OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 860, 24 August 1888, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

THE OLD-TIME BRITISH ARMY. The Duke of Wellington expresses a most unfavourable opinion of the British Army as it was during the Peninsula War, in his conversations with Lord Stanhope, which have recently been printed for private circulation. He described the rank and file of those days as 4 scum of the earth ’ and 4 fellows who have all enlisted through drink,’; while the Duke observed of the non-com-missioned officers of the guard that 4 they get through their work, and then they regularly get drunk by 8 o’clock and go to bed afterward.’ The Duke was very fervent about the absolute necessity for keeping his men well under control, as 4 the excesses they commit if once let loose are quite shocking.’—London Truth.

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES. Texas is troubled with a plethora of cash. Its bonded indebtedness is only 4,500,000, dole, which the holders will not exchange for the money, preferring to draw the interest ; and there is in the State Treasury a surplus of more than 2,000,000. The School fund has a surplus of 16,000,000, for nearly half of which no Bafe investment can be found. The farmers, to whom the State has been selling its land on forty years’ time, with only 5 per cent interest, in the hope that they would be very dilatory about paying the principle, are piling in the money on the overburdened State Treasurer. The counties are doing the same.'' To add to its misery the State has 30,000,000 acres of land yet to sell, which are bringing every year higher and higher prices.—Boston Journal.

A RUSSIAN GENERAL’S GIPSY

QUARTERSA oharming sketch of the quarters of the chief architect of the Transcaspian Railway, General Annenkoff, is given in the Pietersburger Zeitung. Nearly midway between Samarkand and Amu-Daria, says a correspondent at the Gipsy encampment, on a soil of clay and gravel, stands the Railway train in which we live. It consists of from forty to fifty carriages. The carriage is the residence of General Annenkoff; on the lower floor are his work-room, his sleeping apartment, and the rooms of his secretary ; on the upper floor are the quarters of the servants and interpreters. Tne second carriage is the general dining hall, in which from twelve to twenty persons breakfast and have dinner —namely, the officers of the railway battalion, the officials, the secretary, and invited and casual visitors. The casual visitors are persons who have come by the new railway which has not yet been publicly opened, and who are on their way further into the country. The next carriages are made into a kitchen and a pantry, which is replenished by purchasers at the two nearest towns and at the snrrouncllng villages, One of the general’s servants drives twice a week to Tchardshui to buy white bread, vegetables, and now and then excellent fish and fresh caviare. The Buchara beef and mutton are very good and cheap ; the natives have plenty of poultry for sale, and enormous quantities of wild ducks, thousands of which have their homes on the inland lakes. Dried fruit, rice, and oatmeal are bought of the Persian traders who follow the new railway line, and Buchara melons, the excellence of which Sultan Ibn Batnia recog. nised as long ago as 1335, and pomegranates are every day brought fresh to our doors. The officers’ carriages are charmingly decorated with carpets and rugs which the Emir has sent them. On the upper floors of their carriages their servants and grooms have their rooms, and tie saddle-horses live front of the train, where they are tied to posts. A post and telegraph office, a hospital with a doctor’s residence, and a chemist’s shop complete the staff quarters, besides which there are a number of carriages for soldiers and workmen. At Kisil-Tepo the station is finished, and at many other stations aoross the lines the work is briskly going on, and thousands of newly planted streets and trees round them are just begming to shoot. NEW SWEDISH RIFLEA new rifle was lately tried at the military school at Rosenberg, Sweden, where experiments have been going on for a series of years with a view of producing a thoroughly efficient rifle for the Swedish army. There have been several royal commissions engaged in this important matter, each generally upsetting the verdict of its predecessor, so that the Jarmann. repeater (a Norweigan model) with 10‘lo millimetres calibre, which found favour with the commission of 1880, was entirely discarded by the one of 1884, the repeater type being found unsatisfactory. The last year s experiments have consequently been conducted with the view of producing a rifle of modern calibre, but at the same time retaining the Remington breech action, which mighu ultimately be exchanged for a thoroughly practical and efficient repeater mechanism. During the past summer there were made a series of trials with thirty rifles and fa y carbines of a model called the 1874-1087 rifle.” These trials have been brought to a close, and the result is looked upon as .lextremely satisfactory. The new rifle, which has th© exceptionally small calibre of 7 o millimetres, and which, it must be borne m mind, is no repeater, has proved itself to Burpass the Jarmann repeater in quickness of firing. Besides the percentage of hits with the new rifle, which is considered lighter, has been better, and the recoil is very slight indeed. The loading movements elso are not nearly so tiring aa with he repeater, the movements being very short and convenient. Finally the new rifle is also said to possess the advantage of cheapness. Engineering.

