MISCELLANEOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 116, 5 July 1873, Page 6

MISCELLANEOUS.

The sum of £IOO, placed at the disposal of the Council of the Society of Arts by Sir W. Trevelyan, Bart, with the Society’s medal is offered for the discovery of a process of preserving fresh meat in an uncooked or raw state better than by any method hitherto employed applicable to the preservation of meat in countries where it is almost valueless, so as to render it an article of commerce.

The “ Railway News” says that the Midland Railway Company have finally entered into arrangements with Mr Pulman, the inventor of the sleepingcars in America. The result is that the Midland Company will, on the opening of their extension linp to Liverpool run a night train of carriages made in America, and identical in every respect with those running in that country. The agreement made between Mr Pulman and the Midland Company for the use of the cars is similar to that adopted by the railway companies of America, the extra fare for the use of the car being divided between Mr Pulman and the company—the former owning the car, and the latter maintaining it. The interest of this news for railway shareholders is, of course, the prospect of an increase of revenue, and the railway companies might perhaps turn their attention with advantage to some method by which their ordinary rolling-stock could receive sleeping accommodation of a less perfect kind than that patented by Mr Pulman, but also at less expense, and more readily available for the mass of travellers.

Here’s the biggest frog story yet. It is furnished by the Greeley (Col.} Tribune. Of course the frog was knocked out of an envelope of stone, where he had been quietly inuvned for hundreds of years, but that is nothing uncommon. Many a frog has been through that experience before him, but an ancient Aztec coin was knocked out of the frog. There is an image and superscription on the coin, but no one can say whose it is. We think that thus far the Greeley Tribune has the lead on frog stories.