One Thing and Another.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 852, 29 June 1888, Page 7

One Thing and Another.

They are talking in London about scattering the fog by discharges of electricity. The average consumption of wheat in Europe is 105,000,000 bushels per month. The Germans are organizing a considerable establishment of falcons tocatob the enemy’s carrier pigeons.

M de Lesseps declares that the Panama Canal will be made available in IS9O by means of immense metallic locks.

Sixty years ago the doctors told Nathan Briggs of Syracuse that consumption would carry him off in six weeks. Laßt week this old chap shouldered 180 pounds of flour to show the boys that he was good for twenty Syears more.'

Colonel George L. Perkins, Treasurer of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad, is the oldest railroad oflicial in the United States, aud probably in the world. He is ninetynine years old, is 6 feet 2 inches in height and stands as straight as many men of 30.

Among the gorgeous appointments of Robert Garrett’s 1,000,000d01. mansion in Baltimore is a bathing-pool modelled after the famous bath ,of an old French King. It is constructed of silver and Tennessee marble, and the water is conducted to it through brass pipes aud gold-plated faucets. The number of deaths from small-pox in Havana, Cuba, in December was 574. The Government will apppoint a committee, composed of over one hundred persons, for the purpose of effecting all that science suggests toward eradicating the disease. The best effect produced by a 100-pound 6-inch shot, at Shoeburyness, was the penetration of a 9-inch compound armor four feet square, with three inches of hard steel on the surface. The shot went through all, and five inches into the oak backing. The Gambling Capital—The report isued to the shareholders of the gambling bank at Monaco informs them that the game never had so profitable a season as the last. It concludes with this, cheering bit of statistical information : ‘ There were seventy-six suicides during the season.’ The new decree of expulsion directed against the foreign Jews in Russia, whioh affects some 36,000, chiefly Austrians, ie pressing with crushing effect upon rich and poor alike, but particularly upon the latter. All have received an intimation to wind up their affairs in the course of 1888, even the largest merchants and bankers. ,