Odds and Ends.

Otago Witness, Issue 1320, 17 March 1877, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

It is stated that the profits realised by Messrs Guinness's Dublin brewery amount to the magnificent figure of £100,000 per annum.

The Melbourne Review for January contains an interesting article, by J. Macallister, on " Man's Relation to the Other Animals."

Waxed shoe-pegs (saturated with shoemaker's wax) are claimed to make shoes that are durable, impervious to water, and not liable to rip in the shank.

A discussion has arisen in England recently as to whether non-commissioned officers should not be saluted by the privates. This is always done in the German army, but never in the British. It is said, on good authority, that the King of Portugal, Don Lniz L, is engaged upon a translation of Shakspeare's tragedy of "Hamlet."

Mr John L. Motley is in Paris, in very good health, and very busy in the literary way.

A coloured man acts as news-gatherer at Washington for Philadelphia and Kentucky papers. Mrs A. W. Tucker preaches to the Peterboro Unitarians when she wishes to lighten the labours of her husband and their pastor ; and the Peterboro Unitarians seem to like it.

Two sons of the Ameer of Bokhara have just visited the Emperor of Russia. One of them is to be educated in a Government Academy at St. Petersburg. The firm of Guinness, of Dublin, has been dissolved, and Sir Arthur is to receive from his brother one million pounds sterling. Some of the mirrors in the Baldwin House — a new hotel in San Francisco — are 72 inches by 144 inches. A survey party will be despatched early in 1877 to finish the map of Western Palestine. There remain, to be surveyed only Galilee, and a small piece in the south.

Mrs Senator Logan is her husband's most useful ally. No combinations are formed without her knowledge, and her tact points out the right method. The Abb 6 Liszt's two worldly predilections are said to be cafe noir and small Roman cigars. He speaks many languages and copies his works himself.

The Americans are already organising an Arctic Expedition, to start this year. The State Teachers' Association of lowa has formally resolved that political science should be taught in the public schools.

The number of public schools in California is 2260. These were attended during the past year by the approximate number of 184,787 pupils. The money for support of schools given by the State was 23,652,763 dols. It is stated that Mr G. C. Levey, Victorian Commissioner to Philadelphia, returns with his bride, "a distinguished American authoress," by the April mail. The Chemical News contains an interesting series of articles upon "Repulsion resulting from Radiation," by Mr William Crookes.

A- new style of omnibus has appeared in London. Passengers' seats are arranged as in the railway carriages. Berlin has declared war against street beggars. All who are found soliciting alms are arrested and locked up. The Prince of Wales will not permit any demonstrations when he goes to Wales, not even an occasional spout. Patti got over 50,000 dols worth of diamonds at her benefit in Moscow, and over three hundred baskets of flowers.

Germany thinks of investing in American fire engines, and a committee will go there to inspect and investigate. Fences in New York are buried in snow to their top rails : roads are almost impassable, even for the heavy country sledges ; and th 9 various railways are obliged to reopen their buried tracks day after day. It is said that probably Austria, as weE as Germany, will decline to send anything to the Paris Exhibition except works of art and artistic industry. Wallace says that the want of a hairy of the body of man could not ujftve resulted from selection, because Selection preserves what is of use. Yon Moltke says that Russia, if she wages war against Turkey, " will embark on a great and difficult enterprise." St. Petersburg is rapidly becoming a cosmopolitan city, much like Paris, especially in its excess and dissipation. Mr Longford, an American in France, has eloped with Miss Hunt, a ward in Chancery, and been imprisoned for it, too.

Paris gets 20,000 dols yearly from contractors for the privilege of keeping the streets clean. The sweepings yield 600,000 dola.

Havre is to have new docks, after the Liverpool plan. The Government will carry out the project. The expense is put down at many millions. The King of Spain has his countrymen's love of pretty women, and malicious people relate some singular stories of his conduct among royal ladies. The London Crystal Palace is to have a clock, the dial of which will be forty feet in diameter, and the hands nineteen feet long. The immense umbrellas presented to African chiefs were manufactured in Glasgow. They are some thirty feet in circumference.

The quarterly distribution of the Maryland school fund just made gave a total Bum of 104,653 dola 10 centa to the white schools, and 24,000 dola to the coloured schools.

The Rev. Dr Patton, of Chicago, and the Rev. Dr Speer, of Brooklyn, advocate the abolition of all devotional exercises in public schools as contrary to justice, polity, and law.

The reformed drunkards of Chicago bade Mr Moody good-by at a temperance tea-party at Farewell Hall. Half an hour was occupied with devotional exercises.

