OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 838, 23 March 1888, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

PETROLEUM FOR BRONCHITIS. Dr Blache states in the Bulletin Thdrapeutique that in chronic and simple bronchitis petroleum in doses of a teaspoonful before meals produces satisfactory results. In phthisis the experiments have not yet been long enough continued to ascertain whether the results are permanently beneficial, but it diminishes the expectoration, which also loses its purulent character.

MISSTATEMENTS OF ANTI-VAC-

CINATIONISTS.

Much of the growth of the feeling against vaccination is due to the misstatements of anti-vaccinationists remaining uncontradicted and unexplained. There is no question that medical men are too prone to regard as unimportant the frequent letters which appear discrediting vaccination, yet these have been for years exercising an influence upon many who accept their teaching, and who have come to consider vaccination in the light of a curse rather than a blessing. Our profession has duties beyond that of the treatment of disease, and the first is certainly that of teaching the public how it may be avoided—Lancet.

HEAVY FAILURE OF A LONDON BUILDER. Liabilities over Half a Million.

The Official Receiver in the London Bankruptoy Court to day issued the summary of accounts filed by W. Douglas, builder, contractor, and furnished house proprietor, who for thirty years has been engaged in extensive building operations chiefly at South Kensington. The gross liabilities are re turned at £657,156,17s 9d., of which £78,271 is expected to rank for dividends against assets valued at £8,930. The debtor attributes his failure to the continuous depreciation in the value of house property in the Kensington district, and to his inability to sell the houses built; also to the large amount paid for interest on morgages on the properties.

CEYLON TEA. In Ceylon the progress of tea cultivation has been even more marked than in India. The development of the Ceylon tea trade, unlike that of India, has been rapid. India commenced the cultivation of the shrub with unskilled planters and inappreoiative markets. Ceylon benefited by the experience gained in the Indian gardens, which enabled her planters to avoid the mistakes made in the early days by the Indian managers, who knew little or nothing about tea-plant-ing. Ceylon, too, was fortunate in supplying a high-clasß article at a time when China was sending inferior tea to the European market. The result is that Ceylon teas have rapidly gained in public favor, until now there is hardly a grocer’s shop in which 4 Ceylon Tea ’ is not a conspicuous article of sale. The rapid growth in Ceylon export of tea ia shown by the following figures, which we take from Messrs. Barker’s excellent 4 Trade and Financial Annual’:— Area Planted. -Total Exports. Year. Acres. Lbs. 1867 to 1873 10 to 250 ... Nil. ISS3 32,000 ... 1,999,687 1886 140,000 ... 6,750,000 —Temperance Caterer.

COLONIAL POPULATIONS. How ought you to decide the population of different countries—by the number of inhabitants in the several mother countries only, or by that of their subjects all the world over? The question has been raised, and on the latter basis a Frenoh writer has recently compiled some interesting statistic. Thus, Portugal-in-Europe has only 4,000,000 inhabitants, but the total number of persons living under the Portuguese flag is nearly twice as many (7,896,628). Of 24,000,000 Spanish subjects, only 16,000,000 live in Europe. The population of the Netherlands is only 4,000,000, but the total number of Dutch subjects is 31,000,000, On this same basis Germany is far less populous than France. It is France, says the writer we are quoting, wherever the French flag flies. The number of Frenchmen thus interpreted is 70,798,083 (of whom 58,218,903 live in France-in-Europe), but that of the Germans is only a little more than 47.000,000. The total number' of British subjects, we may add, is put at 306,371,514.— Sydney Morning Herald.

