Odds and Ends.

Otago Witness, Issue 1342, 18 August 1877, Page 3

Odds and Ends.

Cane crushing operations have eominenoed in the . Mackay district, Queenslaud, with fairly satisfactory results. Some good samples of sugar have been turned out.

. It seems quite clear, from the accounts which are published, thatforsome considerable time back the Russian Government mast have predetermined the preaent war. MiasM.L. Whately, daughter of the late Archbishop of Dublin, is carrying on a large school of 150 girls and 250 boys in Cairo.,

The Pope's jubilee was celebrated in Ireland with great solemnity. Religious processions passed through the streets of several cities. Meux & Co., the* London brewers, who haye been engaged for some time in sinking a well at their brewery in Tottenham Court Road, struck the greensand at a depth of 1001 feet, and obtained water. In the city of Sydney there are 2,008 hands employed in connection with 44 induirtries which come within the heading of engineers, boilermakers,andironfounders. The Archbishop of Quebec received by tele^aph the Papal apostolic benediction &n<St\anks to Canadian pilgrims from the Popwm Rome.

A public institution has been founded in Shanghai of all the European arts and sciences. Reading rooms are attached to it. ' In Greymouth milk is 9d per quart, and ia to remain at that price " until grass becomes more plentiful."

Owing to the fall in the value of flax fibre a mill near Blenheim, which employed 24 hands, has ceased operations. "It is mentioned that £15 per acre has been offered and. refused, for good rural land at Alexandra, on the Waikato. At Te Awamutu, on the Waikato, a little boy named Floyd accidently blinded bis sister of one eye with an arrow. A Wellington correspondent states that tile floors of the fioase of Representatives are being covered with Brussels carpet. Grey coal is now retailed in Wellington for 36s per ton, while Newcastle costs 42s The former is said to last longer and to be better liked.

The working men of England feel the prison-labour question pressing upou them, and have appealed to the Home Seo/etary, who replied that the subject was. imder the consideration of the Government. '<

The above complaint is not at all new. Ten years ago, the brushmakers agitated the same question, on account of the brushware manufactured in the English prisons being sold at less than the coat of production. The importation of torses into France from La Plata, South America, proceeds now as regularly as that of bsef to Liverpool from the States. The joiners of Yorky England, who were receiving 7d per hour, and struck for Bd, hive gone to work for 7£d. English teachers may be counted by the hundreds in Russia. They charge a high price for their instruction, and are held in great esteem by the Russians, who often retain their services for years. ' Professor Beealy says there is not a pin to chose in point of morality between the Tories and Gladstonians. The former want to kick out the Russians, and the Gladstonians the Turks.

• The Brighton School Board have decided that 'eighty of the elder girls shall attend a course^of twelve lessons in "artisan cookery^" conducted by the local School of Cookery. What cannibals ! Daring the late earthquake at Iquique 17 vessels were lost and 40 damaged on the Peruvian coast

The Mormons of Scotland held their annual conference lately in Glasgow. There were in connection with the Scottish mission, 70 elders, 21 priests, 24 teachers, 11 deacons* and 335 members.

. The National Rifle Association of England accepts' the Dominion trophy for competition at Wimbledon, assigning it a high place in the list of prizes. Twelve cargoes of oranges have been received this season in ban Francisco from Tahiti, numbering over four millions. The Fire Marshal of San Francisco reports twenty-four fires in May and six fg&e alarms. Twenty buildings were borned or injured. It is said that the Pope received during the Jubilee £300,000 in hard cash, not count&q; innumerable articles of value presen**d. The miners of Fife and Clackmannan, to the number of four thousand, have struck on the question of a reduction of wages. The funds of the local association amount to £14,000.

i Last year the canning firms of the Oregon river canned or otherwise used 40,000,000 salmon, and fearing a scarcity are establishing fish-hatching ponds on a large scale.

The Chinese question k assuming much importance on the Sandwich islands ; large accessions to their numbers are arriving. A Wellington gentleman offers to let his house for the session to any member of Parliament for the trifling amount of 25 guineas a week.

The death of F. B. Sodan, a well-known member of the London Athletic Club, took place on the 13th of May. The deceased was in his thirty-first year. The loyal Canadians desire that the good Queen Victoria, in addition to her other honours, Bhall assume the title of Empress of Canada.

Nearly £2,000,000 is still required to complete the St. Gothard Tunnel. It is proposed that Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the company contribute the money.

A delegation from Guadaloupe presented, at the Pope's Jubilee, a number of bricks of solid silver.

Dr. Macdonald now puts the total imports into Great Britain of fresh meat of all kinds from America since the refrigerating process was adopted at upwards of twenty-six million pounds. The Sutro Tunnel at the Comstock, Nevada, which has been in progress for eight yeara, is now in 17,000 feet, and will be completed in about a year. It costs at the rate of £200 per day. The N. Y. Herald says that should Queen Victoria assume the title of Empress of Canada, the United States will rejoice to have the name of so excellent a lady more closely connected than it is at present with the American continent.

