OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 849, 8 June 1888, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

THE HALF-YEAR’S RAILWAY ACCIDENTS, The return of the accidents and casualties on the railways of the United Kingdom during the first six months of lqsb year issued by the Board of Trade shows that during that period there were reported eighteen, collisions between pasabnger trains, or parts of passenger trains, by which sixty-four passengers and nine railway servants-were injured ; twelve collisions between passen ger trains and goods or mineral trains, &c., by which seventy-six passenger? and twelve servants were injured ; seven collisions between goods trains or part of goods trains, by which two servants were killed and two cattle dealers aud thirteen servants were injured ; twenty case? of passenger trains or parts of passenger trains leaving the rails, by which one servant was killed and fourteen passengers and four servants injured ; four cases of gopds grains or parts of goods trains; engines, , , leftyftg the toil®, by which three servants were killed ; ten pages of trains Tunning into station® or’ sjdinga at too'high a speed, by which twenty passengers and two servants vpere injured : fiftyfour cases of trajn® running over cattle or other obstructions on the line, by which three servants were injured ; two failures of engine machinery, by whioli two servants were injured; one'failure of breast apparatus, by which fifteen passengers were injured ; two failings of doublings, by which one passenger was injured ; three slips in cut tings or embanknre’nts, which One passenger and one injured •, and! one other accident, by whi i oh"Vw'6 wore, injured.—lron.

THE VEGETERIAN DIET OF TWO 1 - CITIES. gptrig intoresting'statistios have been pre. pared aa to jfctm diet of and Tans, which* show* tba| tjhere ir a able disparity in ihe ofjfie two jfoilojv|pg ’fijgures giye the annual average pf?wmpkff a !- ° , ' ..

Qt‘ gabbages, cucumbers;’'anil turnips the the Pftfisiao, but tjjO pf iihtff.9, %tsf> Po«k toag, motfßf ppd'tomatoes, Barig is ipjjplj tha-iw&M Q°nmww vf fmfa m 4 —Farm iPtf' d, ' ' '* THE INUNDATION OF AMERICA. hwpr ih*n‘K,ooQ,bo(} alie-s 'p;itched ' pmk fit $9 J/Q> ited it ia a fitolp bewildering to g|appp alipad a» l th(? ptoh?hlp pr^porfiqu® (ft tb/a RepubM?. Opr pSPU-KtoP. ?»»? doubled' about every quarter of. a ggntgiffy. Dealing in round numbers, jfc may bo toP?Hpd that wa w 6re 3,099,0.09 in f77§. fa Ifoo, 909 in j§so, 50,099,000 in If 7f, and % phli.grgp’t contributions we wijil be oyer

100,000,000 in 1900. It is a startling outlook, this geometrioal progression of populai tion, and we will bid God-speed to Germauy aud other countries in their efforts to change the course of the migration movements to other parts. We have now a larger alien element than is safe, and ought to have twenty years’ rest to digest and assimilate it.—Springfield (Conn., U.S.A.) Republican.

ARCTIC COLDA person who has never been In the Polar regions can probably have' no idea of what cold really is ; but by reading the terrible experiences of Arctic travellers in that icy region some notion can be formed of the extreme cold that prevails there. When we have the temperature down to zero out of doors we think it bitterly cold, and if our houses were not so warm as, at least, 60 degs. above zero, we should begin to talk of freezing to deatn. Think, then, of living where the thermometer goes down to 35 degs. below zero in the house in spite of the stove. Of course, in such a oase the fur garments are piled on until a man looks like a great bundle of skins. Dr Moss, of the English polar expedition of 1875 and 1876, among other odd things, tells of the effect of cold on a wax oandle which he burned there. The temperature was 35 degrees below zero, and the doctor must have been considerably discouraged when, upon looking at his candle, he discovered that the flame had all it could do to keep warm.' It was so oo.ld that the flame could not melt all the wax of the candle, but was forced to eat its way down the candle, leaving a sort of skeleton of the candle standing. There was heat enough, however, to melt oddly shaped holes in the thin walls of wax, and the result was ; beautiful lace-like cylinder of white with a tongue of yellow flame burning inside it and sending out into the darkness many streaks of light, This is not only a curious effect of extrema cold, but it shows how difficult it must be to find anything like warmth in a place where even-fire itself almost gets oold. The wonder is that any man can have the courage to willingly return to such a bitter region after having once got safely away from it, and yefc the truth is tfhat the spirit of adventure is qo strong in some men that it is the very hardship and danger which attiast them.—Scientific American.

