GENERAL NEWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6224, 21 January 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

_ Pensioners are prove*blciiy Jong-lived. The London Evening New* e ajß : -The servants of Queen Charlotte stiU. d,aw Ll2O 6s 4d from the pobnc lundß, and LlQis paid to those of George ill., though '^at estimable monarch died Gl yeata ago. Tjia «re&t Couucil of the Methodists of the worlct held at London its session in the City Koad > Chapel, where John Wesley. used to preaon. Tho building was dedicated in 177S' when Wesley was 75 years old. The eectisn of the Brazilian submarine cable from Para to Cayenne is useless, owing to the destruction of its insulation by fiah bites. These bites take plsce only within a distaaca of forty naika skirting the coast of an island ia the estuary of the Amazon. Examination ishows that the cable is attacked by some powerful fish, ■whoso jaws crush ihe iron Bheathit g of the cables, and displace tho insulating substance.

A G,rmaiß paper, oompariog Germany witfa irauce, observes tbet the fyriapv Batwn is superior to tue latter in pilidcal aud military 'power, and tkat the latter surpaES2s the format; in culture and material urospsrity. j It ia reported by the Religious Tocfe Scciets? j;of London that for the past twelves years fho Spanish people have purchased t\ iarger number of the Scripturec, in proportion to their popu» lation, than the I'recch oj- Italian.

The marble quarries of Vetmoat have beeonio enormous excavations, several being SSO fest deep, and the openings are only slightly pro. tected, if at all, while rnda stßirways down the .sides of the shafts afford the, only means t£ descent; yet there is hardly ever an accident aud it is several years sinea a fatal fall has takea place.

Statistics of tke popnlr,tiou of Siberia,, wbicb include in their estimates noinsdi© tiib'esand cobnwts, do not make out a largo total for I hat .vast and dreary Asiatic couatry. The total is only 1 ) 355,000.a0u15. Xavier Semmolm.ai».n, a Bavarian driver, Who is one of the strongest men in the world, recently, at Hogeldcrf, a suburb of Kittenberg, raised a blacksmith's anvil, weighing 4SS j pounds, twelve inche3 from the ground, with one Ifinprer. and subsequently lifted a load of bricks, 540 pounds in weight, to tho height c£ hiß shoulder. ; ■ .. .

There fire bow ia Mexico thirty Presbyterian congregatioße, several ordainad Mfxicau ministers, and sonio sixteen Mexican young men preparing, besides. some seven or eight ■ tnen ; natives, acting as meachers and coIdoj?. » 1 teura.

The_ strength oi iho regular British arijoy— including tho regular troons in India and vha Ooloniea — is 196,000 men ;. of the militia, 126,000. msn ; and of the reserves, 42,000 men. Tbe cost in time of pc-aco m 1115,000,000. A German statistician reckons that the world, contains 1,455,925,000 inhabitants, 0r16,778,G00< more than it did a quarter of a century ago/ It allots 834.707,000 to Asia, 315 929,000 to Europe, 205.679,000 to Africa,' 95,405,000 to Amorics/4,121,000 to Australia-Polynesia, aud 82,000 to the Polar regions. It ia annoucced that a Congregational Olurcb ia Chicago is attempting to secure the services of the B,ev. Dr Scuddev, of Brooklyn, by the off;!; of a §12,000 salary and otSej? i;.di;C3aaentß. . ■;•.•.,