OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 843, 27 April 1888, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

A HUNDRED THOUSAND FOWLS ' BURNED. A great commotion was caused in the Cential Markets, Paris, recently owing to a fire which broke out in one of the basements of the range of buildings where the poultry is kept. Considerable damage wasdone to property, all the stock of poultry (about 100,000 birds of various sorts), as well as a large quantity of hampei-3, having been completely destroyed. The loss is estimated at about £SO,OOO.

CLIMATE OF SOUTHERN ITALY. A correspondent of the London Times writes from Naples, January 16th : ‘I never passed a winter in this co -.ntry without being disaosed to call it exceptional, and I might be well excused were I to call this season exceptional. A burning hot summer was followed by floods of rain. Then came the equinoctial, and later on other winds, which swept over the bay, rendering it unnavigable for small craft, and shutting up all the small ports on the coast. And now we are just emerging from a period of ice and' snow which has ehilled the blood of even the stoutest northerners. A few days ago Vesuvius was covered with suow —no great novelty—but covered so completely from head to foot as if disposed to shelter itself from the stormy winds that assaulted it. This scene soon passed and was followed by frosts that might almost have competed with those of London. For several days dishes of ice more than an inch thick were plaoed on my breakfast table—ice, ice was everywhere.

A NEW LOOMA new loom has been invented by Levi Woodbury of Washington, which is claimed to have many advantages over the old style. The esseutial principle of the Woodbury loom is that instead of running a shuttle, which carries inside of it the filling yarn, it runs a shuttle, or thread carrier, which rakes the filling yarn from an outside and endless supply of thread, and with the improvement, which is the key-note of the whole invention, a loom can rnn all day long without stopping, provided none of the threads break, The filling yam is supplied from a bobbin seventeen inches long and six inches in diameter, and this feeds until every inch of the yarn is consumed, so that the waste that the present methods of weaving necessitates is saved. There are two bobbins, one of which makes the selvage to be laid within the goods while the other does all the weaving and makes the other selvagea loom, of this character has been in operation for several months and has given satisfaction.

WANT OF A SANITARY SYSTEM IN RUSSIA. The Vice-Director of the Russian Medical Department, Dr. Bubnoff, has recently issued a report on Sanitation in Russia, in which he remarks that no working sanitary system can be said to exist in the empire. This is, indeed, only too true, as all the reports which pass into the archives of the Medical Department must impress on the minds of those who, like Dr. Bubnoff, are responsible for the sanitary condition of Russia. The death-rate in some districts ranges from 60 to SO per 1,000, of which an enormous proportion is due to mortality amongst children—in some places, iudeed, as much as 79 per cent of the total mortality. In spite of & high birth-rate, the population is increasing only at the rate of 1 per cent. Every year some 2,500,000 persons die in Russia. According to Dr. Bubnoff’s statistics, something like 1,000,000 of these deaths may be fairly traced to preventable causes. There is a great paucity of medical men, of whom there are only about 5,000 altogether for 100,000,000 Inhabitants, and these of course tend to congregate in the towns, so that in the rural districts doctors are to be met with only at long intervals.

THE FRENCH WAR BUDGET. The French chamber is now dealing with the Budget for next year, and we hear that an attempt is to be made to fix the ordinary military expenditure at 550,000,000 francs, or £22,000,000. The French war estimates, wo may observe, have recently oscillated between 530 and 600 million francs and odd, being a tremendous increase on the Estimates of the Empire, which, in the last year of the reign of'Napoleon 111., only attained 373 millions. The 550 millions above" mentioned represent merely the normal regular expenditure necessary for the maintenance of the Army as it stands ' to-day, and in’ ho \Vay represents the entire sum which the country has to pay’ for its honour, glory, and protection. After the Franco-German war that is to say, in 1872-—it was found neoessary to create an extraordinary war budget, which was called the'‘account of. liquidation,’ for the troops had to he rearmed, the magazine replenished, the new frontier fortified, paris protected wjth a non? girdle of works, (%;c. Now, since the extraordinary budget was oreated, the enormous sum of 2,283,832,528 francs, or over £100,000,000, has gone to supplement the ordinary expenditure—say, £700,000 a year The extraordinary expenditure for this year is set down at 370,000,000 francs, or nearly £15,000,000,