'the degeneration of THE TEETH. An article receptly published in an evening contemporary very properly oritioises the theory started in an American dental journal that vegetarian diet would, if universally adopted, produce an edentulous condition of the jaws in the course of a few generations, -utterly qf the fact that vegetarian races have magnificent teeth- pathology of this condition is stated to be disuse, and consequent atrophy qf mpsqles and jaws, the degeneratioq and ultimately suppression of the teeth entirely. that comparatively little empldym 6n t of teeth has something to do with the dqgerjepatiqn ip piviliapd nations admits ff£ no ijopbfc ; but many thousand years nipst it take to make man edentulous when there are so few evidences of a tendency in that direction 1 The wisdom teeth are said to be disappearing because they are so often ill-developed aud frequently never erupted, and the same remark may sometimes be applied to tke upper lateral incisors ; but many Egyptian mummies and Etruscan skulls two'thousand 1 years of age exhibit the same conditions, yet there is no race of man edentulous. ‘ Are the teeth of the present; century wbrse than'those of the last'? ’ is a question by'ho rheans ’easily answered, for we hkve 'only observattohs and'iio Statistics to 'go tef, 1 ? If (total' surgery is » inoclerh'ar't; au& too muldh from'ita parents—medicine anil' surgery—to satis, factorily decide the question. Moreover, dentists only see those people who have defective teeth. Again, much more iirrportance is attached to teeth th an in former days, and they consequently receive mure nttc'hfidu. 6 lt-' I}4s GfMn f? oe “ P di ® te ?"°" fc j&hat improvements ip” fnejjicaJ apej gprgicfjl tpeatmopts serve to kqep . aliyp a jarge ppipber qjf weaklings wfto wpplfi ptl)GfTsrisp k a vp ti)p§ e often h ave n progeny qf sifpilap 4'pifty r wll o ß9 to@ th W 0 ipay legitimately conclude pap-take qf thp general . ipfinnlty. Q u tfio ofch e F k a P4» fipptaj diSPWj ft ft® ft “W done, muy to a estoßfc ®to“>pe d fi»L Of course thp tepfcfi ft f pivUito d nptftn ß nve worse than those of B&VPges, altfiflugh, as fins been remarked in our columns, those of the latter are by no means free from diseases. — Lancet. - ■ -

AN EXAMPLE OF FRENCH iN- •: tedlHjFNCe. i We are (&«ys Mr. |hg W°]F ld i ij stppjfi, us » Ii e pfy. BSfipft? a | m a S linpeftipput fmpgslpr, qalljug’hjinsplf Q’Reil, gefcs paifl for telling ha, and the ifyonph a » ie all tout ft le'plus fio, ft pfts this office, arid;,the proprietors of the Paris Figaro,' have' for years interchanged' our fjftuejtayp •|fftrp*ii!>; •' f| tp/I-g Figatof RAo' •gflthgs to u 3 ip a ijapd, \yith a pVip|gd afidfe-- ®, % feU'offing if ftp exagt copy : !?or4 Mep apfl Wqroep ' Yqk §trget j • Gapfieps, W. London, f OU wifi theWfilld ja not montioned, and that they have opmpletely smashed up

our sub-title and our street address 1 Spiritual, isn’t it ? And this, like the embarrassed conduct of the lovers in. Lord Houghton’s poemsf is not * the work of days, but has gone on for years and years.’

THE JACK OF ALL TRADES- ’ He used to be the mechanical oracle of eveiy community, great and small. He could patch up a machine that the machinist swore wasn’t worth the rivets required in the patch He could make a condemned boiler cariy more steam than ever without a simmer. He could repair a watch, grind skates, put rivets into bladeless knives, make humming tops and botch up good work with a caution. He was attached to the machineshop and round-house- about the same as a liveried fool was to the court of foolish kings. His work is over and his days numbered. This is not the stone age, nor the iron age, nor the age of steel, nor yet.the age of progress—it is the age of specialties.—Locomotive Engineer.

