ALL ROUND THE WORLD.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 97, 12 August 1876, Page 2

ALL ROUND THE WORLD.

The Grecian laoies counted their age from their marriage, not their birth. The adoption of the same chronological fiction now-a-days would save unmarried ladies from a good many impertinent inquiries. The Egyptian troops are beginning to arrive home from the Abyssinian war, but with terribly depleted numbers. Of one regiment with 600, only eight survive. More than 15,000 are unaccounted for, and. many wounded are necessarily left behind because of the rainy season. At Gundagai, N.S.W., there is in existence, according to the Tumbarumba correspondent of the " Border Post," " a cat which is said to have attained the extraordinary age of 100 years. It was brought from England in the Golden Grove, one of the three store-ships that accompanied the first fleet of convict ships, which cast anchor in Botany Bay on the 20th of January, 1788. This vessel may be characterised as the Noah's Ark of Australia. She conveyed thither—one bull, four cows, and one calf; one stallion, three mares, and two colts ; one ram, eleven sheep, and eight lambs ; one billy-goat, four nannygoats, and three k-ids ; one boar, five sows, and a litter of fourteen young pigs ; nine different sorts of dogs, and seven cats, including that of Gundagai, which is supposed to be the sole survivor of the magic number of 77 quadrupeds brought by the Golden Grove. The cat passed, into the possession of a pensioner of the Imperial Government, who settled in Gundagai in 1839, and who was drowned in the local deluge of June, 1852. Since then—twentyfour years—this wonderful cat has subsisted on pork sausages, and will not touch any other diet.

A child was born a few weeks since in a valley back of the Mission (says a San Francisco paper 1 ), whose head was that of the exact counterpart of an ox, having a • protuberance about half an inch in height, like a horn, on each side. The appearance of the unfortunate creature is described as revolting in the extreme. The hideous malformation is very plausibly accounted for. The mother was the daughter of a farmer close by. About a year ago she married a man employed by her father. This man soon after went to farming on his own account, and being somewhat brutish in nature, he set his wife to driving a pair of oxen with which he did his ploughing. The girl ;\ as very much terrified at the animals, but obeyed, and continued in tliis employment until a short time before her confinement. Fortunately, the unfortunate child died on the third day after its birth. It survived its mother nearly two days, however, for when she was injudiciously shown her offspring, she was so shocked that she was seized with convulsions w r hich terminated fatally a lew hours afterwards.

The London "World" announces that Captain Burnaby, the Central Asian lion of the London saloons, is about to start for Africa in quest of Mr. Stanley, who has not been heard of for over a year. The " Bremer Handeleblatt " has lately given to the world a most interesting piece of information. Who is the richest man in Germany 1 Most persons would say in reply—Rothschild or "some other great banker, or some long-descended German baron. In both case 3 the searcher for truth would be wrong. The richest man in Prussia is neither banker nor noble, but plain Krupp, the maker of cannons. Krupp, the gunmaker, pays more income tax than any other man in Prussia. He pays nearly 110,000 marks, which represents a yearly scale of profit exceeding 5.000,000 marks, or about 1,250,000 dollars. It is true that it is whispered in non-official circles that Krupp, the gunsmith, has a partner who shares the gains, and likewise contributes his quota towards the payment of income tax,-, This mysterious individual is known unto men as the German Government, impersonated by Prince Bismarck and the Emperor William. The rich man may, therefore, not be aa wealthy as he appears to be, seeing that his gains are divided as well aa his. i

outgoings, with sleeping partners, whose profits are drawn from the heavy taxation borne,by the German people. The expense of advertising the last four million loan, obtained on behalf of the Colony of New Zealand, was £499 12s. 6d. paid to proprietors of newspaper publishers in Great Britain.

It is stated that a lady well-known in New York society has recently gone the way of all the living. Her life was a somewhat varied one, and now that it is ended we are forcibly remined (says an American contemporary) of a story connected with the death of her first husband. That gentleman had, it seems, lost his health in some manner and, as the way is now, and was then, he went abroad, hoping to regain it. From land to land he journeyed till pie died in some far-off country—let us say, New South Wales—and the tidings of his disease was sent to his sorrowing partner, together with the information that his body had been preserved in a cask of rum, and was held subject to her order. She at once wrote, requesting it to be forwarded to her address, and there the matter rested. But as the time rolled on the widow became so much consoled as to enter again into the married state. Thus ifc chanced that when the cask containing No. larrived, at the end of twelve month, No. 2 accompanied his bride to the ship to receive his predecessor—an account of which curious affair occasioned the remai'k, " If poor No. 1 had known who would be on hand to receive him, he would not have come home in such good spirits." Mr. Holloway, according to an interesting article in the " Sporting Gazette," spends £30,000 a year in advertising his pills. Messrs. Moses and Son have for years spent £IO,OOO a year in advertising. So have Messrs. Rowland and Son, of Macassar oil renown. A similar sum is yearly expended in advertising Dr. De Jongli's cod-liver oil. Messrs. Heal and Son spend £6,000 a year in advertising their beds and bedding. Mr. Nicholls, the tailor, spends £5,000 a year, and there are numbers of others who equal, and perhaps exceed, these amounts. Madame Tussaud pays the Atlas Omnibus Company alone £IOO a month for advertising her waxworks on their knife-boards. But the largest advertiser in the world is Mr. Hembold, the great New York chemist, whose advertising costs him £2,000 a week. He has no less than 3,000 papers on his list. He has paid £750 for a single large displayed advertisement, and once offered £I,OOO for a single page of the " New York Herald," on the day that the announcement of the fall of Richmond arrived, but it was declined because Mr. Gordon Bennett could not afford the l'oom for it. Of course it will be asked, Can this prodigious expenditure on advertising pay "\ It only needs a glance at the names we have mentioned to show that it must pay. Mr. Holloway is worth about, in round" numbers, £2,000,000, and each of the others has amassed a great fortune. A strong case, this, in favor of printer's ink as the real arcanum.

