OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 933, 17 January 1890, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

DESTRUCTIVE CYCLONE IN AUSTRIA. boss OF HUNDREDS OF LIVES. A few particulars of the disastrous cyclone ■which devastated southern Hungary, Tran-sylv-nia, aud Bukoviua last November are supplied by the Vienna correspondent of the Daily Chronicle : The destruction of property it has caused is enormous, and there is unhappily only too much reason to fear that when the calculation comes to be made hundreds of lives will be found to have been lost. The area of disturbance covers SEVERAL THOUSAND SQUARE MILES, and from all sides the most heartrending accounts are being received of the desolation the storm has caused. From the Danube, the Theiss, and other rivers numberless corpses of men, women, and children and dead cattle have been recovered or washed np on to the banks, while a large number of animals have been killed by HAILSTONES AS LARGE AS HEN s' EGGS, others again having been struck dead by lightning. ’ The vast majority of the deaths of people, however, was caused by the unfortunates being carried away.by floods or kijiled by the falling in of their Houses. Of these there has been an enormous number destroyed, while several churches, and among them the Roman Catholic and Greek churches at Mohses, have been laid in ruins. Of twenty-foiir mills on the U an Qbe, o~ly three remain standing. The others have entirely disappeared, and so, too, have nearly all those on the ThftiSa, while A JFERRY BOAT CROWDED WITH PEOPLE and catt’e was crossing the Danube, near Pest, it was blown right on to a passing steamer, and completely wrecked., nearly all of those on board being drowned. At SzegediD, which it will be remembered was nearly destroyed by a flood in 1879, a cirdß was swept clean away, and at Nyirbotar, in the Government of Grosswardein, a large number of houses and the church were struck by lightning and burned down, several people perishing in the flames. These, however, are only a few incidents in a long catalogue of disaster. The vines and fruit and wheat props have, of course, suffered seyerely, being in many, districts wholly destroyed. £ MEXICAITHEIRES3. The sensation at the Hotel del Monte, Monterey, recently (says a'correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat) was the pretty Senorita ' Ysabel Echequren, the richest heiress in Mexico, whose father is worth $30,000,000. Senor Francisco Echequren is a Castilian who came to the Mazatlan many years ago, engaged in the importing business, gained a large fortune, and 19 now known as the Vanderbilt of the western coast of Mexico. He owns about half of Mazatlan’s iron and cotton'mills, and millions of acres of good land. His greatest successes, however,'have been in mining. He owijs'the'rich Guadeloupe de los Reyes silver ledge, neat' Cosaia, IjOO miles ' from jfche capital of Sinaloa; the Gaudaloupan, at Rosario, besides large interests in many others. The first-named mine is very old, having been worked for over 100 years. The other is comparatively new. These and others which he owns are producing large fortunes annually, estimated at from SIOO,OOO to $1,000,000 each. The story of Monte Cristo seems to find a verification in the life of Senor Echequren.' Should the fair heiress of Mexico live as the Garretts, of Baltimore, whose wealth came entirely from railroads, she will far surpass them' in Wealth. She is ai demi-blonde of 17, tall and willowy, with fair complexion and auburn jiair. She gets her dresses from Worth, hnd her diamonds are fhe envy of the rich girls Here. According" to the custom of her nation, for her fafber is a'native of Old spain, she is accompanied l?y a rather austere duenna, who alwayp goes with her in her walks. This haß caused much anguish aipong several prominent young men wfipse hearts the young lady haß captured. Senorita Eoheqnren will inherit of her father’s vaßt wealth, which makes her one of the riohest girls on this Bide of the Atlantic f

