Odd and End.

Otago Witness, Issue 1343, 25 August 1877, Page 3

Odd and End.

The Weekly Scotsman publishes an abridgement of a lecture, delivered by the Rer. Charles Voysey, on " The Religious Upheaval in Scotland." "It is said that James Mace, the wellknown boxing-man, is about to establish an hotel in Bourke street, Melbourne. The New Yorkers have built an enormous river steamer, to run twenty miles an hour. She is 340 feet long by 80 feet wide. The cylinder is 90 inches in diameter. . Charles Wheatleigh is at the Queen's Theatre, Sydney, in playing " Round the World in Eighty Days." He plays Phineas Fogg. The Pope recently received 6000 German pilgrims, including six bishops. He ■aid : " God sometimes raises up Attilas to awaken nations. Germany has, at present, her Attila." China, a few years ago, monopolised lea production. India is rapidly becoming a formidable rival. In 1861 Calcutta exported a trifle over 1,000,0001b5. In 1876 it advanced to 25, 000, 0001 bs. A Catholic church in Wiesvhen, Grand ' Dncby of Posen, was struck by lightning, lately, during divine service. Six person* were instantly killed, and seventy •erioua.y injured. Lydia Sherman, who poisoned ten persons — three husbands and seven children — escaped from the Connecticut State Prison in some unaccountable manner. There is no clue to her whereabouts. Mr Delamain purposes Belling the whole of bis stud by auction immediately after the Canterbury Spring Meeting. The Nelson Education Board have resolved to give a free education at Nelson College to 20 boys, selected from town and country schools by an annual competitive examination. The grove of newly-discovered great trees in the Yosemite, California, covers an area of six miles square. There are ten thousand trees there, of immense size, and are reported to be from 100 to 4000 years old. A letter has been received in Melbourne from Dr Henry Slade, in. which he announces his acceptance of an invitation to visit that city after the fulfilment of his Bu*aian engagement. Mr Stitt Jenkins, the Geelong poet, has been appointed Private Secretary to the Victorian Premier. The best time of the Mary Powel — one of the best New York river steamers — is twenty-five miles an hour. The religious element in the TurkoBnssian war is bo strong that, in a short time, the Christian provinces will be compelled to take an active part Japan has been having a corvette built for her navy at Hull, England. The contract speed is 13 knots per hour ; engines, 2600-horse power. In Italy, during the last forty years, the number of periodical publications has increased from 185 to 1126. Two Indians ia Nevada quarrelled over a game of poker, and literally hacked each other to death with knives. The fight lasted a full half-hour. " Sweet Forget Me Not " is the title of a new song and chorus by Bobby Newcomb. It is universally popular wherever song, and is particularly attractive in the j homo circle. The schooner New Bedford, which is i bnt 20ft. long, has sailed from New York for London, with Captain Crape and his wife only on board. ( About 250 horses were shipped, on the 27th and 28th July, into the ship Allan-, •haw, at the Sandridge pier. The vessel Is chartered to convey them to Calcutta. The Rev. Mr Voysey, in his lecture on "The ßeligious Upheaval in Scotland,"gives the Scotch credit for greater earnest- j ness in religion than the English. j Dr J. M. Peebles, having delivered J eleven lectures to large audiences in Mcl- j bourne, was entertained and presented with a well-filled purse. He left by the Bangalore for Calcutta. Catamarans are becoming all the rage in New York harbour. One of them lately sailed round everything, whether cail or steam. The woollen mills in Rhede Island are again working night and day, and orders are largely in advance. This is encouraging. A female hermit has for ten years lived in a hut in Nevada. She never leaves it, except to obtain food in small quantities, j It is now stated that sudden atmospheric changes have great and dangerous Influence on gases in the coal mines. In Ontario the caterpillars are so numerous, that trains of cars have been i ■topped. There are millions of them. j The Emperor of Germany wears eightyeight decorations on gala days. He is j brilliant with jewelled honours. j The nineteen year locusts have ap- j peared in Jersey and Staten Island. The trees are black with them. Texas sheep-raisers say there are about 2,000,000 head of sheep on the borders of the Rio Grande. Among Russian women there is no happier class than the wives of the priests of the Greek Church. Their rules of that Church forbid a second marriage of the priest. An extraordinary discovery of ancient coins has been made on the Montrose estate in Scotland. The coins are of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. They have lain undisturbed in the earth for more than three hundred years. Walker, the trance-speaker, has written along letter to the Auckland Evening Star, charging that journal with having

