GLEANINGS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 858, 10 August 1888, Page 5

GLEANINGS.

DEATH OP MADAME BALFE.

The death i 3 announced of Madame Balfe, widow of tho composer of ‘ The Bohemian Girl,’ and for many years a notable figure in musical life in London. Madame Balfe, who had attained the age of upwards of SO years, was iu her youth and under her maiden name of Fraulein Lina Rosen, a popular operatic artist on the Continent. A WOMAN’S INVENTION. Mrs Maria E. Beasley Philadelphia has made a fortune from tho most remarkable invention which the mind of a woman ever conceived. In 18S4 Mrs Beasley took out a patent for a machine for the construction of barrels. Up to that time barrels had been made almost altogether by hand. The machine is worked by three men, and turns out more than six hundred completed barrels a day. MISS ROSE CLEVELAND. Miss Rose Cleveland (says a New York paper) does nob regularly teach in school ■ she talks and lectures on history. She is a very busy woman, and finds very little time for any reading except in tho line of her studies and researches. She reads a morning paper while her maid dresses hor hair, and gets all that is necessary of tho news of the day at that time. She goes into society quite a good deal, and has been seen at a number of dinner parties and receptions this past winter. Miss Cleveland keeps a stylish brougham, and her high-stepping horse i 3 driven by a colored coachman. She is fond of luxuries, and she earns all the money she spends for them.

Glasgow will soon be the second city of the United Kingdom. Its boundaries are to he extended so as to include a number of populous suburban towns ; and it is estimated that it will then have a population of nearly SOO,OOO.

Dr. Anna Kingsford, who recently died in London, believed, as did many of her friends, that she was the re ombodied spirit of Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for nine days three centuries or more ago. She visited the Tower of London one day in the body of Dr. Kingsfoid, and became acquainted with herself, as it were. Dr. Kingsford was a very brilliant woman, and loarned languages and history with wonderful ease,

Miss Mercer-Henderson, the great Scotch heiress, is to marry the impoverished Earl of Buckinghamshire. His lordship is a descendant of the patriot John Hampden, the friend of Cromwell. His marriage will enable him to restore his anoient family mansion to its historlo splendour.

An English physician recommends football for girls. He says it is an exhilarating game and would prove highly beneficial to young ladies who aro apt to be morbid or hysterical.

Eggs are a meal in themselves. Every element necessary to the support of man is contained within the limits of an eggshell) in the best proportions and in the most palatable form. Plain boiled they are wholesome. The masters of French cookery, however, affirm that it is easy to dress them in more than 500 different ways, each way not only economical, but highly healthful.

Just before selling the furniture of an old lady at Ryde, England, tho executor exarnined an ancient bureau and discovered a secret drawer iu which were upward of 1000 sovereigns, oloaely packed.

Mary Blake, aged forty.two, mid-wife, described as ‘ the greatest chloroform taker in tho world,’ recently died in England from an overdose. She had been known to take a pint a day.

A visitor in the south of Franco writes ecstatically of miles of rose hedges and fields that are pale yellow with the flowers of tea roses. The harvest of orange blossoms spreads about Cannes a delicious perfume almost too strong. Sheets are spread under the trees to catch the blossoms.

The first through train from Paris crossing Servia, the Western Balkans, and Turkey, arrived on a recent Saturday at Salonica, on the Aegean Sea, The gap in the Bulgarian line is rapidly shortening, and in a few weeks Constantinople will be joined by rail with the capitals of North Europe.