GLEANINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 791, 29 April 1887, Page 5

GLEANINGS.

A committee of Parisian doctors has challenged Succi, the Italian faster, to fast forty days in a French hospital for a stake of 5000 francs, on condition that he reveals the secret of his elixir, for which a patent is guaranteed. Miss Ellen Ellerby, a student in the Manchester School of Art, has carried off the first Princess of Wales scholarship of £25. The Science and Art Department accorded this honor to her as having taken the highest prizes of the year in the national competition of all schools of art. A visit to the sewers of Paris was the feature of a press festival recently held in that city. Five hundred persons availed themselves of the singular programme. Ben Ahmar was recently rewarded with the cross of the Legion of Honor for bravery as a lion-killer. In Algeria in twenty-six years he killed over two hundred lions. The Guarantee fund for the Paris International Exhibition far exceeds expectations. A widespread, patriotic interest is shown by the French people in the success of the Exhibition. Plants sometimes seek food. A Delaware grapevine sent a root a long distance to a hole in which bones had been buried and surrounded every bone with roots. A

running vine will send out a tendril to seize a cord hanging near, but out of its path. Circumstances show that plants have power of selection, and, to a certain degree, exercise intelligence. Autographs.—There is a fashion in autographs which rule somewhat low just now, although a few ‘ fashionable ’ names realise fair prices. At a recent oalo a letter of Goethe’s was knocked down for nine shillings, one by Voltaire for sixteen shillings, while the signature of her Majesty ■the Queen fetched two shillings less than that of the Poet Laureate—eleven and thirteen shillings respectively. On the other hand, Thackeray’s and Mrs Siddon's autographs were both in demand at vastly higher prices. Three of Mr Gladstone’s letters went for thirteen shillings, as against one pound eleven shillings paid for a single epistle of Paganini, the violinist. A good impression of any article of metal having a flat, ornamental surface may be taken by wetting some note paper with the tongue and smoking it over a gas flame. The article is then pressed upon ths smoked part, when, if the operation be carefully conducted, a clear impression will appear. This can be made permanent by drawing the paper through milk and afterwards drying it. By this means you can obtain a facsimile of a favorite coin, or anything with a flat surface. London philanthropists complain that only £500,000 a year is spent on the London hospitals, while £1,000,000 is voted to send vests to Borrioboola Gha. Cocaine has a rival in an alkaloid obtained in Australia from the juice of Euphorbia Drummondii, which Dr. John Reed, its discoverer, calls drumiue. The new local anesthetic is said to act almost entirely by paralysing, and does not excite. This is the genus of which the common milkweed is a member, and nearly all of them have acrid juices.