Col. Ingersoll, a distinguished citizen of the United States, is lecturing upon Free Thought in San Francisco. He is looked upon as a bear in the religious market. The World says that Ouida's new story, Ariadne, is a great and consummate work of art, remarkable beyond all her other works for the combination of simplicity, passion, severity and beauty. An edict has been issued, commanding that the Stamboul ladies shall henceforth wear only feredjees of a sombre colour, instead of the gorgeously-hued garments now in fashion.

A reduction of one hour per week of labour, and an advance of a per hour, has been asked" by the operative masons of Leicester from their employers. Miss Mary Marshall, of Chicago, walked 100 miles, atthe Horticultural Hall, Boston (Mass.), recently, in less than twentyseven hours, her actual walking time being 24h. 365. Her best mile was made in 9:11.

A Georgia evangelist, formerly a circus man, married his wife, baptized her, and admitted her to the church, all in one day, •recently.

The Ascot Race meeting opened 'brilliantly on the 12th June, the Prince and Princess of Wales aud ex-President Grant occupying the Royal stand. Herr Anton Rubinstein is reported to have made £8,000 by his tour through England, in company with Mr Carl Rosa, last spring. For three whole days in one week, lately, there was not a single birth in Naples, out of a population of 500,000 souls. This would not be tolerated in (New Zealand.

In Glasgow there is a dispute in the joiner trade, and the painters are agitating for the adoption of the nine hours' system, and want time-and-a-half pay for all overtime. ', Maps of the Seat of War are of comparatively little use, owing to the variety of ways which the telegraphists adopt of spelling the names of. places in Turkey. The Naples Aquarium has received from the Imperial Academy of Sciences, at Berlin, the gift of a small iron screwsteamer, to be used in collecting marine 'animals. i Dodd, Mead, and Co., of New York, have published a cooking manual, by Juliet Carson, Superintendent of the New York Cooking School. The task of walking 145 miles in 50 hours, which Miss Bertha Yon Hillern set herself to accomplish at Providence recently, resulted in a great victory for the pedeatrienne.

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who is on a lecturing tour and drawing large audiences, is about to visit San Francisco.

The revenue of Victoria mounts up no w to four and a-half millions sterling — in figures, for the year ending June 30, £4,514,121. But this includes the railway income. From the evidence of noted cattle men in England, it seems that first-class beasts for butchers' purposes there, cost from 43 to 5s per week for their keep. The swamp which bounds Melbourne on the west, and is so offensive and unsightly a nuisance, is at length in course of being reclaimed.

The fifth part of the compositors of Sweden are women, as are also a large proportion of those of Denmark, Holland, Austria, and Hungary. Cotton ginning has commenced for the aeason in the Ipswich district, Queensland. The quality, as might be supposed, from the dryness of the growing season, is extra fine and strong. During the last year, there has been an excessive rate of mortality in Sydney and the suburbs as compared with the colony generally and with country districts. According to the researches of Herr F. Muench, our earth has at one time or other been inhabited by 155,000 kinds ef animals, of which 20,000 are now extinct. The Kentucky blue grass brought by Mr Mackay from America is expected to become a valuable addition to the available winter f aed of Queensland. The increasing demands for butter, to Bupply the English market, have developed dairying in Bavaria. They are actually dairying there for London houses. A new Catholic diocese is to be formed in Queensland, of which. Townaville will be the head-quarters. The London Economist says : "An advance of so marked and continuous a nature has occurred in the price of wheat this month as to exceed any that a war panic has excited in the grain trade since the Corn Laws were repealed. In ten years— lß67 to 1876 inclusivewhile the population of New South Wales increased from 431,412 to 629,776, or 46 per cent., the number of public schools has increased from 259 to 503, or 94*2 per cent.

The whole of a sample of mammoth rye, a remarkably prolific grain, introduced from America, was rapidly disposed of by the Council of the New South Wales Agricultural Society.

The population of the Palmer, in Northern Queensland, consists of 1400 Europeans, and 17,000 Chinese, scattered over an area of 2,000 square miles. Orders have been given for the Thunderer to be commissioned for " particular service."

It would seem that public opinion both in Germany and Prance ran strongly against Russia's action in breaking the peace in Eurppe. More than one member of the British Cabinet has openly stated that if the progress of tha war threatened to interfere with British interests, the Government would be ready to defend them.

Dr Somerville, the Revivalist, now in Melbourne, is apparently between 60 and 70 years of age. He has a tall spare form, with sharply cut features, and long scanty grey hair.

Rifle practice at Creedmoor (the Wimbledon of America) this year has developed the fact that considerable attention has been devoted to the preliminary details this past winter.

Four more additions are about to be made to the English Episcopate, by the subdivision of some over-populous sees. The scale of revenue is to be moderate.

Great distress prevails amongst the whiting fishers of Dieppe, whose industry this year has yielded nothing.

A horae whose hind feet are frequently hitting the forward shoes, should wear heavy shoes forward and light ones behind. The heavier hoof will be thrown a little further ahead than the lighter one. A number of miners are out of employment in Sandhurst, Victoria. Reefing has been dull of late, and the alluvial ground is worked out.

A London nurseryman advertises New Zealand fern trees growing in tubs, five feet, six guineas j and 14£ feet, forty guineas.