which amount, so far in excess of the average, iB required for the manufacture of new rifles, new shells and ammunition for the Artillery, new barracks and storehouses, new protective works, and the organization of new ‘movable defences’ on the Eastern and South-Eastern frontiers. If, therefore, we cast up the ordinary and extraordinary war estimates, we find an expenditure of some 37,000,000. But this is not all. The Minister of War has warned Parliament that he wiU require SOO,OOO francs more, and this additional or extraordinary sum the Pari ament is inclined to vote without difficulty. Over £120,000,000 extraordinary expenditure since the Franco. German War!— Army and Navy Gazette.

A USE FOR TATTOOINGTattooing is the latest diversion proposed for the French soldier—not, mind you, the old fancy of having his body decorated as might seem most suitable to himself, but tattooing on a set plan to be approved by regulation. The idea i 3 advanced by a military surgeon who recently read a paper before the Paris Academy of Medicine. It was shown that the majority of the victims of warfare might be easily saved if but the rudimentary knowledge of stopping the arterial flow ef blood was possessed by the wounded man or his comrades, and the unavoidable and oft-fatal delay that intervened between the infliction of the injury and the transport of the patient to the distant ambulance or hospital would iu a measure be remedied. The simple compression of the artery nearest the wound would in many cases be all that was necessary to save life ; but to determine the precise position of the nearest principal blood-conduit to the wound, and the spot where the compression should be spplied, was the chief stumbling-block to those untutored to anatomy or the principles of the human organism, as the masses of individuals would necessarily be in the circumstance. In order to simplify the instruction and repair the general ignorance ou the subject, the writer of the paper proposes that every soldier should submit to the operation of tattooing. Lines indelibly traced on the cuticle would indicate the course of the main arteries, and a star, or cross, the points where an improvised tourniquet, a .round pebble or bullet, a shred of linen or handkerchief, and a short piece of stick, or even the finger, might be temporarily applied to arrest the hemorrhage at the wounded part. Of course the surgeons would not have to undergo tattooing—they would not suffer from a lack of knowledge on the subject—and the tattooed private soldier will not have the satisfaction of seeing the doctors partake of a dose of the new medicine. —Army and Navy Gazette.

THE ASIATIC EXPRESS. The ‘Asiatic Express,’ which will, it is proposed, run from Jersey City to San Francisco iu connection with the Oriental and Occidental Steamship Company, will soon be arranged for, it is said. The conveniences of the route will be so great, and the accommodation so luxurious, that much of the European travel to all portions of Asia will be, it is thought, attracted in this direction, in preference to the Suez Canal or' other routes. In order to carry out the idea perfectly, it is proposed to sell coupon tickets ia Paris and London for Tokio, Yokohama, Hong Kong, and Canton, by means of which a passenger will have his sleeping section and his state room booked right through to destination before he leaves homo. Only two changes of conveyance between Liverpool, Havre, and destination will be necessary, the first when the passenger leaves the steamer at the Jersey City wharf* where he will have to walk perhaps ten yards to reach his train, aud the second at San Francisco, he will leave the train to take his berth ou the China steamer. The cars composing the train include dining, smoking, and reading-room cars, all connected with one another, as well as sleepers. The train will be in many ways similar to the New York Central train running between Chicago, and New York. It is also intended that the trip shall b.e made as quickly as possible, and to, effect, this stoppages at all points of the road will be as brief as the rapid handling of freight and baggage will allow. By this means it is expected to accomplish the trip across the continent in 100 nours, and thus it will be possible to make the trip from London to Yokohama in about a month. It has not been decided whether to run the Asiatic express weekly or fortnightly.—San Francisco Bulletin.