CIDER AND THE TEETOTALLERS. It is amusing to see how many teetotallers who rave at the mention of beer will drink cider with relish. By some unaccountable illusion, cider is imagined by this class of people to be quite a non-alcholio drink. Perhaps these figures will open their eyes a little New cider, 3 to 4 per cent, alchol; cider one year old, 5 to 6 per cent. ; Lager beer, 3 to 4 per cent. ; average English beers, 5 to-6 per cent. There is one thing to be said, hoiyeyer, in favor of cider. Its high

1 acidity percentage (malic and acetic acids) having such an emetical action on the stomach that if cider is drunk in large quantities the injurious alcohol is at once removed from the patient teetotaller’s system ; but, for our part, we would prefer the same quantity of alcohol in beer with its small quanity of lactic acid which would allow its comfortable repose in the stomach.—Country Brewers’ Gazette.

FIRELESS EXPLOSIVES. For several years cylinders of lime have been used in the mines of the American anthracite coal region as a substitute for powder in places where there is hazard, especially for 4 breaking down ’ coal. Tho cylinders are surrounded by a waterproof covering, placed in a drill hole, tamped into position, and water added after the covering at the end of the cartridge has been broken. Absorption of the water and consequent expansion of the lime is so rapid as to break open the coal. A new form of fireless explosive has recently been used to a very small extent, consisting of a cartridge filled with comminuted zinc which is sublimated in retorts during the process of distillation, and also a small vial containing sulphuric acid. When the bottle is broken in the drill hole, the production of hydrogen gas is so rapid as to have an expansive effect. The use of the latter is permitted, but is limited to places where but slight charges are necessary ; even then the anticipations of safety in connection with such a cartridge might not be well founded if light should come in contact with the hydrogen gas evolved when mixed with a proper quantity of air to produce a high explosion.

WATCHING THE ICE FLOES ON THE DANUBE.

The sudden thaw and consequent breaking up of the ice in all the rivers of Austria and Hungary has, writes the Vienna correspondent of the Daily News, been a greater source of alarm and danger to the neighboring cities and villagos than has been known for several years. The breaking up of the ice on the Danube was a spectacle of rare beauty and grandeur. Seen from the Reichs. briiche, which spans the noble river, the great fields of ice, consisting of huge blocks pressed into compact form, gave a dreary, almost Siberian, aspect to the landscape. All at once some one exclaimed, the 4 Danube moves !' and it was no illusion. The icefiela s had cracked all over at once, and enormous blocks of ice spread in all directions, towering one over the other. In about a quarter of an hour a regular movement could be observed, and the immense masses flowed ■majestically down the stream. The steps of the quay were soon immersed, until the waters stood on a level with the shore. But across the bridge the scene was one of much greater interest. The ground there is much lowei than on the Vienna side, and the water rushed ina broad stream on to the land, carrying blocks of ice with it, which, dashing up against the trees, uprooted them with ease. Below the bridge the waters overflowed the land in a turbulent stream one hundred feet broad. In half an hour, every tree was uprooted or broken in two. The broad waves carried the great ice blocks as if they were wafers on to the land. Hundreds of people remained on the bridge to watch the spectacle.

A COLD COUNTRY. The recent winter appears to have been unparalleled for cold and tempests, and many heartrending facts of animal suffering have been placed on record. We published some last week, and now give our readers an idea of what a blizzard is, and also an ice mask. Both descriptions are taken from American papers:— A BLIZZARD. A blizzard is simply a strong, cold wind, moving unchecked over leagues of light, unpacked snow. It sweeps up that wbich has previously fallen, carries it away in the color of a vast shaken fleece, distributes it so that each atmospheric atom has its little particle, and drives along all with a steady fury. Whether fresh snow is falling can seldom be determined by people out in a real blizzard. As far as the eye can see upward, and that is but a little space, the hurry of minute pellets hurling through ether across an unrevealed sky prevails, and the hurryiug sameness on every side is varied only by occasional tall and bending wraiths where the wind whirls in shifting column. A confusion of the senses, comparable to none produced otherwise, appals one submitted to the enormous and blinding force of suoh a snow-filled wind, and Bcarcely(a distinct thought remains except that the awful cold forbids crouching for rest and shelter. To our personal knowledge, one in suoh a storm keeps with difficulty upon a railway track lifted three feet above the surrounding prairie, and may be lost by five steps the wrong way after stumbling down from the embankment, which, being white, becomes instantly invisible. It is recorded on good authority that teamsters halting with their horses have been snowed over thirty feet deep by blizzards, and have survived by beating out breathing chambers till the cessation of the storm enabled them to dig themselves to npper air. The formation of a drift about a halted man, or horse, or sleigh, is sometimes wonderfully speedy, and the drift, once established, grows by virtue of its obstruetiveness. In some wellauthenticated cases lost persons ha?e been found by the drifts over them and dug out alive; in others, the Bpring has revealed corpses still unthawed among the last white relics of winter. In blizzards people have often been unable to see across the street of a north-west town, and sometimes men lose their direction in trying to reaoh the opposite side of a well-built way. Globe,