The amount of snow which at present covers Northern, Central, and Western New York has not been equalled since 1857, if even then.

James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, was engaged to be married to Miss May, and all preparations were made for the wedding. Bennett backed out at the last moment, and Miss May's brother cow-hided him. Bennett challenged May, and they fought with pistols on the line between Maryland and Delaware.

Bennett, to avoid arrest, has sailed for Europe. All kinds of reports are afloat respecting the contemplated marriage and the duel.

In Guipuzcoa and the neighbouring provinces of Spain, on the Bth January, a hurricane raged with terrific violence. Miles of woods on the mountains were burning, and whole herds of cattle and hamlets have been destroyed. " A Drama in Mexico " is Jules Verne's next book. The scene of Wilkie Collins' new story is placed in Scotland. Paris has a social scandal about a " lady in high life " who was discovered selling flowers in the street. She was looking for an unfaithful lover.

School girls in New York have substituted pennants for pendants in ear-rings ; their latest device consists of small bows of gros-grain ribbon of all shades tied in rings.

In China women are bought and sold a3 merchandise. In Japan no woman is sold, but she is everywhere respected and is honoured wherever she sustains a good character.

Italy has abolished the death penalty ; and yet one would think that in the land of brigands that penalty is needed. Point lace butterflies are worn as ornaments for the hair, and are, the ladies say, "perfectly lovely. 1 ' They have mule races at Gilmore's Garden, in New York, each man riding the other's animal, the one coming in last winning the stakes.

The oil wells in the Boiling Run region, Pennsylvania, show a steady decline in production.

Very destructive floods are reported from Turkey. 1,000 houses have been swept away by an inundation of the Maritza, at Adrianople. 1 A London church was crammed to overflowing to hear a lecture advertised to be on "The Sanitary Aspect of Hell." The parson said, "I fear some misconception has got abroad j I know nothing about hell ; the word should have read " health." .

"The Boy Orator," William Brown, died of diphtheria, in San Francisco, on the 2nd February. He was eight years old, never went a day to .school, and was gifted with an extraordinary memory and uncommon powers of declamation. The New York ball-dress of the period necessitates an extensive exhibition of neck, back, and arms. Strangely enough, the New York Mail doesn't like it. The leaves of coffee are now used to make a beverage not much different from tea. The new drink finds favour in London, and has been introduced in Boston.

Herbert Spencer is in a quite discouraging state of health and incapable of literary labour. It is feared that he will never complete his great thought system. The biggest sail in the world has just been made at Dublin. It is rectangular in shape, and in size 180 feet by 60° It will be used in raising sunken vessels. It is the opinion of a New York lawyer that his profession contains more mean men than any other four professions, and he is going to become an editor. Throat and lung diseases are epidemic in Madrid. The drainage of the city is said, to be the worst in Europe. There are plenty of good but weak women in every community, who will work, and starve, and scrimp, in order to furnish their parlours, and then won't sit in them, for fear of injuring their furniture.

Monaco now has the only licensed gambling halls in Europe. The place is but a few miles from Nice. There is more gambling there this season than ever.

McMahon is going to have a grand review of the army during the coming Exhibition, and Generals from all parts of the world are invited to be spectators. A New York lady was very much surprised on the occasion of her wedding to receive as a present an article of silver that she had presented to a bride some six months ago. This shows how hard times are.

Mr Spurgeon said recently that there are people who should never goto church — such as those who wear squeaking boots and ladies whose umbrellas fall with a snap.

The Union Bank, Melbourne, is erecting premises in Melbourne that will cost between forty and fifty thousand pounds. Mr A. P. Martin, who for many years has acted as hon. secretary for the Eclectic Association of Victoria, has had to resign that office for want of time to attend to its duties.

The Boston Globe knows of a Massachusetts clergyman who asked that his salary be reduced $500 per year on account of hard times. It was reduced before he could wink twice.

During the Centennial Exhibition there were sold at the Bible Pavilion, upon the Exhibition Ground, 3,334 Bibles, 8,489 New Testaments, and 13,332 portions of the Bible.

The Brooklyn One-legged Club will give its annual ball shortly, and a contemporary thinks it should be called its annual hop. It promises to be a very lame affair. The condition of the Pope's health causes the liveliest solicitude.

The concordat between the Papal See and Turkey will soon be concluded.

A Pera special says Don Carlos has departed for Wallachia by way of Varna.

A young man in Texas acquired the habit of tossing a cocked pistol in the air, and catching it by the muzzle as it fell. The last time he caught it was just a moment before he died.

