GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9823, 18 May 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

A PENNY AN HOUB.

A Vienna telegram of March 20 says:— The hard life which is the fate of thousands in this big city, where their years flow unseen, is sometimes revealed as by a flash of lightning when the circumstances that lead to crime are exposed in a court of justice. Thus on Thursday a young seamstress, Paula Christ, appeared before the judge to answer to the charge of having pawned linen worth 150 florins, belonging to her employers.. For four years she has supported her old parents by the work of her needle, and this cold winter the need of fuel prevented her from saving enough to pay the small rent. Her father and mother would have been turned out of doors, so she pawned the shirts she had been working upon to pay the sum owing. During all tho bitter winter this girl has been paid at th« rate of a shilling for each dozen shirts mode. The judge asked her how long she took to make them, and sho said that she had to work hard to finish them in twelve hours. One penny for an hour's hard work, and three people to keep out of it! The court considered the theft to have been committed, under very bard circumstances, and sentenced the girl to only a week's detention. A GIRL Mi CABIN BOY. A curious story is related of the adventure of a fifeeen-year-old girl named Lucy Dewhirst, who has at various times resided with relatives at) Knot End and at Black, pool. About six months ago, it appears, she was taken by her mother to Lawrence, Massachusetts, where a home was found for her with her brother's family. Tiring of American life, however, Lucy obtained a boy's suit of clothes, had her golden ringlets shorn, and then proceeded by train to Boston. She engaged to work the passage to Liverpool on a cattle steamer as cabin boy. During the voyage she attended to the cattle, was made to go aloft, helped with the painting, and received more than one " licking" from the captain, and yet, according to a recent interview, she says her sex was never discovered. After arrival in Liverpool she still continued in her male attire, not discarding the trousers till she arrived at Ashton under-Lyne, where a sister resides. When she dashed into .the house and flung her arms round her sister's neck, her sister had not the slightest idea who she was, and ib took some time to convince her that it was her sister. The girl, who has returned to some relatives in Liverpool, appears none the worse for bet adventures, but expresses a wish that he.? hair would grow.

_ ARTIFICIAL MARBLE EVERYWHERE. Nine-tenths of the marble-topped tables and so on—what I might call furnitura marble in this country are made oi artificial marble, said a man in the trade. Thousands of tons of this mock marble arc made annually, and even men in the trade can scarcely tell the difference between the real and the false article, for the markings, or marbliugs go wholly through the block, and are not merely superficial. The basis of the whole is a combination of limestone and chalk, which, chemically treated, can be made of any shade desired. The artificial marble in the rough is placed in a water bath, and upon this is sprinkled a sort of varnish, consisting of sesquioxide of iron, gum, and turpentine, and all manner of marbled designs are produced when the turpentine is broken up by the addition of water. Any pattern of marbling can ba produced to order. Once such pattern appears, the air is expelled from the block, and the colours are fixed by the immersion of the stone in sulphate and warm water baths, and then another bath of sulphate and zinc so closes up the pores and hardens: the stone that it acquires the density of the natural article, and can be cut and polished just as the real thing can.

GREAT COLLIERY E XPLOSION. An Evanston (Wyoming) telegram, dated March 21, states :—A terrible explosion has occurred at the Rocky Mountain Coal Mine, at Red Canyon, in this territory, resulting, it is feared, in the loss of 68 lives. The elopes from the entrances to the lower workings have been blocked by wreckage, and ib is thought that three days will elapse before the exploring parties which have been organised will be able to reach • the bodies. The explosion, which was felt lor miles round, wrecked the engine-room, the machinery, and other buildings, and caused' great damage. It is stated that the mine was free from gas and well ventilated, and the cause of the explosion is believed to have been the ignition of dust by a blast. When the. explosion occurred great crowds of people rushed to the pithead, and the officials were questioned by frantic women and children as to the fate of missing husbands and fathers. Two bodies which were recoverd by a rescue party presented a ghastly spectacle. LOCUSTS IN CYPRUS. The report of Sir W. J. Sendall, High Commissioner for Cyprus, to the Marquis of Ripon on " The Locust Campaign of 1894," has just been published as a Parliamentary Paper. Ib states that two methods of destruction have been followed(1) The collection of eggs during the summer and winter; (2) the purchase of live locusts in the spring. The system of purchasing live locusts by weight is an entirely new one under the English occupation. The measure has been a popular one, and many persona well qualified to judge considen that the destruction of locusts has been satisfactory. The expenditure during the year 1894 on locust destruction was £4802. The sudden disappearance of locusts in Limasol district is a noteworthy feature in the record of the year's operations. A ROMANCE OP REAL LIFE. The death of Princess Wilhelmina Moncleart, one of the greatesb philanthropists in Austria, recalls a romantic episode of the forties. The deceased princess was of Irish descent, daughter of a certain Fitzgerald, who, being implicated in the Irish troubles, fled to the Continent in 1840. His wife, says the Chronicle correspondent, with her two children, followed him to Vienna. She did not, however, meet her husband again, and, with her son, died in great distress. Wilhelmina was left, at ten years old, penniless and unknown, in a foreign country, of whose language she was totally ignorant. At this critical juncture Baroness Effinger Wildegg became a second mother to the poor girl, and when she was 17 Prince Montleart fell in love with her, and married her five years later. The husband died in 1887. STRANGE SENTIMENTS. Some very strange sentiments were expressed, by one of the Clerical magnatesCount Czaky Pallavicini—in the Hungarian Parliament, when the Bill for the reception of the Jewish faith was rejected. The Count apparently detests the Jews, and he said (according to the Times correspondent) that the Minister for Public Worship had no true conception of the religion of the Jews,, seeing that there were as many varieties of it as there were Jewish butchers. The Hebrew race, which lived upon the blood of the people, was a punishment inflicted upon "Hungary by the Almighty. It was impossible to escape the smell of garlic on taking up a newspaper when going in any direction between the Carpathians and the Adriatic. The Jews were a plague, and he would willingly nerve as the iron broom to sweep them out of the land. "THE SEA OF MURDER." The passage of the North Sea, or German Ocean— it is equally well known by both titles— looked upon with dread by the navigators who have to brave its dangers. The sailors of the North German Lloyd call it the sea of 'murder, in allusion to the marine disasters with which its history bristles. The captain of the liner which crosses from New York to Liverpool feels that the perils of his voyage are practically over when he reaches Queenstown. The commanders of the sister ships of the Elbe, on the other hand, realise that the most dangerous part of their journey is yet to come, for ahead of them is the narrow and crowded English Channel, and the equally crowded and tempestuous North Sea. The unruly waters are open to the fierce sweep of the wind that is so dreaded in Europe, that) which is from the north-east. The Gulf Stream, which purges up the Channel and around the northern end of the British Isles, meets the icy current from the Arctic regions. Storms, varied by dense fogs, result from this combination. The east coast of England forms a deadly lee shore for the shipping caught in the prevailing winds. In addition to these natural. dangers, the North Sea is crossed and recrossed by dozens of steamer "lanes." It is also the seat of the great herring , fisheries, with their thousands of small. smacks and schooners that, lying at anchor here, there, and everywhere, are by no means the least of the dangers which menace the navigator*