■.'■ :■■:" ."■.-.•.■ :~ : K''-nC^s-'-'?Mils ■■•■■■- ■: .. - . ■ - - ' .