MISCELLANEOUS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IX, Issue 2865, 31 March 1885, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS.

At thoCentral.—Magistrate to prisoner: ."Have you anything to offer the Court before sentence is passed?" Prisoner to Magistrate : " No, your Worship ; my lawyer took my last shilling." An electric horse chronometer has been invented. The movement is controlled by a current* opened and closed by the breaking of an almost microscopic wire stretched across the track. It is said to record the loOOih of a second. ' ■ -M. Dubois, of Paris, finds that chloroform acts with extraordinary rapidity on criminals after the introduction of alcohol into the system, and terminates in death with startling abruptness. This discovery may form a clue to the fatality of chloroform in same cases. Professor H. Siyce has deciphered an Assyrian record of a transit of "Venus in the sixteenth century before the Christian eraOne day a Leeds dog walked into his mistress' house with a piece of paper tied to his tail. When it was examined it was found to have written upon it: "My legs are broken ; please help me." The dog's legs were not hurt, so what could the words mean 1 Suddenly the writing was seen to be that of a woman living half a mile off, and on going to her she was found to be helpless from a fall. The poor woman had not been able to stir ; but the dog having come into her house she had managed to make an appeal for help.—Marlborough Times. The Emigration Officer has quite a pile of rejected applications, in which parties resident in the colony are endeavoring to get out their relatives on the old assisted passage system. Of course that has all been pnt an end to, only applications being now received where the head of the family is in the colony, and the remaining members of the household have been left high and dry in the mother countrythrough the stoppage of the assisted emigration system. No less than 17 such applications in the case of separated families were sent away to Wellington this week. —Auckland Herald.

A singular arrest was made a few days ago in Melbourne by the detective police. A well-known elderly publican named Jeremiah O'S alii van had a maintenance order for the payment of 10s a week to his wife for twelve months made against him in the Adelaide Police Court. Immediately after paying the first instalment for one week, he went on board the steamer City of Adelaide, bound to Melbourne, and being followed to the ship by his wife he snapped his fingers at her, defying her to have him arrested. Unknown to her husband, and in disguise, Mrs O'Sullivan came on as a passenger in the same vessel, and on its arrival in Melbourne she laid a complaint of desertion before the police magistrate, who issued a warrant for O'Sullivan's apprehension. His wife was in the act of describing the appearance of the absconder to a detective when the unsuspecting man himself put in an appearance at the police office, to explain, as he said, that as his wife was fond of going to law she might be telegraphing over about him, and to inform the .police that, if wanted, he would be fonnd in Sydney, where he was going. O'Sullivan was intensely surprised at being confronted with his wife, and equally so at being taken into custody at her instance.

There was a sort of " native difficulty " on in Vulcan Lane recently, two dames from the country, under the influence of liquor, having come into collision with a stalwart aboriginal. After threatening to annihilate him, and engaging in a wordy war for some time, they were graciously pleased to allow him to " move on." About 10 o'clock last night these Amazons were still in their enps, and each armed with a gingham, were taking charge of the west side of Queen-street, and vowing vengeance against the aboriginal, who was to be tomahawked right off.—Auckland Herald.

The Times' St. Petersburg correspondent says : —An interesting discovery Is reported to hare been made by the Governor of Irkutsk in the course of a prolonged inspection of the province, which shows that Siberia is still an unknown country, even to the Russian authorities. His Excellency came across the little town of Ilim, with 500 inhabitants, 160 houses, and four ancient churches, with remarkable relics of Cossack times. It is still under the republican rule of a Vetche or public assembly, convoked by a bell bs in the times of old Novgorod the Great, although the new municipal institutions were supposed to have been applied to that part of the empire ten years ago. Not one of the inhabitants can read or write. A curious discovery was lately made in the Puriri district, and is accepted as evidence of the existence of alluvial gold in that vicinity. One of the settlers foand about 1£ grains of water-worn gold in the entrails of a goose which he had doomed to grace the social board, and it is assumed that the metal must have been swallowed by the bird when feeding in adjoining creeks. A search for the whereabouts of the supposed alluvial beds will probably he made. An "average Atlantic steamer consumes between 50 and SO tons of coal in 24 hours. Therefore, if five tons of cial is sufficient to feed an ordinary grate in our dwellings during the entire year, the coal consumed on board a steamer in one day would last a small family, burning one fire, from ten to sixteen years. George Augustus Sala seems to be rather hazy in his knowledge of Australian geography. In answer to an interviewer in New York, he said, "I go New South "Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, and Australia. My object in travelling i 3 to make a big pile of money by lecturing, so that on my return to England I may be able to retire from professional life."

