Odds and Ends.

Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

The Daily Times thinks that when tha Provinces are abolished it will be necessary for Parliament to hold an almost con* tinuous session. No honorarium will then tempt the Cargills, Stouts, and Bradshaws to neglect their own affairs, and the business of the country will be in the hands of professional politicians. Letters and packages are sent to and fro between Paris and Versailles, a distance of nearly twelve miles, in eight minutes, by pneumatic tubes. The air is forced in the tube at one end and exhausted at the other. Three steam engines are used. A section of one of tho big trees of California is to be sent to the Philadelphia Exhibition. It will be 16 feet long and 23-in diameter. The heart will be taken odt leaving a shell one foot in thickness. This will be divided into eight parts, which, will require two oars for their transportation. Mr Gladstone's preface to the new edition of his recent tracts, now published under the title of "Borne and the Newest Fashions in Religion," is full of very plain speaking. He charges Borne with the purpose of overthrowing civil society. The Acclimatisation Society of Paris are offering prizes for the introduction into French waters of American brook trout, Otsego bass, California salmon and black bats. They must live for one year.

Dean Stanley has given another shock to the extreme Churchmen by announcing that he will soon place, at his own expense, a memorial of John and Charles "Wesley in Westminster Abbey.

Government have prohibited reporters from visiting immigrant ships before they are inspected and cleared by the Immigration Commissioners. The Daily Times deolares its intention of " circumventing the wily tactics of the enemy." The facts disclosed by the evidence taken during the enquiry on the wreck of the Brace, prove that the vessel was neither carefully navigated nor sufficiently manned.

The New York Herald says that Moody and Sankey do not return to the United States too soon. Since their departure for the Old World, the New World has been increasing in sin and recklessness.

Great trouble is expected with the Sioux Indians about the Black Hills. An Indian war is imminent. The Indians want payment for the gold already taken out, in addition to the purchase price. The Daily Times complains of the inequality of the intellectual powers of our Parliamentary representatives, and thinks something should be done to equalise representation in this respect. The New York Spirit of the Times lays that the performance of Captain Webb in swimming the English Channel, during which he was twenty-three hours naked in the water, is the most splendid feat of. fortitude, courage, and endurance which has shone among the physical feats of man during tha last century. Mr J, P. Armstrong delivered his now famous lecture, "Early Digging Days," on the 19th, at Tokomairiro, for the benefit of the Church of England Bell Fund. It was greatly enjoyed. Charles Darwin, whose " Insectivorous Plants" has so recently claimed regard, has in the press, already, another record of his researches into the mysteries of r the vegetable kingdom, "On the Habits and Movements of Climbing Plants." Ik St. Louis, Henry Timkens paid W. 0. Clark 60 dols. for the privilege of shooting at one of his materialized spirits. Timkens fastened Clark securely in the cabinet in the presence of several reporters. "His life was a complete riddle/ says a Texas paper of agentleman who recently put a charge of twenty-two buck-shot into himself. His death was a pretty complete one, too. The emigration from the United Kingdom in 1874 amounted to 241,014 persons, being a decrease, as compared with 1873, of 69,598. The decrease was in the emigration to North America. There was an increase to Australasia of 27,530 persons. Explorations by Professor Jenner and party in the northern part of the Black Hills, Dacota Territory, have resulted in the discovery of payable gold, alluvial, conglomerate, and quartz. At a conference of Old Catholics and some Greek Church prelates and English High Churchmen at Bonn, Dr Dollinger made a strong speech against the doctrine of- Purgatory, which he says was unknown till the time of Gregory the Great ° A large number of co-operative manufacturing companies have recently been established in Lancashire. They are owned in €10 and £5 shares, chiefly by working men. 1. ? ie «^? ll 1 0n S P ec tator .thinks very little of the late conference at Bonn for a discussion on the reunion of Christendom. It says that Dr Dollinger and his friends, so far from preparing the way for reunion, have been merely pushing the Catholics away in order to approach the Greeks a little nearer. The Daily Times declares that the unemployed in Otago consist for the most part of men who are debarred from obtaining work by their greed or their habits. Of course much depends on their training in the old country. In getting up hh new book, Mr Darwin was assisted by his son, who promises to be a worthy son of a noble father.

The Daily Times complains that, as we are at present represented in Parliament,

Taieri, Caversham, and Port Chalmers have more influence than Dunedin and all the rest of the Province put together 1 The Times goes for Mr Hare's principle. During the years 1763-1788 Frederick the Great spent in Prussia the sum of 160,^00,000 francs (£8,000,000) for the establishment of agricultural schools, and the reclamation of waste lands. His successors followed his example. The Queen, it seems, bravely refused to accept of Colonel Baker's resignation, and the following appeared in the London Gazette :— " Half-pay Lieut,-001. Bt.Col. Valentine Baker, late 10th Hussars, has been removed from the army, her Majesty having no further occasion for his services."