published "deliberate lies" respecting' | himself. Victor Hugo writes to Tennyson : " France and England are to me a single people, as truth and liberty are a single light. I believe in the unity of humanity." Again there seems to be a plethora of dead bodies fished up from the North and East Rivers, skirting New York city. As a rule there are indications of foul play in their taking off. Petrified sea turtles and cocoanuts have been found in the earth mounds in Southern Colorado. The largest of these mounds is four miles in circumference. French trade has largely benefited from the Anglo-French Treaty of 1860. The imports from France to Great Britain have increased from £25,000.000 to £40,000,000. On June 2nd, the first musical programme was rendered at Central Park, New York, to an audience of fifty thousand ladies and children, with a sprinkling of men. A bouquet of flowers made up of 350 different varieties was on exhibition lately at a Georgia fair. A Russian army besieging Constantinople, without having the command of the Black Sea, would do so under the greatest possible difficulties. Miss Thackeray is engaged to be married to Mr Richmond Thackeray Ritchie, a very old friend of the family, much younger than the lady. The hard times, says a New York paper, have the effect of enormously increasing the number of manuscripts sent to the magazines for publication. Overtures in favour of a revision of the Confession of Faith have been adopted in j some of the Presbyteries of the United ; Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In 1853-54 the estimate for education, science, and art in Great Britain was £578,000 ; this year the estimate reaches £3,546,000. The arrangements for the appearance of Mr Sims Reeves, the celebrated English tenor, in Australia have fallen through. A company has been formed in California to export meat and fruit from the Far West to England. Land has been purchased on which to build improved refrigerator slaughter-houses. It is stated that Germany is in sympathy with Russia, and in case of the latter's repulse, \rill give her active aid. The highest point yet reached by a railroad in the United States is that at the summit of Laveta Pass, Colorado. The altitude is 9340 feet above the sea level. A heavy storm struck Mount Carmel, Illinois, by which sixteen lives were lost, and half a million dollars' worth of property destroyed. The disturbance of the balance of power in Europe is likely to result in new coalitions of nations, and so the flame which now envelops Turkey may blaze through all Europe. Two salmon were brought to Sydney from California, packed in ice, by the purser of the s.s. City of Sydney. They were perfectly sweet and sound. Under the new American postal law, you are permitted to write your name, preceded by the word "from," on the margin of the newspaper you send to your friend. Ropes made of sheep's intestines are coming into use in the California mines, and are said to possess great strength. The International British celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday had a four days' grand celebration this week at Petersburg, Va. Miss Neilson, the actress, wears a diamond weighing 31 carats, the largest ever worn by an actress on the stage. Ift is valued at £2,500. Small herring, of fine flavour, which for thirty years have been very rare, have reappeared in large numbers on the New England coast. The British Government will speedily make great changes in the rolling stock of Indian railways, adapting thena to military purposes. Forty miles of foreat is in flames near Lake Huron, Mich. Great fears are felt that unless rain comes the towns will be destroyed. The Michigan State fair in 1849 was held in a five-acre lot, with premiums amounting to only $1000. Now an 80acre lot is required, and the premiums aggregate about $25,000. At the Aquarium Theatre, London, under Mr Robertson's management, they are trying to revive, with some accuracy, and decorative splendour, the plays of the Restoration dramatists. Cadet Flipper, of Georgia, graduated at West Point with honour. He is the first coloured graduate in the history of that institution. The Pope's Jubilee was celebrated with great magnificence, not only in Rome, but throughout the Catholic world, on June Bth. The King's and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland has just granted diplomas \n medicine to three unmarried females. Ten Texan cattle-breeders own 1,026,000 cattle, besides horses and mules. They have 682,000 acres enclosed as pasturage. The fifty-ton Krupp gun, which attracted so much attention at the Philadelphia . Centennial, is now in position at Oronstadt, Russia. In New Mexico the air is dry, curing meat in the sunlight, and mummifying bodies exposed without burial. Putrifacation is nearly impossible. The French have now a superb army of nearly a million of men, three times

larger than when Prussia crushed them ' at Sedan. ' A theatrical agent writes to a friend in Melbourne that there is a prospect of the wonderful instrumental, vocal, and talking telephone, being shortly introduced to the Australian public. An enterprising Chicagoan is about to make boxes directly from the pulp of the paper, thus saving much labour, waste, and other expenses. There is a large establishment in Chicago which is engaged in the manufacture of various articles, such as jewelry, brushes, combs, &c, from celluloid— a substance obtained by dissolving guncotton in camphor. Profiting by the recent hotel fire at St. Louis, many of the occupants of rooms in buildings in the business portion of Chicago, have fastened rope or wire ladders to the roof, which pass in front of the windows. Lazar's Opera Troupe is to be followed in Sydney by the Troubadours, a troupe similar to the celebrated Yokes Family. In addition to locks and hardware of various kinds, the Americans are now sending into Birmingham large quantities of machine-made boots and shoes. I George Darrell's play, " Transported \ for Life," has^proved successful in Sydney. It is highly sensational, and the digger and convict business take well. Wong Chinfoo is delivering lectures at various towns through the States, on the Chinese social and religious systems. A steel wire hawser, 150 fathoms long and l£ tons in weight, has been supplied to the iron-clad frigate Alexandra. A hemp hawser would be double the weight and occupy six times the space. An oil tank, near Millerstown, Pa., was struck by lightning, the oil ignited, and spread to neighbouring tanks. Before it could be checked, 32,000 barrels were consumed. Loss §85,000. A valuable Newfoundland dog, in Wakefield Mass., rebelled against wearing the law muzzle. He did his best to tear it off, and failing, deliberately walked to a pond and drowned himself. The steamship L'Amerique, which for j months had such an experience with j Jersey sands and Atlantic storms, has j been relaunched as staunch as ever, and was to have sailed for France on the 23rd June. A Mrs O'Neil, in Brooklyn, has been detected in systematic teaching of young children to steaL Six girls have been taught the science of stealing by her. She was arrested. j The new drink-registering apparatus is !in use in all Virginia bar-rooms. The ' barkeeper turns a crank for every drink [he sells. A tax of one cent is collected on every drink. Ever since the capture of Paris, the j French have suffered severely from the humiliation , of defeat, and have been steadily preparing for a renewal of the contest. The enforcement of the excise law at the out-of-town resorts for the middle classes of New York caused much dissatisfaction. Mr Joe Jefferson's daughter was married on June 6 th, in London, to Mr B. L. Farjeon of novelistic note. Mr Jefferson was to open at the Haymarket on the 11th July.