One Thing and Another.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 849, 8 June 1888, Page 7

One Thing and Another.

Fifty millions of millions of miles is a very pretty little distance. Yet that is the amount of space which separates as from the star 61 Cygni, supposed to be the nearest to us of all the bodies in space outside our own planetary By&tem. The students of Milan are arranging to present Mr Gladstone with an address and a memorial consisting of a colossal album containing the names of thousands of students throughout Italy. Out of fifty-three palatial residences in Paris inspected by a Government sanitary engineer, forty seven were found to have such defective plumbing that the health of the occupants was constantly threatened. Some experiments have been recently made in St Petersburg with the idea of slaughtering cattle by electricity, the results of which have been highly satisfactory—death being in all cases instantaneous. Don Carlos, in an interview at Venice, declared that Spain must soon become one of the greatest Powers of Europe; that her navy should immediately be strengthened and military service should be obligatory.

President Van Bnren is reported to have remarked, when he heard that his son, a lawyer, had married a lady of largo wealth * Well, he is ruined ! She is very lich. Now he will give up his profession, for which he has great ability, and beccme merely a rich man—the least useful of human beings.’ The new alloy of copper and silieium is said to be as good as gold for all purposes of ornamentation, and better for many other purposes. According to the proportion of silieium in the mixture, the alloy is malleable both when heated and at ordinary temperatures. It is described as having the color of virgin gold. To salute with the left hand is a deadly insult to Mohammedans in the East, and for this reason the native commissioned officers of our Indian army, in giving the military salute, confine it to the sword held in the right hand, without at tho same time raising the left hand to the forehead, as in the ordinary English salute. The deepest well in America is at Northampton, Mass., sunk by Beldiug Bros. & Co., silk manufacturers. It is 37C0 feet deep and 8 inches diameter. At a depth of 150 feet from the surface a sedimentary sandstone was struck, which continued the whole depth, and water was never obtained. At St Louis there is a well 3180 feet deep, which yields an abundance of sulphur water. If wooden labels for garden purposes are soaked in a solution of snlphate of iron, dried, and then soaked in a strong solution of limo water until the wood is thoroughly saturated, they will last a long time without rotting. To preserve outdoor woodwork from the effects of the weather, it should be treated in the following manner Boil one callon of coal tar and 2Mb of sulphate of zinc (white copperas), and paint it on while hot.