NEW METHOD OF EXPLODING NITRO-GLYCERINE COMPOUNDS. Mr. Richard Polkinghorn, of Ballarat, claims that if the detonator be plaoed at the bottom of the hole to be filled with dynamite, instead of on the top of the charge, its explosion will cause the complete combustion of the explosive. Mr. Nicholas, Chief Inspector of Mines, witnessed some experiments at the New North Clunes mine, and reported that in the oase of three holqs fired by the new plan with full charges, uq iU effects from the fumes were experienced on returning to the face of the drive after the lapse of eight minutes. 1

THE SPEED OF ENGLISH TRAINS. The following instructive letter appeared in an American paper : —Noticing iu your issue of April 4th an account of what are there called lightning express trains, cqiqparing speeds on American railways witn those on the English lines, permit me, as an old English bread gauge engineer (the Q’cat Western), to mention tfie usual every-day speed on one or two of tfie lines in England. The express trains on the Great Western Railway run from London (Paddington Station) to Exeter, 193 nailes, iu 4 hours and 20 minutes. Out of this time must be taken 3 minutes stoppage at Didcot (for Oxford), 10 minutes at Swindon, 3 at Bath, Sat Bristol and 3at Taunton. The qsual sgeqd of running of these trains is, and has bqen since 843, sixty miles an hour, a mile a uainqte. This is the 7-foot gauge railway 5 tfie engines have eight wheels, drlvfto wfieols heiug eight feet in diaegoter. .The ‘ Lord of (file Isles,’ ‘Great Britain,’ ‘lron Duke,’ and ‘ Warlock’ have each of them run from London to Didcot (Oxford), .fifty-three miles, with four or five carriages, in forty-eight aud a half minutes, the maximum speed on the journey having been seventy-six miles ail hour, and indicated horse-power 3,600. I have ridden on those engjuc® at tfiat, their usual normal daily speed of a nfile a minute, and it was perfectly §tqady, comfo^ tal,^e travelling. The express trains, between London’ 1 and. Brighton, fjfty run it daily in sixty minutes;'the time on the timetable, and the throng of great London merchants, having their pjaeps qf’busipes® ft that city, with fch<qr palatial hqines on the English Channel shores, ao beautiful Brighton, fifty miles away, would greatly growl, and threaten a dreadtul lztttr to the ‘ Thunderer,’ the London Times, if their morning express, leaving Brighton at 8 a.m., did not land- them at either London Bridge Station or Victoria Station, in London, at 9 a‘.m., and the same in taking them back'sa'fely in an hour in' thVi evening.' ‘The ‘fexlpr'estoes'; nartoWr gauge, betvv'een L ee fi a aud ’Alanehfe'ster, especially the one at-10 a,in., hav<S : been repeatedly timed to do niile after mile-in fifty secouds-i-seventy-two miles an hour. A reference to the back pages of tho Engineer or to the records kept at Loudon and Orewe will-coinfirm what I say. u Verily, indeed, though many of J R uftthan?G gpesp. qrfi tjwius, y4t < magua ost Hifitasiet prevalabit, 1 An 1 Old English G.W. Railroad Man. THE PLANET MASSThe past year has added something to out* knowledge of the planet Mars. 'That, it' has a cap of ice and snow at each pole, ahd that it has continents- and oceaatoare faats that Have long bs’eri-'knbwn ; that 1 it has aq a£Sphere similar fg 'of'# fot ; mftFy years peep s^sp t egted ; anq as long ago as '|SB3, Sqfiiaparql|i, the 53tropo4U e G fthPoguepd thft't fie fiafi fieteptofi Appeared to be bug o canals qn the auytoqe oftfte Blapet, C 0 ,to e fi Pptotft of Kipo pas gjwcu RJUch attention to Mars, and he now coroborates Schiaparelli’s announcement of the existence of what seems to be ganqls, He b»9 ffiftPped ftufi measured toe®9 B re ftt mqst qf yfhftb ft® ft toe equatorial fegftna jqf tfip plftßet j agd, supposing the diamctoV of Maps tq fie, as is generally helisved, about 4,2 0 mileo at the equator, some of these oanals are, he says, nearly two thousand miles long. ;Mr Perotin. has, ■moreover, gone far. toward establishing tilftt toe,pkvUCt really haStaQ not very different from that to which we are accustoroed tor lie assures us hg PtiUP anu'dissipiftibn qf cibucL' orer’tfio fact or Mars, and has distinguished the shadows which have been cast by them Upon portions of the planet. - St,'- James’ G a ? o ft e ?