BRITXSE NAVAL CONSTRUCTORS. Sir Edward Reed, the famous naval architect, but no longer having a hand in English naval construction, says that none of the big ships built for the royal navy, eiace he was at the head of the construction

department, are reliable for war purposes, that they look formidable and' seaworthy, and so they are in time of peace, but the very moment anything useful and practical shall be expected of them, he.says is when they will be found most deficient and unreliable. Curitusly enough the present Board of Naval Constructors have decided that the Bhips he built are obsolete, and this would make it appear—if we take the opinions of both sides—that Britain has no effective ships at the present time. During a recent naval debate in the House of Commons Mr. Reed said: ‘Nine millions [45,000,000 dols.] have been spent on ships which, if they entered battle, would be lost almost as readily as if they had no armour, and would only be saved by their engines and boilers,’ that is by running away. There is food for reflection in this !—Scientific American.

THE HUMAN BREATH. Professor Brown-Sequard has recently been making experiments to determine whether the human breath was capable of producing any poisonous effects. From the condensed watery vapour of the expired air he obtained a poisonous liquid, which, when injected under the skin of rabbits, produced almost immediate death. He ascertained that this poison wa3 an alkaloid, and not a microbe. The rabbits thus injected died without convulsions, the heart and large blood vessels being engorged with blood. Brown-Sequard considers it fully proved that the expired air, both of man and animals, contains a volatile poisonous principle which is much more deleterious than carbonic acid. —Scientific American.

THE DEFENCES OF SHEERNESS. The War Department authorities have decided to strengthen the defences at Sheerness by the mounting of two new 30-ton breech, loading guus. These weapons, which are at present in courae of manufacture at Woolwich Arsenal, will be placed upon the centre bastion, which immediately faces the estuary of the Thames and Medway. With the exception of the guns in Garrison Point Fort, the armament of the batteries facing tho sea is composed almost entirely of 64-pounder muzzle-loading guns and 40-pounder breechloading guns. The fort is equipped with between forty and fifty rifled muzzle-load-ing guns, six of which are 38-tonners. — United Service Gazette. PAPER BOTTLES. One of the moat interesting of the many uaea to which paper has been put is the manufacture of paper bottles. We have long had paper boxes, barrels and car wheels, and more recently paper pails, wash-basins and other vessels ; but now comes a further evolution of paper in the shape of paper bottles, which are already quite extensively used for containing such substanoes as ink, bluing, shoe dressing, glue, etc., and they would seem to be equally well adapted for containing a large variety of articles. They are made by rolling glued sheets of paper into long cylinders, which are then cut into suitable lengths, tops aud bottoms are fitted in the inside coated with a water-proof com. pound, aod all this done by machinery almost as quickly as one can oonnt. They are cheaper and lighter than glass, unbreakable and consequently very popular with consumers, while the fact that they require no packiug material, and are clean, handy and economical, commends them to manufacturers. Unlike glass, they can be manufactured and shipped at all seasons ; and being made by machinery, the supply is independent of labour troubles, which are additional advantages to manufacturers who use bottles. —Scientific American.

THE VIKING. Close to the wind ! What if her nose in the billows she bury ! Look, how she tears over blind rock and. skerry, Fleet, like a hind ! Steady, abaft ! Whether is this for bold Vikings of Norway, Sail her ahead into death’s yawning doorway 5 Staunch is the craft ! Thine is the storm, Rahn, thou that rul’st in the watery space, Yearnest to olasp in thy chilly embrace Warriors warm. Hark ! dost tbou weep 1 Lurkest beneath, with thy nine pallid daughters? , , Stretchest white arms through the darkening waters Out of the deep ? That was a drench ! Bail for your lives, lads ! steady—now laff her ! , „ Rahn, in the wake of us, makes the sea rougher, Treacherous wench. ! Brawl, billows, brawl ! Hear how it gurgles, and hisses and surges ! How the spray stings ! how it lashes and scourges. Hurried by the squall! Man overboard ! Merry, my lad, I am sorry to loae thee : Rahn cannot keep thee, nor Odin refuse thee, Girt with thy sword. Rises again ! Mouth full of brine and thy tawny locks streaming ; ~ .. White face and hands through the dim waters gleaming ; Sinking amain ! Waves, ub ye fly, ... Sing him a dirge, and a deep ana a loud one ; Sing for the Viking a wild and a proud one, Windß of the sky ! Hail to grim death ! Merry, my lads, for this day we shall meet him ! Laughing and gay let us pledge him and greet him With the last breath. —America.