THE BATTLE OF THE CRATER. In the summer of 1864, She Federal General Burnside was encamped, near Petersburg, in front of "a number of Confederate batteries. One of his officer's, Colonel Pleasants, who had been a mining engineer, proposed to dig a tunnel 500 feet tang, to a spot right under one of the principal Southern outposts, and to deposit in its trenches 14,000 Tbs. of gunpowder, so as to blow up the battery thus undermined. So,me of the Federal chiefs sfro.ngly objected to this proposal, as being impracticable or unlikely to suoceed. Ultimately, however, Burnside agreed to the suggested plan, but the amount of powder was limited to 8,000 lb 3. The work of excavating occupied more than a month, but at length, on July 30, it was completed, and the explosion took place. Three hundred Southern soldiers were at

once blown into the air, and then their corpses, or fragments of them, fell in a mixed mass of earth and rubbish all around.’ A vast hollow, or * crater ’ was formed by this explosion, and extended 150 feet in length, by 60 feet in width, and 30 feet in depth. Panic aud dismay at first sized the Confederates, but they soon rallied, and began to repel the Federal troops, who were pouring in upon their camp, in the hope of carrying all before them. But the expectations of the Federals were terribly disappointed, and their horrible scheme resulted in one of the greatest disasters sustained by the Northern army during the whole of the war. The scene which ensued was thus despribed to Mr. Macrae by an eye-witness, Major Cook, of the Southern army :—‘lt was as gallant a charge as ever I saw. We recaptured all our lines, driving the enemy (the Federals) over into the Crater like a herd of frantic buffaloes. Then such a scene ensued as I hope never to see again. The Crater filled with a seething mass of men—hundreds and thousands of them, some firing back upon us, some struggling wildly to escape. Shattering volleys were fired into the seething abyss, till it became a perfect hell of blood. The frantic mass heaved and struggled like demons. Hand-grenades were tossed in, aud, a 3 they exploded, you could see heads, and arms, and legs go up into the air 1 Our men sickened at the carnage and stopped. The enemy lost that day more than four thousand men 1 They left the Crater choked with dead. No attempt was made, till long after, to take the bodies out for burial. The earth was thrown in upon them where they lay, covering the hideous sight from the face of heaven.’ Many sad episodes marked that day. A young lad, named Peunel, the only child of an aged Massachusetts clergyman, performed prodigies of valour. A writer in the Century says that many other Northern soldiers lost their lives, * because, spell-bound, they forgot their own shelter in watching this superb boy.’ The Confederates at length centred their fire upon the youth, and, whirling round several times, he fell mortally wounded, and was buried amidst the unknown dead.

BRITISH AND GERMAN BUILT VESSELS IN THE CHINESE NAVY. A writer in a journal published in China describes four vessels which were recently added to the Chinese Navy, two having been built at Elswick and two at Stettin, and makes a comparison between them. He says the displacement of the German boats is 3,100 tons, as against 2,300 of the English ; still they only carry two 21 centimetre and two 6-iuch guns, against Armstrong’s three il centimetre and two 6-inch guns, besides an auxiliary armament of vastly superior importance, while in speed there is also an enormous difference. The German ships only attaiu a speed of 15 knots, while the English have reached nearly 19 knots. In the matter of protection the latter are also superior. The German armour iB laid on in three strakes only 30 inches deep, and consequently liable to be easily broken across by a moderately heavy projectile. The upper strake is 8 Inches' thick,' the two, lower 6 inches qnly. The* Engliah’armoured deck is "8 inches thick, without taking into account the special properties of sloping armour for deflecting shots. The workmanship in general, and particularly the black, smiths’ and shipwrights’ work in the German vessels is very rough indeed. A large nnmberof fittings provided in the Armstrong boats do not exist in the others, and in sorne instances these omissions constitute extremely grave defects. Among others the waiter specifies the, means of closing the doors in the water-tight compartment in case, of accident, the German Teasels not being provided with gear above water for opening or closing them ; the steering gear where there is an absence of relieving tackle ; and the absence of davits for the principal boats, which ha ve to be hoisted out and in by means of large steam derricks. Finally, the decks throughout the screw spaces in the German ships are of ordinary pine, in the Armstrong ships they are of teak.—lndustries.