THE NATIVE PRINCES AND THE DEFENCE OF INDIA. The Calcutta qfThp 'Limes ftlagfaphs T|:a A?npep, ip an afti 0 a V tiole on qf fi)dia,' qnq|yses apd discijssqs fh o Y a UQU® qfierg qf maucy and troops made hy ceftain pripeeq fco the Government. The t'qtftl nmfiußt f># money ofifered vpaphps LOa.fiQ.ofio rupflM, including Hvdepahad fiQ.Qfi.fiOQ - I«Reqs, Qasbmere 10,Q0,Q0Q Rupees, Jadhpoto 10,00,000 rupees, Bhurtporq §.,00,009 rupees, Kot» 6,00,000 rupees, Kapurthaft 5,00,000 rupees

Nabha ’4,00,000 rupees, and Malor Kotla SO.OOOrupees. These princes offer troops in addition. Of the other princes, the ruler of Mysore expresses a wish to arise and maintain a suitable military force, ..trained by British officers; the ruler of Patiala offers troops whenever required; the ruler of Bhawalpore a contingent of troops and money aid, proportioned to his resources 3 the ruler of Tonk the services of himself, his family, his troops, and tho whole re-, sources of his- State ; the ruler of Alwar money and troops .whenever required the ruler of ICampore to defray the expense incurred in raising and maintaining a native infantry regiment in every war, together with all the resources of his State ; the ruler of Maudi the services of himself and the. resources of his State ; the rulers of Suket and Mantes the like ; the ruler of Loharu the services of himself, his brothers, his property, and a caravan of fifty camels ; and tho ruler of Chamba land for cantonments. IMPROVEMENT IN AGRICUL- - TUBAL PROSPECTS.

Farms, says the Newcastle Couraut, are easier to lot than they ware this time Jaßt year. This is evideuee of returning confidence among our agricultural population. There are not so many farms advertised as there were two or three years ago; agents say. that there is more inquiry for laud ; and landowners—in fact, everybody interested in the soil—are more hopeful, the past twelve months having on the whole been less depressing than the preceding twelve months. Prices for all sorts of agricultural produce are still exceedingly low, but so are the ex. penses incurred for its production compared with what' they used to be, and should trade continue to improve there is every reason to believe that its offeota will soon be apparent in an improvement in the agricultural prospect, It is true that this improvement is most manifest at present in shipbuilding, but this does not neoQsaarily mean increasing competition in the carrying of farm produce and consequent lower prices. More work in the ship-yards means more work in almost everything else, which is saying that there will be a great denqand for beef and mutton* and that, better prices rqay therefore he expected. ALUMINIUM. We are likely before long to have a deluge of aluminium alloys. Two large works are. at the present time being erected in this country for the production of these allays—, the one by Cowle’s Company, and the other by the Aluminium Company, Limited. Thu former company usq an eleqtrjc furnace j the latter, Castner’s modification of the Devflle process. There is a question a 3 to which process gives the best and the most economical results. The Cowle s Company have no.t yet or at anyrqte they have nqt offered for sale, pure aluminium* while the Alumftium Company have produced'and sold the aluminium ini its pure state- There is probably but little demand fo; the pure metal, as such ; but it is. none the lesft clear that if pure aluminium is offered the range of its use may b.e indefinitely extended, whereas the production of alfoys alone limits, such range, ft appears to, be likely that before lopg aluminium alloys will largely, take the place of iron and steel, and prob.ably also, of Ifelta qnd metal,, forin respect of great tensile strefigth and non-liability to corrosion are elements Qf importance.—lndustries, AMERICAN MANUFACTORIES. According to figures obtained by the Amerioan Exchange and Review the capital employed in the United States at present iu manufacturing iB about 3,000,000,000d01s in nearly 300,000 establishments. Fire loss per annum attending such value is about 50,000,000d015, or an average yearly of,sixty cents pe’r 100 do la of. bailie in perit of 'file: The'estithntod loks bjr htrikes a 3 regards tod manufa'ctutor Is tliWe-fourth's of/thati by firb? Anrifial 'prdductiqn of’ ;l the toknuTaetoHCs reaches a value pOr annum of 5;000.GOO,000 dolsj upon which the net earning- ls approximately 7 per cent, or 350,000,OOOdbls."'Tills gives 700,000,000d01s as' ati insurable value upon the-ba4iq wKftu value is subject ' t o q qf about 1g,000,000 dfiftj fir 2-to per cent, op an annual tax upon the 3,0d0,000,000d01s capital employed .of one-half of 1 per cent, or 50 cents per 100 dole, if it should be so viewed. But in this case the capital is not taxed as the charge would be upon the profit, and whether it 1 is worth while for those' concerned 'to expense-of- -4-30 per cent of the piioSt to Savi* the 1 rest, Us l jhattera-'-are now prOoebdirla', Is fdr- thPSa "coucerned tb dfitorffiln'l,'hb|der.. » •

