General News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 220, 27 November 1875, Page 17

General News.

It is asserted ou medical authority that the madness of a large proportion of the patients received into the Bethlehem Hospital is traced directly or indirectly to overwork. Several porpoises have lately been seen below and above London Bridge. One was shot near the Cherry Tree Garden landing-stage, Kothorhithe, and another was captured near Waterloo Bridge.

A serious disturbance is reported from Clinton, Alississippi. At a Republican meeting the whites and blacks came to blows, and a general melee ensued, which resulted in tho negroes being put to flight with a loss of forty killed and many wounded. It is announced that Sir John Arnott has executed a deed of gift vesting in the hands of five trustees the sum of £20,000 for the benefit of the Protestant and Catholic charities of the city of Cork. The Daily Telegraph publishes returns from correspondents iu all parts of the country relating to the coal trade, and says:—“lt does not seem on the whole probable that coal will be extremely dear in tile winter months.”

A widow named Pear has just died at Cardiff at the stated age of 103 vears. She was born in Cork three years before O’Connell’s birth, and she recollected him distinctly. The Marquis Benso de Cavour, nephew of the famous Minister, has just died. The name and family of Cavour have thus become extinct. The marquis was the possessor of his uncle’s papers. The new goods station of the Great Northern Railway in the Farringdon-road, which has cost upwards of £IOO,OOO, will, when completed, be the largest in England, covering an area of 25,000 superficial yards, or more than five acres.

A letter from “ Orion ” Horne appears in the Daily News, suggesting that Captain Webb should receive the honor of knighthood. The author of the “Farthing Epic” thinks “the most heroic of the knights of King Arthur would have been proud to receive such a man as Captain AVebb into tlieir Order.”

The discovery of a subterranean forest, just below the surface of the bed of the Thames, near Cherry Garden pier, is of great interest. The oak, the alder, and the willow are the principal trees. These retain their vegetable character, but other evidences show that the forest belongs to the period of the elk and the red deer in the south of England. At the Salford licensing sessions, it was stated that out of 3066 persons who had been convicted of drunkenness during the year, 861 were women. This state of things was attributed to the increased facilities for obtaining drink offered by provision dealers and who had licenses for selling off the premises. Air. Caird, in an elaborate review of tho harvest prospects, estimates the total gain to the British consumer from the fine harvest of 1874 at twenty millions. The total consumption of wheat in the United Kingdom he estimates at 100 million cwt., of which a fraction over one-half is home growth. An Elizabethan cottage at Soutlileigh is attracting the attention of arclucologists. According to local papers, among the carving is the emblem of St. Luke, and the shields have the crosses of St. George and St. Patrick, or St. Andrew, painted on them. This is supposed to be a portion of tlie reredos of the ancient altar of Southleigh Church. The date is said to be about Edward Vl.’s time, and it is probably a relic of the taste and munificence of tlie Bonvilles, the ancient lords of Southleigh.

Sir Edward Ryan, whose death at Dover is announced, was at the time of his decease eighty-two years old. During his lifetime he filled in succession a puisne judgeship in the Supreme Court of Calcutta, the chief justiceship of the Bengal Presidency, a railway commissionership, tlie assistant controllership of the Exchequer, and the first civil service commissionership. He was made a privy council - lor in 1843, and for three years held the viceclianecllorship of the University of London. Before the Norwich Bribery Commission it was stated by a witness that consciences in that city were not of the tendercst character, that bribery was not considered a very heavy offence, and that in his opinion both sides wore in this matter tarred with the same brush. Another witness remarked that the regulation price of bribes had recently diminished, but that the quantity had increased. The now Bishop of St. Alban’s will, after his consecration, have transferred to him the patronage of about fifty livings in Hertfordshire and Essex, worth in tho aggregate about £16,000 a year. Of these the best are Orsett, worth £BSO a year ; Laindor, £7BO ; South Weald, £650 ; Ashwell, £573 ; Chigwell, £SOO ; Bicktnansworth, £520 ; Thorley, £540 ; Witham, £479 ; Great Such, £470 ; St! James’s, Halstead, £4OO ; Sawbridgeworth, £4OO ; Bishop’s Wickham, £4OO ; and Fairstead, £l2O.

Mr. George Harris, of London, has walked the distance from London to Edinburgh in ten and a half days, arriving there in good health and spirits, having left London iu knickerbockers and a light blouse, and carrying a knapsack weighing ten pounds. He proceeded by Barnet, Nottingham, Leeds, Bishop’s Auckland, Jedburgh, and Galashiols, covering, on an average, a distance of 374 miles per day. One day ho walked as much as 47£ miles, and this was followed up on the succeeding day by a stage of 48 miles.

It is .a notable fact that while not one exPresident of the United States is living, the wives of five of them survive—Mrs. Polk, Mrs. Fillmore, Mrs. Tyler, Mrs. Lincoln, and Mrs. Johnson.

