Odds and Ends.

Otago Witness, Issue 1382, 25 May 1878, Page 4

Odds and Ends.

The Edinburgh University Club in London has completed its 14th year, and now numbers 307 members.

Queen Victoria has half-a-dozen palaces — Buckingham, St. James, Kensington, Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral.

The 78th Highlanders, at present stationed in Edinburgh Castle, are under orders for the Curragh Camp, Ireland.

The experiment is about to be tried of sending California!! salmon in refrigerators all the way to the English markets.

Unclaimed money is due to Frank Thomas, son of Maurice and Mary Jane Thomas, supposed to be in New Zealand.

General Grant is expected home in the autumn. Preparations are in progress to give him a public reception in Philadelphia. In Michigan, the public schools have an attendance of 356,264. Male teacher, s receive average salaries of <§42 54 per month.

Both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature have passed the Bill forbidding the employment of women in drinking saloons.

The only success as yet achieved by the Sydney Torpedo Corps was in escaping very narrowly from blowing up their own steamer.

, John T. Raymond, the actor, has begun with $500 a subscription for a monument to be placed over the grave of Charlotte Cushman.

Sir James Fergusson has addressed the Edinburgh Conservative Working Men's Association in defence of an Established Church.

Morning Light is the title of a new journal issued by Mr Spiers, of Bloomsbury, London, to advance the Swedenborgian cause. The gardener bird, a native of New Guinea, dresses with bright fruit and flowers a little platform in front of his nest to please his mate. Unclaimed money is due to Colin M'lntosh, born in Greenock about 1846, who was last heard of from Auckland, New Zealand, in 1870.

The Hon. G. K. Vernon has completed the first volume of the " Ayrshire Herd Book " so far as to be able to put it into the printer's hands. The entries number 444.

In reply to the telegram from the Irish Roman Catholic M.P.'s, the Pope has expressed his thanks, and transmitted his blessing upon them and upon Ireland. A return shows the value of articles exported from Canada to Australia between July Ist, 1874, and December 31st, 1877, to have been $422,891. A Bill now before the Senate of Ohio prohibits betting on elections under a penalty of $1 to $500 fine, or imprisonment from ten days to aix months.

George F. Train remarks that America will never make any progress until the 60,000 churches are turned into Turkish baths, and the 60,000 priests into shampooers. Indeed ! A pair of splendid Clydesdale mares, aged eight and ten years respectively, recently sold in London at the high price of £1000 for the pair.

The London Missionary Society has over 1000 Christian congregations in Madagascar, and 4500 children are taught in their mission schools.

Settlers are pouring into Kansas and Nebraska by tens of thousands. A large portion of them are from Illinois, Wisconsin, and lowa. Dr Schliemann is building a house in Athens. He calls his daughter Andromache, and his servant-maids Penelope and Briseis.

Several of the London coffee taverns are already doing a good business. They are carried on by a company, of which the Hon. W. F. Oowper-Temple is the president.

The tithing receipts of the Mormon Church in Utah amounted last year to $445,000. At a late Church conference 57 missionaries were appointed to go to Europe. Among the theological students at Oberlin, Ohio, is a Japanese, named Taro Tamra. He is a graduate of Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon. A Melbourne paper says : " Hardly a day passes but some account is recorded of a house being entered and its contents ransacked during the temporary absence of the family."

The steamer Garonne, sailing under the Orient flag, arrived in Hobson's Bay on the 24th April after a voyage of only 49 days. She touched at the Cape of Good Hope for coal.

Unclaimed money is due, in England, to Caroline Casper, widow of Captain Martin Casper, who left Melbourne about 1863, for Otago, New Zealand. Popular education is making great progress in Japan. The latest statistics show the school attendance to be nearly 2,000,000, or 6 per cent, of the entire population. . About 30 States have received their standards setting forth the metric system of weights and measures, whi,ch is now being introduced, Mr Palmer, of Ballarat, has demonstrated that the telephone acts by electricity only, as he passes a current through the bodies of a number of persons without interruption to the sound.

On Good Friday, the church in which Bishop Moorhouse preached, formerly the most despised of the Melbourne Anglican places o£ worship, was crowded absolutely to suffocation.

Seven young men found guilty, ia Melbourne, of having brutally assaulted the police, were sentenced to term* of im-

prisonment varying from one to three years.

The National currency paper money now in use in Japan was engraved and printed in New York City. Japanese artists prepared the designs, which were re-drawn.

