ALL ROUND WORLD.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 252, 12 February 1877, Page 3

ALL ROUND WORLD.

Two girls, pupils of an Illinois seminary, w\re about leaving their rooms for Church, when a dispute arose as to which had occupied the most time in dressing. The discussion waxed warm, a bet was made to be decided on the spot, and three other girls were called in as judges. The contestants removed their clothing, and at the call of "" time " sprang to the contest. For a few moments the air seemed tilled with flying bits of feminine drapery —shoes, stockings, garters, &c., —and the winner was all '"hooked up" and her bonnet on in seven minutes and thirteen .-.cconds, the other girl coming out less bait a minute behind.

A remarkable roc.ignition of a long-lost patent is reported by the Western Morula'/ „\V (>*. !• ivc ami twenty years ago a gentleman left Devonshire for Australia, accompanied by his eldest son, and commenced farming near Melbourne. Subsequently two younger sons emigrated, but the wife, with three other children* continued to live at Bishopsnymbton, re" eeiving the rental of an estate in which her husband had a life interest. Three years after reaching Australia the father kfi the home, and did not return, and as nothing respecting him could be learned, it was concluded that he had been murdered. Three years since the wife died, the estate was sold to the husband of a (laughter, and the purchasemoney distributed among the children. A fo\v weeks ago one of the emigrant's sons was reading some placards, when he entered into conversation with an elderly strangLi* similarly engaged, and shortly afterwards they recognised each other as Either and child. They proceeded to Adelaide together to see another son, but learned that he had been crushed to death by a waggon a few days previously. The dispensed estate has now a claimant, and a curious difficulty has been created. A new cause of complaint has arisen, says an American paper, among the ]New York Women Suffragists in the discovery that every prosperous American farmer uses up two and a half wives during his natural lifetime. Yet even with this consumption of wives, an immense amount of material is left to glut the Eastern market with old maids.

A curious example of how Scotchmen wander, antl generally manage to push their way to the front, is the fact that the heads of the four principal religious communities in England are from the little country north of the Tweed. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tait, is a Scotchman, one of the foremost men among the Congregationalists; Dr. Raleigh is a Scotchman, the President of the Baptist Union; Dr. Landels is a Scotchman, and the President of the Wesleyan Body ; Mr. Macauley is also a Scotchman.

SpL Professor Levi says that the Seven Years' War cost England L 83,000,000, the revolt of the American Colonies L 98,000,000, the old wars with France

L 831,000,000 indeed hi,000,000,000

would be perhaps a more accurate estimate—the two opium wars with China L 8,800,000, the Kaffir war L 2,000,000, the Russian war LG!),000,GOO, the expedition to Persia L 900,000, the New Zealand war LBOO,OOO, and the Abyssiidui war L 8,000,000. This does not represent the actual cost of war as it presses on the taxpayer. Perhaps it represents little more than one-tenth of the money Engiand has had to pay for the luxury of fighting with her neighbors ; and, if that be true, war then must have cost the country in the course of a century and a quarter the monstrous sum of L 11,040,000,000 sterling.