NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9307, 16 September 1893, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

India has 131,600 lepers. Tobacco culture is prohibited in Egypt. Great Britain received 10,057,600 letter* from America last year. A very fine example of the African secretary bird has arrived at the London Zoo. Harvard, the oldest American university, was attended by 2969 students last year. The San Francisco police now carry axes with which to break into Chinese fan-taa shops. ' Peary's Arctic exploration party ab last accounts was at Davis Inlet seeking foe dogs. Immense quantities of silk, amounting to some 30,000 bales, are lying unsold in Japan. The Sultan of Turkey has decided to establish State schools for girls in Constant tinople. It has been estimated that Great Britain has about 100,000 absolutely " homeless wanderers." Shanghai lias the highest death rate of anv place in the world from heart disease, 1510 per 10,000. A lady was stung on the tongue by a wasp at Whitchurch, England, recently, and died within an hour. The crop prospects in Canada' are declared to be excellent. The yield pf corn will be heavier than has been the case for manv years past. Since the outbreak of the cholera in Naples more than 100,0000 residents have fled frem that city. Owing to the failure of the Greenland whale-fishing, whalebone has been sold in Dundee at £3000 per ton. . All the southern counties of England are almost in a panic over the plague of waspa hatched by the hot, dry season. j A sorb of winged spider, whose sting is very venomous, has appeared about) the electric lights ab Newport, Kentucky. | A woman was sent to gaol in London for administering intoxicating liquor to her female child of 6 until it became drunk. The ancient Drury Lane Theatre is doomed, the Duke of Bedford having declined to grant a renewal of the lease. There is a regular human-hair market ab Morlana, in the Basses Pyrenees, whithei young women repair to sell their tresses. A London surgeon claims to have traced an outbreak of scarlet fever in a house to. the visits of a cab from an infested household. A plague of scorpions has overwhelmed the city of Durango, Mexico, where the authorities are paying bounty for each of the pests killed. A civil court in Nuremberg, Germany, has decided that trade unions are illegal because they exercise tyrannical compulsion over their members. When a train arrived ab Longton station recently a man's head was found on the front of the engine, and the body was afterwards discovered in a tunnel. A young woman was carried by a crush in a Glasgow menagerie the other night close to a lion's cage. The lion sprang forward and tore her face severely. The Greek Government has seta price on the heads of twenty-nine brigands. The reward runs from £80 to £5 per head, according to the prowess of the person now wearing it. Cases of cholera continue to occur in the South of France. A German says the cholera bacillus will live three days in milk, eight clays on cooked meat, and one day on bread and butter. At the Shelley Exhibition, recently held in London, there was shown the poet's glass and iron inkstand, and a portion of the poet's skull, which had been picked from the burning pyre. The number of emigrants who during the past half-year sailed from the ports of Great Britain reached the total of 179,088, a 9 against a total of 176,814 in the corresponding period of 1892. The Arabs have a superstition that the stork has a human heart. When one of these birds builds its nesb on a housetop they believe the happiness of that household is ensured for that year. ,:. . r A sensation was created at Halifax recently by the escape of a lion exhibited at the local fair. It was speedily recaptured,. bub not before several persons had.been trampled upon in the panic. In Paris this year the summer came three months ahead of time, and now autumn Beems to be similarly alerb, since the leaves have already turned yellow and the ground is covered with autumn leaves. On the royal wedding day there were 13| hours of bright sunshine in London, and the thermometer registered 84deg. in the shade. At Greenwich observatory the following day the mercury rose to 140deg. in the sun's rays. The figures relating to the Salvation Army week of "self-denial" in October last have only just been made up. Tha amount collected was £50,002. The sum collected by the same method the previous year was £30,000. A Continental doctor warns people against kissing domestic pets. An examination of the saliva of cats, he says, was found to be rich in all sorts of minute bacilli, while a dog's saliva contained even a greatec number of bacteria. Three women have been slaughtered in the open air of London's suburbs by unseen assassins recently. In each case the victim was silently and swiftly killed with a knife, and the murderer vanished without leaving a trace of himself. The Italian press, which is generally indifferent to such matters, is beginning to make an outcry about the lack of public security throughout the country. The* most audacious exploits by brigands aro reported from all directions. Three new torpedo boats have been ordered of Yarrow and Co. by the British naval authorities. They are to be 140 feet long by 14 feet 6 inches beam, and to have a guaranteed speed of 27 knots, which is equal to a little over 31 miles per hour. The Cardinal Manning Memorial Fund in England has »now reached a total of more than £6000, and a meeting of the committee will bo held before the winter to decide in what way the money can be best applied in aid of the homeless and cosmopolitan poor of London. The formal opening of the South Ussuri section of the Trans-Siberian railway was to take place on the 15th August. This section connects Vladivostock with Khabarovka. The next westward portion of the railway is being pushed forward with all possible expedition. An infant was senb to a hospital from Camberwell, England. In due time the parents received an intimation thab their little one had recovered, and would be senb home. When the child arrived they discovered thab ib was not their infant ab all, and the affair is being investigated. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company announce that the overland journey between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will in future be reduced by 22 hours, necessitated by the requirements of the new fast passenger service to Australia via Vancouver, and tha steamship service of Japan and China. A- committee appointed by the German universities has been sending out circulars to Germans in all foreign countries, appealing for information as to situations available for the students graduating from those institutions, the object being to establish a central bureau from which German intellect) can be sent forth into the world to earn a respectable livelihood. Never within living memory has the tidal Thames been so pure as ib is now, a facb clearly accentuated by the appearance of fish ;ab Westminster Bridge. This phenomenon is said by riverside men to be largely due to an easb wind of unprecedented duration, which has helped to purify the water by bringing the full flow of salt water into the estuary. An extraordinary scene took place during the afternoon service in Westminster* Abbey recently. A Quaker, who is well known Ito the attendants for his persistent efforts to remain covered during divine service, declining to remove i his : hat, was, after a violent struggle, forcibly ejected. Ib required the efforts of four of the vergers to remove him from .the building. An infant prodigy has appeared in China. Ib is a boy of four years old, who has presented himself at the Licentiate examina- - tions at - Hongkong as a , candidate if or. V; literary ; honours. The P'anyn ;;; Chehsien '■% personally examined this tiny candidate, i : : and found thab the child could write )»";■? concise essay on the subject that had been given him, although in an infantile scrawl'