Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 6047, 12 September 1894, Page 4

Items.

The oil palm bids fair to revolutionise Central Africa, since African potentates find greater profit in compelling subjects to cultivate the oil tree for its oil than selling them for slaves. The Jewish children in the schools of London number something like 20,000. There are 21 law firms in America that are conducted jointly by husbands and wives. A Swedish translation of Mr Joseph Hatton's novel " By Order of the Czar," recently published at Stockholm, has, it is stated, been prohibited by the Russian authorities from being introduced into Finland.

The Egyptian section of the British Museum has just been enriched by the addition of a large and well-preserved sacred shrine of Ptolemy Energetes IX., and his wife and sister Cleopatra. This new and interesting object is cut out of one solid mass of red granite, and stands eight feet in height. The top is ornamented with three representations of the sun's disc, having the usual wings attached. The interior of the shrine is cut out to a depth of three feet, and shows traces of having been closed by a door, probably also of granite. Miss Timid : Did you ever find a man under the bed ?" Mrs Bluff: " Yes. The night we thought there were burglars in the house I found my husband there." She : " Cease your flattery, sir, or I shall put my hands over my ears." He (wishing to pay her a compliment) : " Impossible ! Tour hands are too small for that."

Hicks: "What very queer terms are employed in our everyday language. Dryleigh speaks of the book he has just written as a 'work.' " Wicks : "I guess you never tried to read that book." He: "I couldn't find your father's cheque among the wedding presents. I would like to know what became of it." She: "Pa is so absent-minded. After the ceremony he lit his cigar with it." The .Newcastle (N.S.W.) agents of the barque Cambrian Chief have received information that the vessel has turned up at Tal Tal, in South America, in a completely disabled condition, after a fearful passage. The cable also states that all the crew are safe. The Cambrian Chief was on a voyage from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Coquimbo, coal laden. She was thrown on her beam ends in a heavy gale, the decks were swept, all the boats were carried off, and her masts had to be cut away. While the crew were endeavoring to trim the cargo with the wreckage of the rigging lying alongside, the ship Dee hove in sight and sent her lifeboat, which saved the captain's wife and children and part of the crew on her first trip, and then in spite of tempestuous weather four seamen in charge of the second officer of the Dee started on a second trip to the Cambrian Chief, but their boat capsized ere they reached her. They were seen clinging to the keel, and drifting towards the Cambrian Chief, when night came on, and next morning neither the Cambrian Chief nor the boat was in sight. The, Dee proceeded to Valparaiso and reported the disaster, and it was generally believed that nothing more would be heard of the Cambrian Chief and missing men.