American papers state that the new moneyorder system between Canada and the United States was inaugurated on the 4th inst., by the postal superintendent at Washington sending to the head of the money-order department at Ottawa a remittance of SI, with a request to spend it as he thought tit. In a recent number of the Scientific American, there is a wonderful illustration, entitled “ Bridge over the Waitaki Liver, New Zealand,” with a railway train crossing the said bridge in fine style. The Daily Times thinks the illustration must be somewhat puzzling to Otago people, as it bears not the slightest resemblance to the railway bridge now in course of construction over the Waitaki. The puzzle, however, is explained by a statement that the illustration has been supplied by Millar, F.S.A., whose design for the bridge, we may state, was not accepted. A correspondent, writing to the Standard, says:—“On inquiring at the General Postoiiiee I was informed that the New Zealand mail would be due on August 23. Not receiving a letter, 1 inquired again, and was told that the mail had missed the steamer at San Francisco, and was not expected till September 6. Now lam informed it will be in on the 13th. Is is not a disgrace to the Postoffice authorities that one of our most flourishing colonics, New Zealand, with a population of 299,800, should not have a regular mail running as there is to India?” According to the European Mail, “ great satisfaction is expressed at the arrival of the Strathmore at Otago, after being 107 days out. A premium of ten guineas had been paid on her at Lloyd’s. A premium of eighty guineas has been paid on the Strathnaver. It will be remembered that she left Sydney on April 27, for London. She was consequently 156 days out on September 30.” This satisfaction would be intensified here only for the fact that the Strathmore has not yet, sad to say, arrived. The Loyal Aquarium at Westminster will be opened in December next. The building is now nearly complete, and might be opened earlier but for the fact that it will take nearly four months to bring the sea-w'ater from Brighton. The quantity required to fill the reservoirs is 750,000 gallons. It can only be obtained at certain times of tide, and it will be brought to town in sealed barrels, and kept fresh and pure by a system of constant circulation, and a continuous supply of air forced into and through every part of it.— Graphic. Wayne Hovey relates a good anecdote of a certain chaplain of the Auburn State Prison who, being an enthusiastic devotee of temperance reform, had an idea that most of the convicts were incarcerated because of the use of whiskey. In his rounds he met a sturdy man of many stripes, and put the usual question to him, “ Had whisky anything to do with bringing you here ?” “ Everything, sir, everything,’ exclaimed the man. The chaplain was encouraged, and eagerly inquired how it was. “ Well, sir, I’ll tell you how it was. The judge was drunk, and the lawyers were all drunk, and they fetched me in guilty. ’ The opening paragraph in the European Mail says :—“ The first mail for conveyance, via San Francisco, under the new contract ■will be made up in London on Thursday, October 21, and thenceforward the mails will be despatched from London on the evening of every fourth Thursday. Arrangements have been made at Washington by which the journey from New York to San Francisco will be reduced to six days. It should be noted that October 25 is the day on which mails are made up by the P. and O. route, via Southampton, and that the mails, via Brindisi, are despatched a week afterwards, as showing that the service, via San Francisco, runs too close upon that carried on by the P. „& 0. Company. Indeed, the opinion is pretty general here that the arrangements as to dates might be improved, especially when it is remembered that the mails by the Queensland service are made up but five days before those via San Francisco. Thus the colonies will have the mails tumbling in one upon the other. The new service is evidently arranged with the view to anticipate the Brindisi route.”

The Northampton {Mass.) Gazette tells the following story of the first minister at Pelham, Mass.: —“ Some of the members of this church somehow got the idea that the minister was using too much rum in the way of flip, and a committee of five was chosen to wait upon and remonstrate with him, not against the practice, which was common, but in relation to the quantity used by him. Mr. A. was apprised of their errand, and knowing that, notwithstanding the object thereof, he would be expected to treat them to flip, instructed his wife in regard to the strength of the beverage. First time round, considerable water ; second time, more ruin and less water ; third time, all rum, or nearly so, as possible, and have it palatable. The result was the committee passed a jolly evening after concluding their business, and three of them passed most of the night on the floor, being unable to go until early morning. At the appointed time they made report to the church to this effect :

—‘Your committee called on Mr. A. and remonstrated with him, and have to report that he gave us Christian satisfaction.’ Wo had this story from the grandson of the aforesaid Mr. A., and it ought to be true.

The correspondent of the New York World supplies the following incident in the career of Mdllc. Titiens : —“ On one of her fingers she wears a solitaire diamond, a lovely threecarat gem which is associated with a remarkable incident. During the great musical festival in Birmingham, in September, 1861, Titiens was one of the great solo singers. There were also Adelina Patti and Mine. Ludersdorlf. On the last day of the festival Ludersdorlf was to sing in an oratorio, but when the time came the audience was kept waiting, something unusual at these festivals. Suddenly an honorary steward elbowed his way to the place where Titiens

sat and handed her a slip of paper on which was written : ‘Dear Teresa: For God’s sake sing my part; lam dying—Ludersdorff.” The fact was that Ludersdorlf had come to the hall sick, and was at that moment lying, as she thought, dying, in one of the committee rooms. But the worst of the business was that Titiens had never sung the part in her life, and actually knew nothing of the music. The plucky prima donna hesitated but a single moment, and walked bravely up to the orchestra and took the place of RudersdorfT. She simply delighted the audience and astonished Sir Michael Costa. Fie knew the feat she was undertaking, and felt a thousand times more nervous than the great singer. It was a feat of reading notes at sight without preparation, and a complete success. Sir Michael Costa declared it was a musical feat unparalelled to his knowledge, and the music-loving managers of the festival were not ungrateful. As a token of their appreciation, they had a fine diamond set in a ring, and presented to the gifted singer with great ceremony after the festival.”