MISCELLANEOUS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1161, 28 February 1874, Page 7

MISCELLANEOUS.

Mr Frank Buckland has been lecturing on " Fish Culture" at the Brighton Aquarium.

Mdlle. Desclee is very seriously ill with a ntalddy that may debar her for years from the stage. Lima has set up a Literary Society, .and proposes establishing a Museum of Peruvian Antiquities. It is stated that Mr John Walter, the proprietor of The Times, has once more refused a baronetcy. Those fertile coVaboruteurx MM. Meilhac and Halevy are writing a new comedy for the Paris Varietes.

The Paris Figaro is turning Moralist, and declares marriage to be a tiresome book with a very line preface. Tho number of coins struck at the Eoyal Mint during 1872 was 52 841,048, representing a value of £10,42(5.003 10s. Joan of Arc is still the rage at Paris, and a statue of her by M. Freinjet is to be erected in the Place de Uivoli.

M. Collodion, the French caricaturist, who appeared at Covent Garden Theatre last winter, has been lost iv the Ville dv Hivre. Mr Walker, tho new Mayor of Liverpool, has announced his intention to provide an art gallery for the town, at a cost of £20,000. The divers at work on the wrecked steamer Atlautic report that several bodies, one that of a well-dressed woman, can be seen entangled 111 tho wreck. An opora school for the cultivation and training of sta^o singr-rs, is to be joined to Wagner's Theatre at Bayiuuth. iviug Louis will defray the expenses. Verdi's last opon», "Aida," has been brought out in New York v ith immense success. Next season it will be produced at Berlin iv the German language. Mrs Rirnet, tho wife of the Viceroy of India's surgeon, while riding in tlio hills, was thrown over a precipice, but, escaped through her habit catching iv s>omo brushwood.

Three live Mammoths, similar in species to those hitherto found in a fossil state, have been discovered by a linssian colonist in Northern Siberia. Mr Frank Auckland will bo pleased to hear this. Tho quantity of coal raised in Croat Britain 111 1872 was 123,;3!)3,503 tous > aa^ the lives lost iv raising the coal amounted to 10(30 ; thus showing that lll,40L» ton^ were raised for each life lost.

Colonel lvoundell, an English traveller, who undertook to explore tho interior of Persia in tho disguise of a peasant, is believed to be dead, as no tidings have reached his friends for several yenrs. Sawdust as a substitute tor stockings is recommended by a writer in the " OiK'ida Cir eular," who says that a tablespooutul of the substance- placed in each boot will keep the feet both dry and warm. Or Sehliem.mu, whose excavations at Tioyhive lately excited so much interest, is going to publish a book on his discoveries. The work will bo of huge octavo .size, and will coutiin an atlas and 200 photographs.

According to the "Malta Times, the trallio, principally in nc;;ro girls and boys, continues with impunity bstweou Tripoli and Smyrna and Constantinople, and a searching inquiry by the authorities is recommended.

A "L ; Ce of Washing! on" in Japanese, con'-Mnij* of forty-four volumes, illu&trateJ, has just published in Yeddo. "Washington is represented in the costuniii of th« pris n nt time, with a moustache, a cane, and a Skyo terrier.

The death is reported of the venerable M. de Motz, the founder of tho reformatory system, in Paris, iv 1m 77th year. It is now neatly 40 years ago since M de Mcta began his labours in the reformation of young criminals.

M. Tliicrs is t.iking a brief respites from politics, and now devotes himself to his now work L'rJomme dans la Nature. Twice a week ho goes to the Natural History Museum at the Jardin d'A'Julinia-tation, where he spends two or three houis in studies referring to his book.

There has been an important sale o[ Chinese books in Paris, at which several purchases were made for tho British Musuum One work, Yu-tincf li tai-ki-si-nian-piao, was sold for £22 ; Hyang-thsing-tchiu-Uoiing-thou for £W ; and Tu-ling-pei. wen, tolnii-ehou-hoa pou for £30.

A society has boon formed in Belgium for collecting all waste iiapor, and selling v for the pro lit of the Pope. Tho society liaa appealed to all the possessors of " bad books, auoh as tho works of Voltairo, Routaoau, Diderot, Volney, and other detestable auttiojre," to Jtwnd them over as wwte paper,

An impi'omptu epigram has been composed in Court, by a wearied auditor of the Tichborne case :—: — Kencaly states if Orton's ear ■Were pierced or bored it must appear. If true, our evs somo s'yn shnu. d show, Since he has pierced and bored them so.

Gas engines, says the report of the Inspector of Factories, are now being extensively used in the ribbon weaving trade at Coventry. They are mainly employed to do the work of small boys, who used to turn machinery to which it was inconvenient to apply steam power.

Samuel Smith, an inspector under the L m don aud Nvrtf -Wc&iem Railway Comp my, at Crave .Station, -was a 1 tempting to puss through a goods train standing between the platforms, for the purpose of crossing the Jive, when the train was put in motion, and in an instant Smith was decapitated.

An exhibition of stuffed birds and animals of all countries was to be opened at the Crystal Palace on Boxing Day. Amongst the collection are numerous very clever groups of animals, some remarkably humourous, such as the old German tale of "Reynard the Fox," illustrated by eighteen groups, the fable of " Tbe Pox, the Grow, aud the Cheese," and a skating party of sixteen hedgehogs.

A Californian litterateur, objecting to terse phraseology, alters the normal wording of a well known proverb about stones and glass houses into the more refined and somewhat fiowery remark that "dwellers in crystal palaces should refrain from the propulsion of irregular-shaped particles of granite formation." Another Transatlantic writer, however, is the re vert eof long-winded. Here is his account of an attempted suicide — "Lizzie Smith, weak woman, laudanum, Sunday, doctor, stomach-pump life again."

A young Marseillaise recently chose a curious moe 7 c of suicide by swallowing pins. She only succeeded in making herself iIJ, aud was taken to a hospital, where, after two hundred and fifty lud been extracted, she was considered to be in a fair way to recovery. This reminds us of a baby of New Bedford, U.S., who, says a Transatlantic contemporary, has won innocent renown by swallowing 37 buttons, an iron sewingmachine nut, a gold sleeve button, aud a thiir ble — aud lives — the very type of a prosperous baby.

A memorial fountain has been erected at the south end of (jeorye Fourth Bridg- , Jidinburgh, and near tbc entrance of Old Greyfriars Churchyard, to commemorate the fidelity of a terrier failed G-reyfriars Bobby. The fountain is of L'eterhead granite, stands seven feet high, and is surmounted by a figure of Bobby in bronze. The pedestal bears the following inscription : — " A tribute to the affectionate fidelity of Greyfriars Bobby. In JSSS this faithful dog followed the remains of his master to Greyfriars Church yard, and lingered near the spot until his death in 1872." The fountain has been erected at the expense of Lady Burdett-Contts, and with the permission of the city authorities.

Strangers paying a visit to Dunedin aro often at a lot-s to know what is the best establishment to visit for the purcahse of drapery and clothing Herbert, llayncs, aud Co. ofTor special advantages to the public that can bo met with nowhere else in the city. They keep at all times the largest and best assorted stock of every class of goods, import d direct from the leading manufacturers and warehousemen at home, which, being bought entirely upon cash terms, they arc enabled to offer goods of such sterling value as cannot be equalled by any other house in the trade. Every article in stock is marked at a fixed price for ready monay, from which no abatement is ever made, so that the most inexperienced buy their goods at the same prices as the best judges, Their terms are — not cash, without discount or reductions of any kind. A fuller description of their stock will be found in an advertisement on the last page of this paper. [Advt.

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