A 158-TON GUN. .After making a 120-ton gun, and subsequently a 140-ton gun, Herr Krupp, of Essen, is now manufacturing a 150-ton gun. The latter is similar to that weighing 140 tons, but is longer, and will have a greater range. The Essen establishment is reported to be very buBV at present on an order from the Austrian 'Government for 150 heavy siege guns. One of the 120-ton guns made for the Italian Government has been fired more than two hundred' times, and is said to be still in good condition. A BUILDER’S FEATTo replace a 7-storied building with another of more than double the height without disturbing a tenant who occupies several floors of the old building, says the New York Times, is a feat which has never been performed in America, and it is said has never been accomplished in Europe. Yet that is what an ingenious builder is undertaking to do with the Times building, and the work has gone so far that its successful completion is assured. A NEW AND POWERFUL GUNGeneral Maitland, of the Ordnance Department of the War Office, Bpeaking at the annual dinner of the foremen engineers, held in the Cannon Street Hotel on Saturday night, said he had just designed a gun of 22 tons on Mr. Longridge’s hire principle, which had recently been fired at Shoeburyness, the projectile being 3801b5,, the range 21,000 yards, or twelve miles, and the velocity 360 feet per second. ANOTHER ZALINSKI GUNThe pneumatio dynamite gun which is bemg constructed by Lieutenant Zalinski for the Italian Government is 45 feet long and 15 inches in diameter, and designed to throw 600 lbs. of explosive gelatine a distance of two miles. A similar gun is being constructed for the dynamite boat ordered by the United States Government, which, it is said, will be ready for launching in about a fortnight. NEW LIFE-BOAT-Amongst the Anerican exhibits at the Maritime Exhibition at the Alexandra Palace will he a life-boat on an entirely new principle, the inventor of Captain Norton, of the United States Navy. The boat ballasts itself automatically in from seven to ten seconds after being launched ; it also evacuates its own ballast. A 26 feet boat, which has lately been on trial, had a free, board of 2 feet 2 inches when empty, and of 15 inches with forty-oight men on board. ■Thotrial of its stability proved so satisfactory that a bill is before the United States Congress which, if passed, will make its introduction into the United States service and merchant vessels compulsory. English boat builders should look to their laurels.— Comt Journal. LEPROSY IN AMERICA. The Subject Discussed by the St. Louis Medical Society.} The St. Louis Medical Society discussed leprosy at its meeting recently. The discussion grew ont of tho case of James Brennan, recently admitted to the Quaran- J

tine Hospital, and was inaugurated by a paper submitted by Dr. John L. Babcock, at whose instance the patient was admitted to the hospital. According to Dr. Babcock leprosy is not a rare disease in the United States, and exists to a limited degree in nearly all of the large cities of the country. Dr. Babcock gave a brief technical history of the disease and then confined himself to its existence in the United States and Canada. There was a hospital in New Brunswick in which there were sixteen patients and there were six other people in the province suffering from the disease, but statistics showed the disease to be on the decrease there. There were quite a number of oases in the Eastern cities of the United States, but they were imported. At one time there were sixteen cases at Charleston, S. C., but the disease appeared to have died out there. Under the Spanish rdgim.e in Louisiana there were a number of cases in that State, but the disease disappeared, to reappear in 1866 by being reintrodneed into New Orleans by a lady from France. There were now fourteen cases in Louisiana. There were twenty-six cases in Minnesota, lowa and Nebraska. It had been said there had been quite a number of cases among the Chinese of California, but there had been no authentic information on the subject. There had been only three cases discovered in St. Louis. One had been reported by Dr. Hardaway, one by Dr. Ohmann Dumesnil, and the other was the case presented last week. A lengthy expression of opinion relative to whether the disease was contagious followed. Dr. Dumesnil thought it was not contagious. Dr. Bremer said that it was an unsolved problem, but he had no doubt if the patient was examined he would be found swarming with bacteria. He had made some experiments in that direction himself.