Aii extensive robbery of a New Zealander has been committed in one of those dens which abound in Melbourne. A man named Robert Robertson, a shearer, just arrived there from this Colony, reported to the police that he had been enticed into a place in Hosie's-lane, or Flinders-street, and after having been plied with some drugged liquor, was robbed by the inmates of £llO in notes on the Bank of New Zealand, a cheque for £llO on the- National Bank of New Zealand, and a cheque for £27 on the same bank. The police, after forcing an entrance, found a notorious character named Nellie Wallis inside, but the man, who was the chief instigator of the affair, had escaped. Subsequently Edward Liddle, well known to the police, was taken into custody, and, as well as the woman, was lodged in the city watchhouse, but none of the property has been recovered.

Commenting upon the wreck of the Grey Gorge Bridge, the "West Coast Times" sa3 r s : —"Mistakes in connection with the construction of public works in the Colony have been so frequent, that errors in calculations, calling for fresh tenders, asking for additional votes, reports of bridges and roads washed awaj\ and many other casualties and circumstances are accepted as matters of course, and such as may be expected to occur alternately within the briefest of intervals. Westland has probably suffered to a greater extent in this respect than any of the other Provinces, in j>roportion to the amount expended upon its public works. Almost eveiy month we hear either of a portion of the Christchurch road giving way, or a few of the Arahura culverts changing their position a few hundred yards east or west, or the Jackson's Bay road betaking itself to the ocean, or some fatality or other attending the expenditure of large sums of money. But the climax has now surely been reached in the destruction of the Grey Bridge." The San Francisco style of advertising is rather sensationa'. Here is a late specimen from one of the journals of the city :—" Away from the land of her birth and love or her youth, she met the relentless conqueror, bowed her lovely head to his stroke. Other hands smoothed the long, brown, tresses ; other fingers closed the blue ejes, and folded the gentle hands upon the peaceful, sinless bosom." Pure pork sausages —six pounds for one dol., at William and Cook's, under Exchange.

According to CasselTs " Old and Neff London," the Duchess of St. Albans, who died in 1837, left her immense fortune, amounting, it is said, to £1,800,000, to Miss Angela Bnrdett, who. thereupon assumed the additional name of Coutts. It was stated in the newspapers at the time that the weight of the enormous sum in gold, reckoning sixty sovereigns to the pound, is 13 tons 7 cwt. 3 qrs. 12 lb?*.*, and would require 107 men to carrp-fy

TLning that e-arli of then* carried "29S ', equivalent to the weight of » «n,.'k »>t' '.L This largo *nui maybe partially "U«<f. ''.V knowing ala,> tual; * eotmting at ■™' rv 'ti.' of sixty sovereign* a minute C>«r "It hours sw dav, and six days, ft course-, '"•m- week, it wuiil.l take tea weeks. fcw» ■ v , mid Hour hours to accomplish this Y [n sovereigns, by the. moat cwt (each measuring in diameN-r '--Oof i"i «'"*. ,U,<l t >,;u ' l " ,! fl> tmwh t,a,:h ;",.) it would extend ti> the length of ,„ f !v-f..iir miles and'-'oO yards, of about "distance bctwi-eu iVlerthyr and Cardiff: .I in crown pieces, to ttIVV miles and i ( y:ir<ts. It may he noted that l S l)l)l)iM) was the exact sum also left by i| JViimiy Wood, the banker and 'tllitiiuum of Ulouecster, who died m |..,j After inheriting the property m lii.ui, Miss r.imlwtt-tfnntt* d-istm-■,l,i„sj herself by fncbtn-vin'C work* of ~rit.v'«-nd benevolence, and in rweogni- ". „f In'r large-hearted ni-ss, she w,i», in „ VWtf tH7tJ raised to the peerage JW UvilUiM Burdett-C'oiltts.