In the territories Germany has taken from France during the last war it exerciseß the utmost pains to promote agricultural knowledge. On the question of licensing women to preach, Bishop Bowman of the Methodist Episcopal Church is reported to have said, at an Annual Conference, that " the whole tenor of the Discipline is against the licensing of women to preach." Mr. Tennyson's new drama, "Queen Mary," which his London publishers promise us in book form " immediately/i s to be brought out next winter at the Lyceum, with Mr. Irving and Miss Bateman (Mrs. Crowe) in the two leading parts. The members of the Belgrave Skating Rink, London, have commenced skating quadrilles, and they are greatly enjoyed both by the performers and the numerous spectators.

The works of the new Roman Catholic Cathedral, Sydney, are proceeding steadily, though not very rapidly. The masonry work is now up to the level of the tops of the arched windows.

Religion has already created and destroyed innumerable beautiful and ugly rites and ceremonies ; and at present it is picking out of the entanglements of religious thought the white threads of truth, and it will weave them into a white and seamless garment, and wear it in the holy temple which the coming man will build.

The city of Providence, Rhode's Island, finds that by lighting its 1950 street lamps by electricity it can save 25,210d0L in lamplighters' services per annum. It is stated that Kangaroo, for which tha Marquis of Hastings gave several thousand guineas, is now a cab horse in a London hansom.

A riddle which never ought to have been printed. — Why are engaged ladies like odd boots ? — Because they • are no good without their fellowi. Dr Richmond describes, in the London Lancet, two interesting surgical cases, involving the successful employment of an anaesthetic which prevents pain without destroying consciousness^ The Wealeyan J^tSS§^9 of England have had the unusual increase of over six thousand persona in membership during the past year. There are nearly thirty steam-ploughing engines working in East Lothian, doing excellent work, and becoming every day more wanted.

Walt Whitman, who is very poor and in bad health, writes to a friend that he expects to bring out anew volume shortly of prose and verse.

Southport, in Lancashire, is to be provided with a Free Library and a FineArt Gallery at a cost of £6000, given by Mr W. Atkinson.

On the 3rd ult.Pius IX. gave the Queen of Sweden a breakfast in the Vatican—all to herself. He never sits down to the table to eat with any one, as it is against the rules.

Boyleand Newton detected errorsinthe works of the older scientists ; we know that Newton formed several false theories ; and the 3chool-girl of the twentieth century will smile at some of the absurdities of Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, Carpenter, Wallace, Crookes, and Agassis. Herbert Spencer teaches that all we can ever know of mind or matter are phenomena; and that these phenomena postulate the existence of a Something which must for ever remain unknown to us.

Sydney took the first prize for flour at the Melbourne Exhibition— beating Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania Watson Brothers, of Young, were the millers.

The Americans are getting up another Arctic Expedition. A frigate is to go through Behring's Straits, with a view of exploring Wrangel and Kellet's Lands. The scientific head will be Dr Bessels. The Melbourne Leader says:— "lf Protection were removed to-morrow from a large number of articles which are made here, the consuming public would no more get the advantage that is supposed to attach to Freetrade, than do the public of Sydney under a non-dutiable system. Mr Horace Lamb, M.A., Mathematical Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Tate, Professor of Natural Philosophy, the latter strongly recommended by Professor Huxley, have been appointed professors in the Adelaide University. • T1 ll DaU £^ imes Uin fav °ur of dividing the public lands of the colony into three classes, and selling at one, two, or three pounds. Why should good and bad w same rate P er acre 1 When the father of the Bates' children was asked by the city missionary whether he would prefer his children going to the Catholics or the Protestant^ he replied, Well, you see, I have nothing against either but I like fair play; so give the Catholics one of them, and let the Protestants have the other." A sail-maker in Adelaide has an Ameri-

oan sewing-machine which can turn out as much work in three minutes as could be accomplished in an hour by hand, Arrangements are already being wade at Ballarat, Victoria, for a grand Chrißtmas carnival, for the benefit of the local chanties, to commence on Boxing Day. One great advantage of this city (aaysa San Francisco paper) is its surprising wealth. No wonder its banks represent a combined capital o£ over 30,000,000 dollars, for they have all the mines of Nevada to back them.

The Warrnambool Standard refers to an opinion expressed by Bishop Thornton in the course of his speech at Koroit, that as a rule it is inexpedient to report teameeting speeches. A drapery firm in Geelong telegraphed to London for a quantity of an article specially required. The goods reached Hobson's Bay in two months from the date of the telegram. Mr George Withers says that *• in the present and the next generation there will be two modes of spelling English—English spelled as pronounced, and English spelled, as at present, without rule or reason."

The new Jewish Synagogue at Timaru was opened with services in connection with the festival of the commencement of the Jewish year. . The Rev. E. G. Penny has issued a pastoral letter to Church of England members in Dunedin South, offering " a few words of friendly remonstrance" with church people who are frequently or altogether absent from church. Itbreathes the true Christian spirit. A batch of recruiting Mormon missionaries has arrived in Sydney, for the purpose of enticing unwary Gentile lambs into the polygamic fold of Mormonism.