General News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 242, 8 July 1876, Page 6

General News.

The sale of adulterated milk is assuming such proportions in Sydney that it has been decided to call a meeting of citizens to endeavor to form a large company to supply the city with pure milk. Mr. Sims Reeves Avas recently asked to act as a referee at a musical bee, but replied that “he looked upon spelling bees as an amusement for idiots, and declined to have anything to do Avith either the one or the other.”

The renoAvned German traveller, Herr Schafer, is now in Queensland, and has planned out for himself a journey on foot from Brisbane to the Gulf of Carpentaria and Port Somerset, and then through the Straits settlements and the continent of Asia.

Professor Holloway, of NeAv Oxford-street, has, says the City Press, recently presented to his employes, in the shape of bonuses, upwards of £3OOO ; those of the recipients Avho had been in his employ for twenty years receiving each £2OO, or its equivalent, together Avith a kindly-expressed letter. Mx*. Holloway has also presented to his coachman and groom £2OO each.

Irish churchmen expect (a Dublin correspondent of an Australian paper writes) to be able at the approaching meeting of their general Synod to conclude the long controversy Avhich has raged over the revision of the Prayer-book, and to bi’ing about aii ultimate result sufficiently favorably to the moderate party to forbid any collision of extreme sections. The financial scheme of the nexvlyconstructed Irish Church is working reasonably Avell. An “ Engineer Apprentice and Native Youth of Eighteen” Avrites to the Sydney Morning Herald to take exception to a statement that in Nexv South Wales a youth of seventeen or eighteen is commonly not so Avell educated as is a youth of fifteen or sixteen in England. He requests that his letter may be inserted “in your valauable journal ” to shoAV that the natives “ cannot quietly stand to be sat upon.” He also spells oblige Avith a cl. Under the circumstances, his letter cannot be considered valuable as ev-idence for the defence.

A Shanghai paper states that three new ports in China are to be throAvn open to foreign trade—to Avit, Ichang, Wehu, and WenchoAV. Ichang is situated toAvards the western portion of Hupeh, and may almost be said to lie in the very centre of the Empire. Wenchow is in the province of Chekiang, half-Avay betAveen Ningpo and Eoochow. It is on the borders of Eokien, and is a seapoi't town. Wehu is a district city in the prefecture of T’ai-p’ing, in the pi-ovince of Nganhui, and lies a few miles up the Yangtse, beyond Nankin. It is the centre of a.somewhat extensive trade ; and, like Shanghai, and for the same reason, boasts a To-t’al for the supervision of its commerce. At the Sheffield County Court lately, the Judge (Mi\ T. Ellison) gave judgment in a case Avhich involved the question of a xvife’s conti’ol over a Avedding-ring. The Avife died at her mother’s house, and shortly before her death gave her her Avedding ring. The husband noAv claimed the value of it as a set-off against a claim brought against him for his Avife’s board and lodging. In giving judgment his honor said a Avedding ring came under a class of articles which the wife had separately and independently of her husband, and she had poiver to keep them, but she had no poAver to give them away or to leave them from her husband. On the contrary, the husband had poAver to give them aAvay even during her life. In this case the Avife had no poAver to give away her ring, and his judgment must be accordingly.

General Garibaldi has Avritten a letter to Signor Depreti% accepting with gratitude the donation of one hundred thousand francs presented to him by the Italian nation and the King. The General intends to employ the money in furthering the scheme for the improvement of the Tiber.

The immense increase in the raihvay passenger traffic of the United Kingdom is shown by some statistics, compiled from official sources, Avhich have lately been published. In 1843 the number of persons Avho ti’avelled by rail Avas 23,466,896 ; in 1851, 85,374,116. The latter figures had more than doubled in 1861, Avhile more than twice as many ti’avelled in 1871'as in 1861. In 1574 the number was no less than 477,840,411, to Avhich must be added the number of individuals travelling under season tickets, 493,957, making a grand total of 478,334,361. The Chinese have built a man-of-xvai’, and chi’istened her “ The Terror to Western Nations.” Her career, remarks the Times of India , up to the present time has not been fortunate. There was a difficulty in launching her, because the Chinese officials declined to allow sufficient grease for the “ Avays.” When fitted Avith engines the steam Avould not come out properly, and she could not leave the docks for the vei’y excellent l’eason that the engines could not Avork the screAV. When the last mail left, the Chinese were wondering how they Avere to get her to start on her mission of terror. The only solution the Celestials can arrive at is that the vessel is bedevilled, and that accordingly they must wait for the devils to leave her

Referring to the refusal of the Home Government to recognise in England Australian marriages with a deceased Avife’s sister, the Sydney Morning Herald says : —“ The marriage laAvs of Scotland and Ireland are different from those of England, but the Scotch and the Irish do not, by adhering to their oAvn laAvs, cut themselves off, so far as this legislation is concei’ned, from the rest of the Empire. Nor do the natives of Scotland or Ix-eland find their nxai*riages voidable or their children bastardised by a residence in England. And what is possessed by the Irish and Scotch in this respect may not only be asked as a favor but should be granted as a right to the colonists of Australia. The Australian laws affecting marriage are not anly the acts of Australians, they are also the acts of the Queen ; and the least that can be done in the mother country is to sanction legislation, which, Avithout touching the English marriage laAvs at all, Avill give unmistakeable validity in the United Kingdom to marriages contracted in accordance with the laAvs of the Sovereign in the colonies.”

