NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9401, 6 January 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS IN BRIEF.

London has 70,000 public lamps. * - ' 1 . ', Nearly £250,000 worth of articles an pawned in London every week. ,~ Ib is claimed that strikes have cost workag men quite £13,000,000 in six years.A valuable vein of marble and other rich mineral deposits has just been unearthed in Iceland. The domestic pets of the world carry 30 par cent, of the common contagious diseases from house to house. A Parisian has invented a magnesium lamp which enables photographs to be taken at any depth under water. A great swarm of locusts have been seen at Mina, in Upper Egypt, and they are reported to have settled on the crops. i , Orders have been given for an addition of 150,000 men to the Russian Army. This establishes the army upon a war footing. One of the strange professions of London is said to be that of a trunk-packer. He will fold expensive gowns in tissue paper, and stow away delicate bric-a-brac in the safest way. The inventory of the National Library at Paris, begun in 1875, has been completed. The library contains 2,150,000 volumes, exclusive of unbound collections of journals, etc.

A difficulty has arisen about the election of a mayor at Hythe, Kent. Nob one of those selected will accept the office, and steps will have to be taken to compel someone to serve. " ' A lady in Paris the other day discovered a lady's watch and chain clinging to the beadwork of her cloak, which must have been accidentally dragged from the owner's pocket in the crowd. The North London magistrate recently sent two very youjpg girls to an industrial school for stealing a pot of paint. The next day the magistrate admitted that he had made a mistake, and the girls have been liberated. *

There are now, as far as can be computed, 46,502 Baptist churches, 30,548 pastors or ministers, with 4,136,152 church members, in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia. In London there are no fewer than 5406 medical men, or an average of one doctor to every 778 persons. The average of medical men in the country is only one to 1749 of the population. The alarming idea has. been broached (says the London Hospital) that the widespread prevalence of diphtheria in the metro* polis may be due to the fetid airlessness of our modern flats. A quantity of bones and several ancient horseshoes having been discovered while excavating at Hendon, has led some to suppose that the Battle of Bameb was fought near this spot. There were over 6300 entries ab the Poultry, Pigeon, and Rabbit Show which opened at the Crystal Palace on November 13. The value of the exhibits is estimated at upwards of £50,000. Vienna was, on the night) of November 3, the scene of a serious riot. A number of Socialists forced their way into a political meeting, and ' a fierce fight followed, in which the police used their sabres freely, injuring a number of persons. The Austrian explorer Herr von Hoernel has been compelled to give up his expedition in East) Africa. While hunting in the Bo -oghi country he was trampled upon by a rhinoceros, and badiy injured. From the accounts of the Chicago World's Fair, so far as they have been made up, it is expected that the stockholders," whose capital represents a total of 5,000,0Q0d0M, will have 50 per cent, returned. 4 When once filled in, a Moslem grave is never reopened on any account. To remove the faintest chance of -it; thus being defiled, a cypress tree is planted after every interment, so that the cemetries resemble forests more than anything else. - ; • ■> 1 ■ • . A man has been fined at Chorley for stealing his own letter. Finding he had made a mistake, he went to the lodgings of the person to whom the letter was addressed, and having obtained possession of it tore it up before it could be opened.' The Austro-Hungarian Consul at Milan says in his report for 1892 that although the cotton industry counts among the newest in the country, ib shows a progress which places it amongst the most important, the silk industry alone surpassing it. The celebration of Guy Fawkes' Day at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, was attended with fatal' results. The blazing material of a huge bonfire fell, and one of the spectators named Jesse Warder, a postman, was involved in the flames and burned to death. A nun the other day eloped from a convent in Buda-Pesth. On reaching -the street she joined a young man, and disappeared with him. In a letter sent to the mother superior, the runaway said she had not found at the convent the happiness she desired. Someone seems to have told the Sultan that chlorate of potash is a dangerous explosive. Consequently no druggist or pharmacist in Constantinople is allowed to possess or sell it. The grandmaster of artillery alone ig allowed to have it in keeping. • Two little children became lost in the woods on Lord Carlisle's estate recently. A search party scoured the locality throughout the night, and the next morning these real " babes in the wood' were discovered lying under a tree locked in each other's arms, and fast asleep. Claims against the United States,-amount-ing to about half a million dollars, have, ib is stated, been filed by the British Columbian sealing owners in compensation for their exclusion from Behring Sea during the 1892 and 1893 seasons, pending arbitration under the modus vivendi. The foundation stone of, a German Evangelical Church has just been laid in Jerusalem. The German Emperor sent a document to be deposited under the stone, in which he declared that the ceremony was conceived in the spirit of unwavering faith in the great truths of Christianity. The Cunard steamer Campania, has performed the voyage to America and baclc in 11 days 1 hour 30 minutes, which was the quickest passage. The Lucania has since accomplished the voyage from Queenstown to Mew York in 5 days 12 hours and 47 minutes, beating the Campania's outward voyage by 36 minutes. The marriage rate in England for the second quarter of last year was at the annual rate of rather over 15 per 1000 of the population— a decided advance. Matrimony found fewest votaries in Norfolk, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, while the most favoured localities were Leicestershire, London, and Lincolnshire. An end is being made of the gates and bars which for generations have closed certain London streets against vehicular traffic. The Highways Committee of the County Council drove in a brake round to several gates in North London, and declared that the obstructions should henceforth be abolished. .. ■ Depositors in the London Post Office Savings Bank since the first of December are to draw their money in an hour or two's notice, instead of two days. When the application is_ made the head office is communicated with by telegraph, and on the production of his book the depositor is handed the amount he desires. The only fee charged is the cos of two telegrams. , One policeman at Paris has been dismissed from the force, and several others have been punished, for playing a practical joke upon a prisoner. A woman was arrested and conveyed to the police station for being drunk and incapable. While she was lying in the cell the policemen obtained a pot of black paint and smeared the captive' with ib in a most scandalous manner. A monument to the soldiers killed at Issy during .the siege of Paris in 1870 was unveiled on November 13. The Prefect of the Seine delivered an address, in which he unfavourably contrasted the behaviour of the Germans during the siege with the fact that the Russians have placed-wreathe, subscribed for by the ladies of Sebastopol, on the tombs of the French soldiers who fell there curing the Crimean War. A widowed Scotchwoman named Clarke, a L-'J residentof feeling herself aggrieved : • at , being evicted" from her home, recently ' determined to lay her case before the Queen. Accompanied, by her daughter, aged 15, she: walked all the way from Scotland to Wind- ? sor, the journey occupying si* weeks. The Queen ' being absent the podr w&man's case was investigated by the ,officials.. Their necessities having been attended tO, mother and daughter left) for Scotland. ,