are iu gyeat demand feu crocadilq in Ceylop. qi'flcodjle hunters secure flip fittje ones by personal solicitations. The babies grq perched on the bank, so that the qpQ a °diiss oan see them readily, The monsters go for their prey, bat before tho infants are devoured the hunters get in their work.

The Russian coqrft are soveyo ia dealing put punishment for railway accidents, The Court at Odessa has sentenced the looal director and the engineer of the Steam Tramway Company there to three months’ imprisonment and to pay a compensation of 60,000 rabies for an accident whioh occurred on the,line., :x 4 4,

n Thq, mineral development in Great Britain during 1S8:7 wa5T73;049.795 tana. hundred -thousand; pqonlfi; p?fipft ' 4\lU‘ ployed nearly Rv;e five hundred of women, and of -the latter.-100 were mnder sixteen years of age. Nearly one: thousand persons: were killed during tba- ' year while at wo*’- f K * -h* +S ftfiy f(ho. distinctive trart or fqnqtftn p quae used by manexolusively %’ asked Processor X., ' Lafayetfa College, ISa'stoiL U'.S., of the members of the sophopaorfi eftss; ‘Yes, sir, he Vlks,’. ‘ Rq daea the payrn*-.' « He Wivlfis erect, 1 quickly responded anp.tjher':. \ Sq do the kangaroo. ’1 ' ■* thinks, .reasons.’ ‘ So’it is helieved do hprse| and other qnimals,’ , He loves, hates. ' ‘Faculties given to Qod‘o lowest as well nij highest oreatores.’ <He weeps, ? said a Leaded youth who ha§ not spoken 1 exclaimed the profesaov, rubbing hia bunds, < | think you hayo it, ' He yreepß,! * So doea a ftule, sir,*’ said a slow boy at the foqt of the ciags. ‘A mpleS’ ‘ sfr,’ answered the boy j * I reading o^ly

to-day about the weather being so cold that tho muleteers were nearly frozen on the towpath of the canal.’ How large a part of the pleasure of life is shattered aud blighted by an unreasonable anticipation of coming evil ! How much happiness would be lost if a man knew that he would be sick to-morrow, that a friend was to be stricken down, that a mercantile venture was to go away, that this or that evil was to come ! He would have no heart for the smile and laughter and sunshine of to-day, glad aud bright though it might be, if he were over-shadowed with a cloud of a certain misfortune to come on the morrow. Mr Wilkie Collins, asked by the editor of Tne Young Man to recommend some ‘ best books,’ replied with a letter, in which be says •I am not the right person to offer literary advice of this sort. Except when I was forced to do it at school, I never remember reading a book because X bad reason to suppose that it would instruct me. If a book interests me Igo on with it. If it fails to interest me (no matter who may have written it, or how many editions it has gone through) I—very respectfully—shut it up,’ A modern Boientist has discovered that mental activity enhances physical beauty, thus controverting an old theory. He says—- ‘ a. handsome man, or woman either, who does nothing, but lives well or self-indul-gently, grows flabby, and all the fine lines of "the features are lost; but the hard thinker has an admirable soulptor always at work keeping his fine lines in repair, and constantly going over his face to improve the original design.’

t; > . •*: ftmm Pafisfag. :■ \ lb- «?• lb- og Apples 65 6 ... 142 0 pearg ' ••• Peas: t ,... 39 5 .. : ;;; 39 ..170 13 ,. 6 15 Carrots ,h 7 3 • .. 37 0 Celery ,,, u .. „ 0 §3 Cherries 3 13 .... ... 20 14 Raspberries ‘ ... 4 „ go Pluma and damsons IS 12 „ ,. 183 4 Strawberries v ! ... .3 10 . .. 13 12 Asparagus •*,_/ ... ' 1 3 . 5 4 Potatoes f ... 173 4 . .. 49 4 Onions ... 33 9 . ..4 7 Tomatoes . 57- 4 . .. 17 2