Prince Louis, the son of Napoleon 111., has just entered on his twenty-third year. Be cannot exactly be called Prince Imperial, for there is no French Emperor.

The largest mileage of any railroad in England is that of the Great Western, 2081 miles. One of its tunnels cost £1,000,000. The recklessly extravagant Brunei was engineer.

Jules Verne is planning a yachting trip into all the seas of Europe. He intends to take notes cf their scenery for the purpose of giving a true local colouring to forthcoming stories. The mean height of the American Indian is 67 934 inches ; of the American white man, 67-672; Scotch, 67 066; English, 66 575; Russian, 66 393; French, 66-277 ; Mexican, 66-110.

Mr Irving has been representing Louis XI, in the play of that name, and the whole conception is said to be rarely intellectual, and the result is the greatest of Mr Irving's successes.

At the King of Spain's wedding, the ladies wore white lace mantillas. Nothing is more becoming to brunettes than white lace, especially if it has become invested with the tint of age.

New Zealand is the most highly taxed of all the Australasian Colonies. We are paying in colonial taxes £1 6s. 4£d. per head more than is paid in Victoria. > Another million and a-half is asked for £he Brooklyn Bridge, which will bring the expenditure up to ten million dols.

"Deimus" and "Phobus" are the names bestowed by Professor Hall upon the newly-discovered satellites of Mars. The Bureau of Navigation has accepted the names.

The illumination of the Gilbert elevated railroad along Sixth Avenue, New York, makes that thoroughfare at night one of the most cheerful in the world. r

Cape Town wool merchants complain that the American tariff is so high as to fender the trade unprofitable ; in fact, Washed wool is never sent.

. Muoh of the late Brigham Young's perBonal property was recently sold at auction, at Salt Lake. His gold watch brought $900, the guard-chain $300, and the spectacles were sold for a fabulous amount.

At the June commencement of the Boston University, a lady, Miss Monica Mason, will be one of the representatives of the Medical Department.

The annual production of butter in the United States is estimated at $150,000,000 ; that of cheese $60,000,000. The production of butter in France in 1876 was estimated at $18,660,000 as its cash value.

The American Commissioner of Agriculture wishes to try the experiment of planting the date palm in the Colorado deserts. The Khedive of Egypt will exchange young palms for specimens of American trees. i Mr Crozier, the distinguished Long Island farmer, has invented a milker that works perfectly. A visitor states that a boy seven years old milked two cows at a time with it in his presence. Bishop Burgess, of the Roman Catholic Church in Michigan, has issued a pastoral calling attention to the alarming increase of marriages between Catholics and Protestants and infidels.

Messrs Powers, Rutherford, and Co., Melbourne, intend to sell at auction, on the 25th June, 100 ewes, said to be the purest Lincoln blood in the Colonies.

Unclaimed money is due, in England, to Dora Wood, born in Hull, and who emigrated to New Zealand about 1865.

A Wisconsin gentleman has invented and patented what he claims is an indestructible leather leg, which recommends itself on account of its lightness, strength, and durability.

It is estimated that 400,000 acres of new ground will be broken and cultivated in Northern Minnesota during the ensuing season.

Lord Dunmore has been offered £5000 for the two-year-old Shorthorn heifer, the daughter of Duchess 97th, by 6th Duke of Geneva.

H. M. Krouse, of Montrose, lowa, will graft this season 200,000 ' apple, 15,000 cherry, and 10,000 plum trees.

The Earl of Dunraven, who is juat back from the States, horrified the Peers, lately, in the House of Lords, by ejaculating at the end of some long-winded speech, "Kybosh !"

Foreign journals are rife with details of new experiments and tests of the telephone. It seems to furnish a measure of very delicate electric currents.

Efforts are making to secure the presence of the Rev. James Marfcineau, of England, in Boston during the May anniversaries.

As a rule, the eggs laid by birds in holes are round, while those which are incubated upon the ledges of rocks are elongated at one end, bo that when touched the egg will not roll off, but will simply turn on its axis.

On the 4th March about 3000 persons assembled at the Oval, London, to witness the eighth International Rugby Union Football Match between England and Scotland. S.cotland had £he best of the game all through.

A dog show has recently been held at St. Louis, U.S.A. The entries amounted to 1000, and amongst them were some animals sent over from England. It has been arranged that Mr Gough, the celebrated temperanoo lecturer, should pay a visit to Britain during the present year. He will give a series of leoturei,