The Mahdi has in his service a German who (accompanied Hicks Pasha, and who went over to the enemy. He has also in his train a French journalist, M. Oliver Pain, who has adopted Mahomedanism, and has become the chief friend of the Mahdi. He plays a leading part, and it is under his orders that formidable entrenchments have been erected at the Mahdi's camp in Omdurman, four miles from Khartoum.

The Wairarapa Daily has the following : - " A somewhat startling illustration of clairvoyant power was manifested incidently yesterday. Mr Ellis was talking in Mr T. E. Price's shop with a wellknown Maaterton resident, when the latter handed to him a photograph of a group of children recently taken by our local photographer, saying, 'This is my family.' Mr Elli3 looked at it closely, and then said, 'I see looking over the eldest girl's shoulder the face of a boy about three years of age.' He then described the child in question minutely, and the Mast'erton resident easily identified the portrait of the, to him, invisible form as a correct imagine of a little one he lost some years ago. Apparently, •when the living group were photographed, the spirit child had rejoined the family circle. There are evidently, as Shakespeare more things in heaven and earth than are yet dreamt of in our philosophy." Manv Blenheim people noticed that M. Eemenyi wore a silver bracelet upon the wrist of his right arm while he was playing. The following is its history When Eemenyi was last in America, Mdm. Elmbad, an Australian native and the great piaaiste, was contemplating a professional visit to Europe. She wanted his opinion of her playing, as well as to know if he thought it worth her while to go. She sat down to the piano to play, and while she was playing he amused himself with the jewellery which she had taken off and laid aside. Listening all the time to her performance, he idly clasped thi

bracelet npon his wrist. "When the lady had finished her first piece she turned to Remenyi with an evident knowledge of his action, and pointing to the bracelet, said, " Never take it off any more," and R-menyi says he never has. A native's opinion on British South African policy is as follows : —lf there is a war, what shall I do? If I join the British, and they win, I am no better ; if they lose, my land and my cattle will be taken, and most of us shot. If T join the Boers, and they win, I shall »till_ be no better ; but if they lose, the English will pardon me, and I shall be little worse. It is best, therefore, to join the Boers ; for if I do not—even if the English win the Boers find means to take my land and steal my cattle when the English are gone, and England only comes to my help when my people have been killed and my cattle are gone. A "smart" trick was played by a Customs officer in the Supreme Court, says the Wellington Press. During the hearing of the case of Littlejohn v. Mulligan, it came out in evidence that Mr Mulligan, when he landed in New Zealand, was wearing a certain watch as personal property. After landing he disposed of the watch. A Mr Hart, who was in Court at the time, immediately made a claim on behalf of the Customs for the watch to be handed to him in default of duty. His Honor did not quite see the point, but it was mutually agreed that th« watch should remain in the custody of the Registrar until it was decided whether or not duty was payable upon it. Mr Caine, M.P., speaking in Exetc* Hall on teetotalism in the services, said that it had been shown that the severest campaigns could be better carried out without the use of intoxicating drink than with it. Mr Parnell maintains that Nationalist principles have greatly advanced, and says he thinks it would be impossible for any English party long to contend against a determined band of Irishmen. Plates of cast glass have been substituted for copper in the sheathing of an Italian vessel, the joints being made tight by a silicate mastic. The advan ages •'aimed are exemption from exidition and incrustation.