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Oamaru Mail, Volume X, Issue 3433, 31 December 1885, Page 2

ITEMS.

The New York Chamber of Commerce Journal remarks that " every European Government should, without delay, inform the industrial classes that this is not the time for the poor people to emigrate to the United States." "Farming," says this same authority, "in America is profitless; mills, factories, I workshops, and mines are closed; tens of thousands of industrious men are idle and Bcores of thousands of women and children are on the brink of starvation. Vienna has produced a musical wonder in the person of Jules Pruwer, a pianist who is only eight years of age, and whose execution is described as no less marvellous than his memory, the latter enabling him to perform some of the most elaborate fugues of Sebastian Bach without having a note of the music before him. Both Liezt and Eubenstein have listened to him with astonishment, and have pronounced him to be their legitimate successor. The first appointment in London of a lady to a hospital poßt was made recently, when Miss Prideaux was elected by the genetal committe of the Paddington-green Childrens' Hospital to the office of housesurgeoD. There were 19 male carididatss for the post ; of whom half were university graduates. Miss Prideaux is a bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery of London University. I A scheme for making Eome a seaport town by means of a ship canal has-been recently brought before the public byan Italian engineer, Mr Gabussi, who, during the construction of the Suez Canal, wai engaged under M. de Lesseps. Thisproposal is considered by competent authorities to be perfectly feasible. The canal, which would be 15J miles long, would be made from the .Church of St. Paul to the sea, and would be navigable for ships of war and merchant vessels of large tonnage, which would be able to discharge their: cargoes at the gatss of the city. The cost of this undertaking is estimated at the j sum of L 7,410,480 sterling. In an article on Burmah, the Clerical Vaterland remarks :—" England, Russia, and France, from their different standpoints, are all trying to secure ascendency over China ; but what will it profit the world if these nations succeed in scaring the 400,000,000 of Chinese out of their conservatism and bringing them under the influence of European ideas ? China is learning to make use of her coal-fields, which are the largest on earth, and of her immense beds of iron. What if with her cheap labor she some day begins to enter into industrial competition with Europe ? To us' this possibility seems by no means remote. The day when, under European direction, a factory is set up in China to manufacture with Chinese coal iron goods, of which Europe and America have' now a monopoly, will mark the beginning of a great change in the world, a change which we cannot consider with equanimity. A few days ago a young man from the country happened to visit one of the wholesale drapery establishments in In Auckland. 1 Seeing a mounted figure for displaying ladies' dresses he asked the use thereof. "That," replied the salesman, "is for learning the art_ of gracefully and fashionably putting the arm round a lady's waist." " Hoo mnckle a lesson V demanded the country jock. " A guinea for three lessons," replied the salesman. "Unco dear," was the rejoinder. " Why, in the country we can often practice on the real thing for naathißg, and ony' time for pockfu' o' sweeties. Gae wa' wi' yer imitatibna."