GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9401, 6 January 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

AM AUSTRIAN NV.WSPAPAR STORY. The thoroughness -of press ,• in? Austria is demonstrated by *an amusing story told in a Gorman newspaper. Ad editor, being at his wits' .end for a leading; article, had the inspiration ato the last) moment, to . print j these lines i— After carefully reading the leading article written for the present number , by one of the ablest of our contributors, we have armed at the conclusion that it may be misterpreted by the authorities and regarded as an attack upon the Government. "We ourselves consider ib to be perfectly innocent; bub as we are unwilling, for our readers' sake, as well as for oar own, to have our newspaper confiscated, we have very unwillingly, though, as we think, prudently, resolved to withdraw the article- " This must serve as an apology to our readers for the blank space inoor present issue." ■ Imagine the ; shock with which he heard from hit clerk the next morning that the paper .tad been confiscated by the police. "For what< reason ? asked the astounded editor. / For malicious ridicule of the institutions of the Austrian Empire by the . omission of the leading article," replied the clerk. s : >; . > : , • relkasef after forty years. An illustration of the power of ; habit in reconciling a captive to prison is given in a story from Berlin, which, states that a prisoner who has been 40 years in one prison was recently released from Grandenz. His history is as follows the year 1850 he was convicted of a double murder and condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted by King Frederick William IV. to penal servitude lor life. He is a Russian subject, and was then M) years of age; ; Having always comported himself well while in prison, Kaiser Wilheim recently pardoned him, and he was set free, and conducted to the Russian frontier. But the old man—he is now 63 years Of age—wept bitterly as be regained his freedom, not knowing' where to go or how he should earn his livelihood, and he expressed a strong desire to be allowed to remain a convict. His wish, of course, could nob be complied with.

THE VIRGIN OF THE ROUERGUE. - A colossal statue of the Virgin, the work of the Duchesse d'lJzfes, whose son recently died in Africa, is to be erected upon one of the loftiest summits of the Kouergue Mountains, in the department of the Ayeyron. The statue, which will be visible to passengers on the line from Paris to Montpellier and Beziers, is about 50ft in height, and the situation selected for ib is one of the most picturesque •in that mountainous region. The enterprise is under the patronage of Cardinal Bourret, the Bishop of tho diocese, and of 34 other prelates, and ib is calculated that the work will nob be completed for three or four years. CHEAPENING OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. There has recently been a considerable cheapening of the electric light in England, due to the expiry of the Edison incandescent lamp patent in that country. Hitherto incandescent lamps have been sold at 3s 9d apiece; in future their price will be reduced by two-thirds or thereabouts. In Germany it is estimated they'can be manufactured for about ninepence, and placed upon the English market at a shilling. The expiring patent dates from 1882. As long ago as 1879 Edison succeeded in producing the incandescent light, but lamps similar to his own were speedily invented in England, and the Edison-Swan Company, floated in 1882, represented an amalgamation of his interests with those of his most formidable English rivals, Incandescent lamp making is a work of extreme delicacy, the "SwanEdison Company having at one time to allow for a breakage o? one in three, though latterly, owing to the improvement of the appliances, a mere fractional ' margin has been found sufficient. Naturally the patent has been a highly : lucrative one. The company was formed ten years ago, and has since been paying dividends of 7 per cent)., besides meeting the cost of an enormous amount of litigation carried on for the purpose of maintaining its rights. Ib is nob generally known that the best filament for the incandescent lamp consists of bamboo pith and Chinaman's hair carbonised. The discovery of this cost Edison a deal of trouble.

' A LIVELY OLD BACHELOR. ' 5 An old bachelor who has just died in Paris in a house in the Boulevard Richard Lenoir, at the age of eighty-seven years, hit upon an original idea for ensuring proper attention from his servants in his declining years. Twelve years ago, says the Daily hews, he went to his lawyer and made a will, under which he left his two women servants an annuity of £24 each, to be increased by £4 for every year that he should continue to live. The will has just been proved, and the legacies have been allowed at the rate of £82 a year each. The old man was in the habit of making great fun out of the motherly care with which he was looked after. " You may be quite sure," he would say, " that they will not let me die soon if they can help it." He seems to have overlooked the fact that it was clearly not to the interest) of the women that he should survive them. ' DO BIRDS KISS?

Two Royal Academicians and two authorities on ornithology have had a most interesting discussion on the curious question as to whether birds kiss. Mr. Stacy Marks and Mr. Leslie think they do so, while Mr. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens, holds it to be a merely sentimental way of regarding the , act of billing. The turtle-doves dear to lovers, when they appear to kiss, are only propelling halldigested food from one mouth into another. Bub to insisb on the word kissing is to be absurdly literal. It is a form of caress nob common even to all races of men. And nearly all living creatures have an analogous way of love-making, which in almost every case is occasionally used in the course of quite platonic friendships. We have known a hunter who would in the gentlest and prettiest way imaginable carets with hie lips a stable cat with whom he had struck up a warm friendship.

A CONDEMNED FISHERMAN. ' At Lincoln Assizes, on Wednesday, November 29, Henry Edward Rumbold, & Grimsby skipper, 'Was sentenced to death for the murder of Harriet Rushby at Grimsby on November 7. The evidence showed that the prisoner was very much attached to the girl, and his jealousy was aroused by her mode of life. On going to sea in October he made arrangements for her to stay with some relatives. He found on bis return that she had nob gone , Dear the place, but was apparently pursuing her old mode of life. He went on November 7 to the house she was staying in, forced her upstairs into one of the bedrooms, and shot her. The prisoner was exceedingly- calm throughout the trial,:and before sentence was passed said he should not have taken the life of the girl had they not quarrelled in the bedroom. He was . fond of the girl and spent two years' earnings on her. He had killed her, and it was right he should be hanged. He asked for, cigars and cigarettes up to the time he died, as he was a great smoker, and did not wish to break down. He wished to die an English hero. He wished to join the girl he had shot, and if he made any breakdown in that simple affair she would be doing nothing less than poking fun at him in the next world. The juage, in .; passing sentence, advised the prisoner to spend the short time which remained to him in repentance. . A REMARKABLE BEARD. ; Three brothers, bearing a resemblance tfl one another, are in the habit of being shaved at the same barber's shop. A few days since one of the brothers entered the shop early in the morning, and was duly shaved by a German who had been at work in the establishment tor one or two days. ' About twelve o'clock another brother came in, and underwent a similar operation at the hands ot another person. In the evening a 1 third brother made his ■. appearance, when the German dropped his razor in astonishment, and exclaimed Well, mine goodness; dat man hash the fastest beard I ever saw. I shaves him in dis , mornin', anoder. shaves him at dinner i times, [and fie comes . back now nut his beard so long as it never vas J" :