THE SECRET OF GORDON’S WONDERFUL POWER. What was the secret of his wonderful power? Much of it lay in his fearlessness, much in his swiftness of thought and action, and much in what the Yankee would call his capability in all things, small as well as great. He could ride aud shoot and tinker and Conduct campaigns and negotiate treaties, all with Unhesitating self-reliance. As a matter of course such a man takes command. Gordon never lacked opportunities to show these qualities. When steaming quietly up the Nile a monkey with which be was playing fell overboard. In a twinkling Gordon was in the water after him. By good luck the crocodiles got neither GovernorGeneral nor monkey. When a nigger was being hauled up the rapids some way south of Lado the cable got away from the men on the bank, and the vessel was swept on the rooks. No one would volunteer to go out and pick up the cable, and Gordon jumped into a skiff and went alone. To be sure the skiff upset, and the Governor-General sat some hours dripping on a rock ; but his men had a lesson. On another occasion the garrison of one of the stations was thrown into much anxiety by seeing Gordon alone, rowing across the river to the east bank, i which in that region was occupied by intensely hostile negroes. He landed, made his boat fast, and tried by a display of beads and wire to induce the savages to come and talk with him. They simply sat on the hillBide, and scowled. Finally Gordon shot a hippopotamus and paddled back, leaving the beads on the shore and a fine feast of hippopotamus meat in the rushes. Another man would have been killed. I was amused to see on his table at Khartoum handsome spoonß and forks with crest half effaced by rough scratches. I eould fancy Gordou, vexed by some unusual flummery, seizing a rat-tail file, and proceeding to put out of his sight one more vanity. It was not that he was not proud of his family; on the contrary, he could pay n man no greater oompli. ment than to Bay, ‘ You arc like a Gordon but all the marks and signs of rank sometimes became intolerable to him, —Colonel H. G. Propt, in Scribner,

A MINISTER LIBELS HIS GATIONINDIGNATION OF lOWA’a VIRTUOUS WOMEN. American mail news states that the river town of Leclaire, in lowa, is agitated by a sweeping charge made by the Rev. Monroe Drew, a Presbyterian minister, from the pulpit, to the effect that a virtuous woman between the ages of 16 and 25 years could not be found in the place. He came from Chicago four months ago, and he has been preaching to growing congregations. In the sermon in question he was particularly severe, saying IMMORALITY HAD CAPTURED THE TOWN. He stated, in all seriousness, that he had been told a woman of honour did not live in Leclaire. At the end of the service the young preacher was surrounded by his hearers, who made violent protests against such language. The next day he was WAITED UPON BY 30 YOUNG WOMEN, and a public retractation was demanded. Mr Drew offered to take back his words privately, and to apologise to his callers, but they would have none of it. The next step was the calling of a mass meeting, which was held in the largest hall in town. More than 400 INDIGNANT MEN AND WOMEN met. They invited the minister to attend, but it is said that he left the State, and went over to Illinois, fearing personal injury. The meeting was organised by calling a Justice of the Peace, one of the oldest citizens to the chair. Resolutions were adopted expressing indignation at the statement made from the pulpit, and asserting confidence in the character of the place. The meeting demanded of the trustees of the church the immediate discharge of the Rev. Mr Drew, and all Presbyterian churches were warned not to have anything to do with him. MUTTERINGS ABOUT TAR AND FEATHERS, were often heard, and some of the young women declare they will not let the matter drop until a public retractation is made, coupled with an abject apology and a promise not to enter the pulpit again. HOW A DONKEY KILLED A DOGA bjjrro and a bulldog had a fight recently in Fresno, pal. Burro is Californian for donkey! The burro was browsing on cockle burrs by the roadside, When the bulldog trotted along, Btopped, and, without a growl, seized the donkey by the shank bone of the off hind leg. The donkey immediately brought its hind quarters into action, and its legs and the dog flew through the air in a most active way, for the latter refused to let go! The burro kicked and kicked, and then he tried to reach the dog with his mouth, bub unavailingly. Then the burro laid down on his back, and brought its hind legß forward toward his head. H s shut his jaws on ’ tfle dog.’s b 4o ! l * add slowly straightened out. The dog, without flinching, kept its grip on the shank bone. Bat the donkey had just as much grit, and kept on straightening itself out, though the strain was causing the flesh and musoles to be terribly lacerated. The dog let go first. The burro kept its hold on the dog’s back, and in a second was standing on its feet, with the dog dangling from its mouth. The burro’s leg was terribly lacerated, but he did not seem to mind. He limped across jibe roadj arid deliberately' 'pausing 1 several times' to rest,'rubbed the dog babk and forth o>er a barbed Wire fence until' it was killed. The dog did not 1 howl from the beginning to the end. The burro returned to his cockle burn?,—New York Sun. ' ' : ‘