A correspondent of the Bendigo Avertiscrd relates the following strange circumstance : “A singular incident of second sight occurred near Runnymede a few nights since. A gentleman was visiting a residence about nine miles from that township on the night in question, and leaving on horseback about halfpast ten, proceeded along the road, when, having gone about five miles, the horse while going doAvn a gully came to grief at the bottom, the gentleman just managing to throw himself clear. This happened a few minutes before eleven, and about the same time a laxly at the residence referred to aAvoke, as it were, from a dream, and awakening her sister, who slept in the same apartment, she said to her, ‘ has had an accident, and I’m afraid he’s hurt, for he got up on his horse from the xvrong side. I saAv it happen as plain as if I had been there.’ Strange to say, the rider did remount from the off side, having hurt his left arm slightly in the tumble. The lady, on meeting the gentleman next day, described the accident so minutely, that he was thoroughly astonished, feeling sure that no one but himself kneAv anything about it.” A “ digging bee” is the latest development in the bee line. The Geelong Advertiser records a bee of this kind started by Mr. George Cathcart, the manager of the Bank of Victoria at Queenscliff, for a useful purpose. The silting up of sand in the bathing house at Queenscliff has long formed subject for regret, as the extensive establishment, built at great cost, AA’-as comparatively useless, and Queenscliff was shorn of one of the chief requisites to attract visitors from up country districts. To have had to pay for the clearing away of the sand Avould have cost a large sum of money, so Mr. Cathcart determined upon tickling the sympathies of all classes. This he did by issuing a proclamation, signed by the Mayor, calling upon high and loav to lend their strength in assisting to make a temporary breakxvater on the south side of the baths, and a channel through the eastern end to scour them. Two hundred ansAvered his appeal, the work was vigorously prosecuted throughout a whole day, and the result, it is hoped, Avill be permanently beneficial. It Avould have done many a skulker good to have seen his Honor Mr. Justice EelloAvs Avorking Avith pick and and otherAAdse taking part in one of the most useful “ bees” that has yet been held.

A sporting Avriter in the Queenslander thus discourses of a system of “ knocking out ” resorted to by horsey men : —Eor be it known that the subtle spirit that pervades the “ Heathen Chinee ” is abroad in the land of Australia, and the spirit of finance, and not of plucky, dashing sport, presides at the table. Smith, BroAvn, Jones, and Robinson, may possibly reside in Sydney; yea, perchance it may be even in Melbourne, and news comes to toAvn that Brisbane or Sandhurst, or Glen Innes, or SAveatborough (it matters not which), has offered a grand prize to be raced for by the four-legged steeds. Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson are each and all of them OAvners of several flyers, and Avhen the racing is done at home they run truly on their merits, and the luck of the handicap, or the stable condition, aAvards the prize to one or the other of them, as may happen. But when it comes to travelling to a distance to secure a prize of money, our four friends, S., 8., J., and R., OAvners of our four-legged friends the horses aforesaid, are apt to lay their heads together, and one of them discoui-seth to his fellows, and Avith one

eye closed, somewhat as follows: —“ See here, chaps, it’s no use our all going up to Sweatborough with our strings ; it will cost us a hundred notes apiece at least, and there is only £BOO to be won. Let’s decide when the weights are out who shall send his lot up, and the other three will stay at home with their horses, and ‘stand in’ for a share of the Winnings.” And thus it ariseth that the broker’s “knock out” at an auction sale is emulated in racing circles, and that low entrances and high prizes in country towns in the colonies enable all horse-owning hands from abroad first to enter and then to make up their minds, after the handicap is out, Avhich of the four or half-dozen of them shall go up and collar the money. Counsel for the defence in criminal cases will notice a favorable contrast (remarks the Lav) Times) between our own practice and that of the Department of the Sartlie, in Prance, in a case which has just occurred of a man who, being tried for a very serious offence, was asked by the presiding magistrate if he had anything to say for himself. This was asked just as the jury were about to retire to consider their verdict. The prisoner was about to say something, when his counsel told him in an undertone that he had better be silent. The prisoner was eventually found guilty ; but before the proceedings terminated the Procureur-General demanded that a “ disciplinary penalty” be inflicted on the counsel for the defence, on the ground that he had manque aux convenances in preventing the prisoner from telling what he termed the truth. Moreover another barrister was called to account for having whispered to . the council for the defence, vous avez bien fait —that he had done well in suggesting silence to his client. Such an intolerable abuse of authority on the part of an attorney-general or public prosecutor would never be sanctioned in this country, where the liberty of defence for a prisoner is protected to the highest possible degree, and the utmost license compatible with decorum permitted to counsel, nor is that license, we are glad to say, often abused. The fact is, however, noteworthy, as illustrating in a marked degree the feeling of foreign courts of criminal procedure in regard to a practice which is far from being at variance with our own laws.