The decease of Vanderbilt, the last of the triumvirate of wealthy men in New York, has called forth universal remark from the press and money-worshipping public.

Mr Spurgeon said, at the laying of the corner stone of a new hall, that Ned Wright, or any other man was, welcome to run off with his congregation if he could do it.

A harassed husband thinks if the dressmaker would trim his wife's dresses less, and the butcher would trim his meat more, he could meet his obligations better. Drinking spirituous liquors is said to be on the increase in France. The duty on these products has yielded 31,000, 000f. over the estimate of 261,326,000f. Foot-ball matches are frequently attended with such serious results, that they are likely to become about as useful as the lively proceedings at a Home Rule meeting in Dublin. The "space" intended for Germany in the Paris Exposition will be converted into an " Arctic Regions and No-man's-land" section, devoted to paleocrystic seas, aquariums, octopuses, and Esquimaux.

Captain Boyton has accomplished the feat^ of swimming down the Po from Turin to Ferrara, a distance of eight hundred miles.

Quite an extensive business is done 'by Belgians smuggling tobacco across the border into France, by means of trained dogs, who are intelligent and swift-footed. In order to make it known where the missionary chapels are, Mr Spurge on advised his hearers to "advertise, distribute handbills— for the.life of business is black ink."

Now that the Lakeside Publishing Company of Chicago has issued a forty cent edition of "Daniel Deronda," the Harpers will immediately publish one at fifty cents.

Thomas Nast, the noted caricaturist of New York, is by birth a Bavarian, and is only 35 years of age. A newspaper has just been started in London in which the advertisements are printed in different coloured inks, the advertiser having a choice of colours. Nast, it is said, gets $200 per week for his work in Harper's Weekly. The death of Commodore Vanderbilt is reported. He has been ill for several months. He was very wealthy. Carbolic acid, so useful as a disinfectant, is a deadly poison when taken into the stomach. Several deaths have occurred through drinking it by mistake. The young Russian Czarowitz is a perfect Hercules, resembling greatly in build and stature his magnificent grandfather, the great Czar Nicholas.

A physician writes to a London paper to say that, according to Huseman, an efficient remedy for carbolic acid poisoning is found in saccharate of lime. °

The following conversation took place recently in an hotel ; " Waiter !" " Yes sir." " What's this ?"— " It's bean soup' sir?" "Never mind what it; has been, the question is— what is it now ?"

Mr Sankey's song, " Hold the Fort," has been arranged as a waltz for the piano. It is popular among those who hold the piano-forte.

Two enterprising Californians, who four years ago planted 1000 acres in walnuts and almonds, will net over $250,000 from this year's crop. The people go to hear Mr Spnrgeon because he speaks to them in popular language. All effective preachers use that language chiefly. In some portions of France every landowner i 3 compelled to plant two saplings for every tree he cuts down.

The students of the gentler sex, in the Michigan University, are, in all respects, equal to those of the sterner sex in their educational abilities.

The extradition treaty between Great Britain and America is virtually renewed. Some amendments will be mutually agreed upon between the two countries.

A Colorado woman has caught fifty bushels of grasshoppers, which she scalded and dried for winter chicken feed. A pole, in the oil regions of Pennsylvania, stands 150 feet high, a gas pipe has been carried to the top of it, fed from a natural gas well. Every night a huge flame illuminates the country around. The White Star steamship Britannic made her last passage from New York to Queenstown in seven days thirteen hours, the quickest on record.

A hen may be calculated to consume one bushel of corn yearly, and to lay 12 dozen or 18 pounds of eggs. This is equivalent to saying that 3.1 pounds of corn will produce, when fed to this hen one pound of eggs.

Many railroad accidents are caused by the colour blindness of railroad employes and the Swedish Railway Direction has ordered an examination to be made by oculist of all men in its employ.

The King of Sweden and Don Alfonso are the only sovereigns in Europe who are of French descent. Nearly all the others are of German origin. Howard University is examining the eyes of its freshmen, for the purpose of comparing their present condition with their conditions four years hence. Five married couples, living on a single street of Menasha, Wis., boast the possession of G3 children.

Professor Goldwin Smith will pass the winter in Italy, return to Toronto, Ontario, in the spring, and afterwards will lecture at Cornell University as usual. Mr Spurgeon says he prefers straight out Saxon speech. He would sooner say " donse that glim," before he would say " extinguish that illuminator."

Andrew Jackson Davis has received a New Year's present from his friends in Europe and America of ten thousand dollars.

One of the late California steamers brought to Sydney a lot of valuable fibre plant, the Ramie.