AN ICE MASK. Huron, D.T., Feb. 6. — ‘One singular effect of the recent gale and snow, combined ■with the cold,’ says Sergeant Glenn, of the Government Signal Service, stationed at Avon, * was to freeze the eyes shut and then form an ice mask over the face. The wind would drive the fine hard snow into the eyes, causing them to water. The snow would mix with the water between the eyelids, and the cold wind would at once bind the lids together by an ice band. Repeated removal of this would inflame the eye-ball so that a film would form, obscuring the sight. After this film formed, the presence of the ice was a relief to the inflamed eye, The eye would soon be frozen so close that nothing but steady artificial heat would relieve it.

‘lt is also a strange fact that those rescued with their eyes and the entire lower part of the face covered with the ice mask did not suffer from frosted faces. Any desperate attempt to remove the mask resulted in removing the skin of the face with it. The mask over the lower part of the faoe was formed by the breath from the mouth and nostrils combining with the snow. * Many cattle that were lost met their deaths thrpugh suffocation more than through the immediate severity of the storm. An ice mask formed so thickly over theit nostrils and on their months as to suffocate them. Some, which no doubt came to shelter by instinct in comparative strength, were soon after found suffocating, but were at once relieved when the ice mask was discovered and removed.’

TERRIBLE COLLISION IN A SNOWDRIFT.

Tn a wild part of the mountains near Avila a goods train was stopped by a snowstorm. While it was at a standstill a pas. senger train came up on a single line of rails. A fearful collision ensued. Several carriages of both trains and the engine of the passenger train were smashed, forming a heap of debris. The gale and snowstorm which prevailed added to the horrors of the scene. The nearest house and station were several miles distant, and four hours elapsed before relief came from Avila. Several persons were billed, and nineteen injured, six of them dangerously. The line is much damaged, and all traffic is suspended be. tween Avila and Escorial, owing to the accident and to the snow, which lies several, feet deep. A RARE SOLAR PHENOMENON. Professor Tyndall, in a letter to the Times, says :— ‘ Twice, on the elevated moorland of Hind Head, Haßlemere, I have noticed a very beautiful phenomenon, sometimes named after the Spanish traveller Ullao, who, I believe, first described it. Its comparative rarity may, perhaps, render a brief reference to it interesting. A few years ago, while walking in the morning near the edge of the “ Devil’s Funch Bowl,” I found the air around me swarming with extremely minute aqueous particles ; and it immediately occurred to me that they must exert some peculiar action on the solar light. Turning my back to the sun, I was startled and delighted by the appearance of a majestic white bow'—it could not be called a rainbow —which spanned the Punch Bowl frnm side to side. Yesterday morning, cn walking out, I found myself surrounded by a host of similar aqueous particles; and, turning ti the part of the sky in which a rainbow, if rain were falling, would be seen, a white bow, not quite so. well defined as that above mentioned, but in all other re. spects similar, was observed.’

PAINFUL TRAGEDY AT A BORDER RECTORY.

LORD LONSDALE'S COUSIN COMMITS

SUICIDE.

