General News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 387, 12 July 1879, Page 24

General News.

A singular strike has just terminated at Barcelona. The municipality having about twelve months ago imposed a tax ou the consumption of gas, all the private consumers resolved not to burn gas, and they have stood firm until the removal of the impost. "While hunting a fox in England on March 29, the Northumberland and Berwickshire foxhounds pursued it into the Post Office at Milfield. Thence th# fox escaped into a cottage opposite, whither several dogs followed. Furniture, china, and glass, were knocked about and broken, and, after a great deal of confusion, the fox was killed under a bed. A Vienna telegram of 7th May, says : " Hobart Pasha was married privately at the chapel of the British Embassy, in Vienna, to an English lady, Miss Hore, to whom he had been engaged oince his last visit to England. His fiancee met him in Vienna, as his leave was too short to permit of hib his going to England. The newly-married couple left for Constantinople." Garibaldi's return to Rome was the occasion of an affecting demonstration of popular love, which recalls to mind one of the most characteristic episodes of his glorious career. When he entered Naples he was exceedingly tired, and he went to bed at once. He had just fallen asleep, when an enormous crowd of lazzaroni rolled to the piazza in front of the palace, and began to shout deafening vivas. At once Luigi G-usmeroli, the faithful friend of the Liberator, sprang to the door, and said in a low tone, " The General is asleep." From the foremost ranks of the crowd the password went in a few seconds the rounds of the piazza ; immediately, as if under the spell of a magic force, a dead silence was established. "We had better go, and let him rest," whispered the men one to another. They turned back, and left on tiptoe. In a minute the piazza was empty. It is generally stated that the organisation of the revolutionary party in Russia is constructed on the same decimal principle as that used by the conspirators in the Polish insurrection and the affair of Netchaieff, a Nihilist, who had organised a party of several hundred people, all of whom were tried and condemned a few years ago. In fact they are said to be divided into groups of ten individuals each ; of these ten only one man knows the place where another such circle of ten is to be found, and his information is not allowed to go farther. So, if there is one conspirator arrested, he may denounce his group but can do nothing more ; and in the place of the group seized thex-e immediately springs up another similar circle, like a new head of the fabulous hydra. Therefore the police may well be at a loss about the measures they are to take for the extinction of the movement.

There are in England eighty limited banks registered under the Companies Act, with a nominal capital of £76,787,326, a paid-up capital of £19,276,292, and 38,818 shareholders; fifty-three unlimited banks, wiifca a nominal capital of £66,506.100, a paid-up capital of £22.675,215, and 51,601 shareholders. 129 unlimited insurance companies, with a nominal capital of £30,842,500, a paid-up capital of £2,705,633, and 12,667 shareholders ; and 95 miscellaneous companies, with a nominal capical of £4,321,388, a paid-up capital of £3,613,178, and 5,862 shareholders. The total number of the unlimited companies is 277, the nominal capital £101,969,938, the paid-up capital £28,994,026, and the number of shareholders 70,130. When the news came that the Prince Imperial of Prance was assegaied by the Zulus, whilst fighting with our troop?, not a few were puzzled at the term. The following extract from Public Opinion will make matters plain : —"There are two principal kinds of assegais, the throwing and the stabbing, the latter with a long and straight blade. To a Kaffir this weapon is literally the staff of life. TVith it he kills his* enemy and his game, slaughters and cuts up his cattle, trains their horns, shaves his own or his neighbor's head, does his carpentry and furriery, and countless other jobs of various sorts. In its original form the assegai was essentially a missile, but the renowned Chak, among other military reforms, converted it into a shorter and heavier stabbing spear, unfit for throwing, and only to be used in close quarters. The shaft, with an average length of nearly five feet, and a diameter equal to a man's little finger, is cut from the assegai tree (Curtisia jaginea), which is not unlike mahogany. The wood is brittle yet elastic, the latter quality giving the spear that peculiar vibratory motion on which its accuracy of flight so much depends. On account of the brittleness a novice will break many shafts before he learns to throw his assegai secundum artcm. Inaptly cast, the shaft as soon as it reaches the ground is liable to whip foi'ward and break off short above the blade. The assegai-heads are generally bladeshaped, some consist of a mere spike, and a few are barbed. When the first shape is adopted, whether with or without the barb, there is invariably a raised ridge along the centre of the blade, which is concave on one side and convex on the other. The reasons assigned for this peculiarity of form are that this blade acts like the feathers of an arrow, and that, a3»the heads are always made of soft iron, they can be more easily sharpened when blunted by use."