NOT TALfi ENOUGH. Hi. Story recorded that a foreign princess to whom Henry VIII. of England offered his hand in marriage sent baqk tfle pointed answer that’ ?|f she haej. hafi fcwp heqds she would gladly have placed qne of them at his Majesty’s disposal.’ This allusion to the fate of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard was a good specimen o£ the epigrammatic smartness 9f that ' 9 * ... ' -period;

but an equally creditable performance has been furnished by our own ago. Just at the time when vague reports were beginning to creep abroad that Germany was meditating a fresh extension of her frontier at the expense of Holland, a Dutch official of high rank happened to be visiting the Court of Berlin, where he was handsomely entertai- ed. Among other spectacles got up to amuse him a review was organised at Potsdam. 4 What does your Excellency think of our soldierß ?’ 1 asked Prince Bismarck, as one of the regiments came marching past in admirable order. * They look as if they knew how to fight,’ replied the visitor, gravely ; ‘ hut they are not quite tall enough/ The Prince looked rather surprised at this disparaging criticism. He made no answer, however, and several other regiments filed past in succession ; but the Dutchman’s verdict upon each and all was the same : ‘Not tall enough.’ At length the Grenadiers of the Guard made their appearance—a magnificent body of veterans, big and stalwart enough to have satisfied even the giant-loving father of Frederick the Great : but the inexorable critic merely said, ‘ Fine soldiers, but not tall enough.’ Then Prince Bismarck fairly lost patience, aud rejoined, somewhat sharply, ‘ These grenadiers are the finest men in our whole army ; may I ask what your Excellency is pleased to mean by saying that they are not tall enough ?’ The Dutchman looked him full in the face, and leplied, with significant emphasis, ‘ I mean that we can flood our country twelve feet deep.’— David Ker.

au ARE ELS IN CHINA. Among a population of such unexampled density as in China, where families of great size crowd together—three or four generations—with all the wives and children under one roof, occasions for quarrels are frequent. The sons’ wives and children are prolific sources of domestic unpleasantness. Each wife strives to make her husband feel that in the community of property he is the one that is worsted j the elder wife tyrannises over the younger ones, and the latter rebel. The instinct of the Westerner with a grievance is to get it redressed straightway ; that of the Oriental is first of all to let the world at large know that he has a grievance. A Chinaman who has been wronged will go upon the street and roar at the top of his voice. The art of hallooing, as it is called in Chinese, is closely associated with that of reviling, and the Chinese women are such adepts in both as to justify the aphorism that what they have lost in their feet they have gained in their tongues. Much of this abusive language is regarded as a spell or curse. A man who has had tli9 heads removed from his field of millet stands at the entrance of the alley which leads to his dwelling and pours forth volleys of abuse upon the unknown offender. This ha 3 a double value—first as a means of notifying to the public his loss and his consequent fury, thus freeing his mind ; and secondly, as a prophylactic tending to secure him against a repetition of the offence. Women indulge in this practice of ‘ reviling the street' from the flat roofs of the houses, and shriek away for hours at a time, until their voices fail. Abuse in this way attracts little or no attention, and one sometimes comes on men or women screeching themselves red in the fac* with not au auditor in sight ! If the day is a hot one the reviler brawls as long as he has breath, and then proceeds to refresh himself with a season of fanning, and afterwards returns to the attack with renewed fury. A fight in wh ch only two par des are concerned usually resolves itself into mere hair-pulling ; the combatants when separated by their friends shout back to each other maledictions and defiance. The quarrel between Laban and Jacob, recorded in the chapter of Genesis, when the latter stole away from Laban’s house, is a ‘photographically accurate account of the truly Oriental performance which the Chinese call “ making an uproar.” ’

A DANGEROUS REFORMA London newspaper corresp mdent states that the Maybrick case has caused a popular demand for a ‘ reform • of English judicial procedure by establishing a court of appeals for murdet oases. To the impulsive popular mind of England this may seem to be a reform—before it is tried. Where the inati. tution of appeal is in full sway it is of more doubtful advantage. If the reformers will turn their attention to California, they will find the system of appeals in its most successful form. The reformers might be a little disturbed, however, to find that it was barely possible to hang a most unpopular murderer by this system tinder two years from his crime. They would doubtless be appalled to find the privilege of appeal delaying a oase until the’witnesses had died off or disappeared, and the prosecuting officers took so little interest in it that they had it dismissed. Yet this-is just what the privilege of unlimited appeal does for California. There was never a stronger 4e man d in any community for the blood of a murderer than was raised in San Francisco for that of Alexander Golden’son. There was never a criminal with fewer friends or leas resources of defence. Yet it took six months to try him and twenty-two months to hang him, with popular sentiment pressing courts and prosecutors to their highest speed. The other day Dr Bowers wa3 turned loose nearly four years after he was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. After the most important witnesses had died or moved away, the Court of Appeals had granted him a new trial. There was no one left to testify against him, and there was no chance of a conVidtion: ‘ The Lhke' Carty esse was another typical instance. After more than six years of litigation and three convictions for manslaughter, 1 the case had tb.be dismissed for want of witnesses. If this is the kind of reform that the British public wants, it can get it." If it wants a conviction for murfier reversed because a juryman burnt a fittfe cognaq in hia coffee at dinner, as was dope in the I*>e Chuck case, it has only to establish a California Court of Appea’e. If qur British cousins want a gapl full of rqurderers, and a chance of hanging qqq jo forty, let them establish a Gnarfc of !&««*-’• But if they want erim» murderers »»’*•**' ... „ept down and convicted and hanged, »uey had better keep to their own system. America vrould do a good deal better to take