A painful affair occurred at Bolton Roc. tory, near Wigton, recently. The Rev. John Mordaunt Lowther, rector of Bolton, was to have appeared before the Wigton petty sessions on a charge of indecently assaulting Jane Stoddart, a domestic servant in his employ. Defendant failed to appear, and it transpired that when the cabman, who was instructed to take him from the rectory to the court, called at the rectory Mr Lowther went to the door and gave him a letter to take to his solicitor at Wigton. He then placed a revolver to his mouth and shot himself. He died almost immediately. Deceased was unmarried, and a cousin of Lord Lonsdale.

THE INQUEST. SOME CURSES.

The coroner for West Cumberland held an inquest at Bolton-gate rectory, near Wigton, Cumberland, upon the body of the Rev. John Mordaunt Lowther, rector of the parish, w'ho had died the previous day by his own hand. Two churchwardens, Mr S. P. Foster, Killhovv, and Mr Routledge, were present. The principal witness was Harrison Holliday, cabdriuer at the King’s Arms Hotpl, who drove the carriage to the Rectory to take Mr Lowther to Wigton. He described the incidents as already reported. He added that when he had mounted the box at the request of the deceased, the de. oeased went behind the carriage, which was then standing at the rectory door, and said, ‘ Farewell, little church ! I have been long fourteen years with you ! And farewell, friends, all about me ; farswell Bowden !’ (referring to his pony, which was in the field before him). Witness then heard these words : * May the curse of God be on Killhow and all the family, and may the curse of God be on the Routledges and all the family for generations to come.’ The coroner said he thought these words should not be reported, but Mr S. P. Foster said he preferred they -should. Witness (continuing) said that after Mr Lowther had finished these remarks he saih, ‘ Harrison, you have heard all. You will tell them. ’ Witnesa then heard the report of a pistol, and saw the deceased lying on the ground. Several other witnesses were called, from whose evidence it appeared that the deceased lived a few minates afterward, but never spoke. The bullet had entered the roof of his mouth, and was still in his head. The jury, without re. tiring, gave in a’verdict of ‘Suicide while }§boring under temporary insanity.’

One Thing and Another.

A woman at one of the London Police Courts, whose husband was charged with beating her with the fire-irons, begged that he might be let off, as he had never beaten her except with his fists before.

The Crown Prince of Germany, who was last summer made residuary legatee to the fortune of a wealthy France-liating Frenchman, has declined the bequest on the ground that he cannot approve the testator’s motives.

The body of a Swiss tourist, who perished four years ago when ascending one of the peaks in Canton Valais, has just been found in perfect preservation. It was completely incased in ice, which had thus arrested natural decay. An old widow, who had been supported by charity for twenty years, died lately near London, England. After her funeral there wore found sewed in the pillow-case almost 2,000d01. in silve? and notes, some of the latter forty years old. Prince Waldemar of Denmark came near shooting the Czar of Russia at a recent hunting party in the Nyrup Forest. He mistook him in the du9k for a stag, and had a sure aim at him and his finger on the trigger before he was undeceived.

The temperance women of Eagland have been getting np a jubilee memorial to the Queen in the shape of a petition that; the bar-rooms be closed on Sunday. It now weighs several hundred pounds, and contains 750.000 signatures. According to the Englishwomen’s Journal there are now about one hundred women serving on School Boards in England and Wales. Four county districts have women as clerks. There are also women overseers, assistant overseers and overseers of highways.

Among the many proofs of the * strained relations ’ of Germany and Russia is the fact that restaurants on the frontier, patronized largely by Russian soldiers, often display placards sayiDg: ‘ Here no Prussians are served with meat; or drink,’ and many of the shops in the large Russian cities announce that no German goods are sold there.

The death has recently occurred at Constantinople of Demetrius Antippa, who was educated in Paris during the Revolution. He was personally acquainted with Robespierro, Marat and Danton. Ha was intimate with Camille Desmoulins, and in Mme. Tallien’s saloon danced and sung ‘ Calira,’ He was'a witness of the murder of Marie Antoinette.