RUSSIA’S ACTIVITY IN THE BLACK SEA.. Russia continues her activity in th,e Block Sea, and wo.rk in the naval establishments goes on in relays both night and day without any intermission. Three armoured barbette vessels are well in hand,, namely the Tohesme, which lias already passed her first trials in a satisfactory manner ; the Catherine 11., now preparing for her engine trials ; and the Sinope, which should have been launohed in May next, but wiU now be ready in April. The armour of eaah i,s 16-inch steel-laced plates, and they moun(i six 12-inch breechlo’ading gang in each barbette, with an auxiliary arrpanjLent of e-inph breeehloading guns on the broadside, and Hotchkiss revolving cannon, machine guns, and fubes for discharging Whitehead, torpedoes. Each' of these ships is of 10,150, tons burden, 314 feet (n length, 60 feet beam, draws 26 feet of water, and has confr pound horizontal engines o,f 12,000 horsepower, capable “of propelling the yesse?, %t u speed of 16 knots an hour. ‘ Thp (fret of gunboats mentioned ap.me time back in the Broad Arfow.has just heen completed by the launch of the sixth, named the Uraleto. Half of these boats were built in the new naval yard of Nieolaieff, and th 6 remainder at Sebastopol. These gunboats mount each two 8-inch guns, to a powerful auxiliary armament, and all their engines are by Napier of Glasgosv. Since the Turkish war Russia has devoted much attention to torpedo armament, and in addition to ships’ boats for spar torpedoes, she has in the Black Sea twenty first-class boats and several fine torpedo cruisers, built after Frenph

designs, one of which, tho Captain tiacher, can accomplish 21 knots an hour, —Broad Arrow.

THE DEVIL FESTIVAL IN CHINA. The Chinese paper, Skih Pao, of September 1, says The Devil Festival is said to have originated in a legend of the mother of a fabulous person, Mu-lien . she was about the wickedest person then in existence, there being no crime which she left uncommitted. After her death, she appeared one night to her sod Mu-lieu with a heavy wooden collar round her neck, and she harrowed his soul with the tale of her sufferings in the lower regions. She said she was enduring the penalty of her unnumbered sins during her earthly life, and pleaded with her son to deliver her out of the hands of Pluto. This to him seemed an impossible task, as no human being can enter the dark regions and return alive. She told him that he must become a Buddhist priest, and that there was a door in a certain Buddhist temple which he could open and -so let out the prisoners from the shades below. The son, being filial, obeyed the behest of his mother, and sought out a well known Buddhist priest and askad to be admitted as a novice. As hiß life was pure, the priest willingly admitted him. After having been there several months, and learned all the Buddhist prayers, he sought the door that led to the Lower Shades, whither the wicked ones had gone, and, remembering his mother’s instruction, he knocked open the door. The Judge Pluto being always willing to his victims upon the intercession of saints, he has set all his prisoners free for a certa’n length of time every year, beginning on the 15th of the seventh moon, ever since the time when St. Mu-lien knocked open that door. It has become customary for the people throughout the country, in the seventh moon of every year, to worship their ancestors whose spirits are then at large. The annual Devil Festival held by the Cantonese and Fuhkienese began to-day by theatricals, &c., at their cemetery below Hsing Hua Chun. It will last three days and three nights. The people from Canton Fuhkien provinces are not few, and those whose remains are buried here are numerous. The paper, clothes, money, &c., burned to the departed is consequently very great. The spectators of theatrical plays rush in from every part of the city. The streets are enlivened by numerous passing mule-carts and jinrickshas.