the English system of allowing appeal only to the executive, than England would do to take the American system oi appellate courts. As for Mrs May brick , the appeal to the Home Secretary has prevented any injustice in her case. San Francisco News Letter.

WISE AND OTHERWISE. * Which is the largest gland ?’ asked a medical professor of the newest arrival in his class the other day. The student buried himself in deep and attentive thought for a moment, and then, brightening up suddenly, exclaimed : ‘ The largest gland sir, is England/ Then the professor kindly led the youth aside, and pathetically advised him to think no more of medicine, but to joiu a minstrel company. THE SHARK TAKES THE CHAIR. JOHN KELLY’S MIRACULOUS ESCAPE. John Kelly, a stoker on board the steamship George W. Clyde, is the hero of a wonderful tale. The George W. Clyde started from Sant Domingo city and touched Porto Plato and Cape Hayti. These places have a very pleasant repute among mariners, for the simple reason that rum is as cheap there as peanuts are in Italy. For 1J or 2 oents a man can get a nice * little jag ’ on, and the tars generally take advantage of this fact and leave the place in good spirits. The crew of the Clyde did not make an exception to the old custom, and John Kelly, it is said, was considerably more than half seas over when the ship sailed. Suddenly, to the horror of the many passengers who stood on deck watching the calm seas, the groggy seaman jumped overboard. There was a panic. The passengers crowded to the side of the vessel, and ons of them, in his anxious efforts to save the stoker’s life, threw a chair after him. It was a plain wooden ohair, about two feet high, with a wide and comfortable seat, Kelly grasped the ohair, and managed to get in a comfortable floating position. In the meantime the crew on board were making ready to pass the line out when a cry of horror came from the passengers—A shark ! A shark !’ and the back of a huge shark was seen close to the poor wretch in the water.. T be sense of danger sobered the stoker better than the bath in the warm sea had done. He awoke to the terrible situation to which he seemed doomed, while the passengers kept on screaming. The shark had disappeared and the next moment his fearful throat would stick up from underneath, ready to swallow its prey of human I f1.93h. This the stoker knew, aud he hastily swam five or six feet to one side. The next moment the widely opened jaws of the monster etuck out from the water. Then Kelly rose to the occasion. He grabbed the chair and threw it into the abyss of death that was yawning beside him. The shark seemed puzzled. This was a mcrsel he had never tasted before. He wrangled with the fleshless bones with surprise and disgust. In the meantime, while the monster was shaking and worrying the chair, his hideous eyes blazing with anger, Kelly was brought on board with little difficulty, as sober as possible. The passengers surrounded the stoker, warmly congratulating him on his miraculous escape. Tne shark did not follow the George W. Clyde, as is the custom with other sharks. His appetite was gone.

A great scandal is busying the clerical world in Hungary. In the Bishop of Grau's palace the body of a young woman was laid out in state in a nun’s garments. The Primate of Hungary, Archbishop Haynald, was informed that the young woman was in no wise entitled tQ the sacred garments she wore after death, and the Bishop wa3 taken to task for his strange behaviour. The young woman was the bishop’s housekeeper, a beautiful Jewess. Wealth does not necessarily favour long life. In Professor Humphrey’s ‘ Report on Aged Persons/ containing an account of 824 individuals of both sexes, and between the ages of 80 and 100, it is stated that 48 per Cent were poor, 42 per cent were in comfortable circumstances, and only 10 per cent were in affluent circumstances. Someone has made the discovery, or rather makes the assertion, that a fly always walks Upward. Put a fly on a window, and up he goes towards the top ; he cau’t be made to walk downward. So an inventor has made a screen divided in half. The upper part laps over the lower, with an inch space between. Well, as soon as a fly lights on the screen, he proceeds to travel upwards and thqs walks straight out of doors. By this means, a room can be quickly cleared of flies.