Odds and Ends,

Otago Witness, Issue 1383, 1 June 1878, Page 4

Odds and Ends,

In France, condemned criminals never know the time fixed for their execution until the moment arrives. The most general and rational thories ascribe earthquakes to steam produced by water acting on heated rock. 1 Wheat-sowing was nearly over in Southern Dakota in March. The area planted is larger than ever before. • Oliver Wendell Holmes writes with, a broad gold pen fixed into a quill handle. . The pen has done duty for 20 years. The works of the Australasian Glass Manufacturing Company at Richmond (Vie.) were started on the 2nd instant. Auckland farmers complain that pheasants are becoming a great nuisance. They eat mangolds, turnips, maize, &c. A Catholic priest of New Haven ia the : strongest opponent to removing of the Bible from the public schools of that city. Presents for tin weddings are tin funnels, pint cups, cullenders, and bakepans, &c, handsomely filled with flowers. Owing to the rise in the value of sheep, the Melbourne Meat Preserving Company have been compelled to suspend operations. Black Hills region proves to be richer in precious minerals than was at firat anticipated. The gold yield last year was $4,000,000. A crushing of 160 tons from Fo. 1 • South New Zealand claim, Gympie, has yielded 274 oz. of gold. In Melbourne, the greengrocers have 'determined to form an association to protect the trade from the market gardeners. . Farmers around Milton, Unuhlla County, Oregon, have broken eight or ten ' thousand acres of new laud and sown it with wheat. At the June commencement of the Bpßton University a lady, Miss Monica Mason, will be one of the representatives ' of the Medical Department. The Cleveland Board of Education has resolved to nominate six ladies and six gentlemen, who Bhall be invited to examine the schools and report their condition, aaid visitors not to be connected in any way with the schools. Pottery dealers and silversmiths are making table furniture, so that no two pieces are alike, and each member of a "family can have his own cup, plate, spoon, or fork. It can only be by the concentration of money, men, books, and museums that truly great and useful schools can be established. There is great value and great inspiration in a truly great 'university. When speaking into a phonograph, indentations are made by a steel point in a strip of tinfoil, corresponding to the form of wave sounds uttered by the mouth. These' sounds, or rather words, may be reproduced by passing the tinfoil again through the instrument. < The strike of the London masons has •'terminated in the defeat of the men.' They were beaten by the importation of foreign labour — a method in no wo,y commendable. It is stated, as a remarkable fact m the life of the late Senator Wade, of America, that his wife furnished him with the ..materials for all the great speeches which 1 he delivered.

President Hayes ia in favour of entering into negotiations with China, with a view to some change in existing treaties by which the immigration of her subjects -to the United Sfcateß can be limited.

Brazil is a magnificent country, governed by an enlightened ruler, and rapidly progressing toward a condition of the ■highest prosperity. It covers an area of •nearly four million square miles. ' Pope Leo XIII. is described as so tall and slender aa to suggest the idea of asceticism. He is very learned theologically, and has been a maker of verses and an admirer of Dante.

Accordiner to a report of the Board of Health of New York, of the ten persons in that city who died last year at the age of 100 and over, nine were born in Ireland.

The name Disraeli has never been borne by any other family than that of the present Lord Beaconafield, and as he has no living relations, it will expire with him.

Caleb Cushing, an American lawyer, has received a feo of more than $100,000 for recovering tho estate of a Cuban which was seized by the Spanish Government.

Bayard Taylor says that the secret of his enormous power of work is an unfailing appetite, a capacity for smoking tobacco interminably, and eight hours' good sleep every night. • Keely, of moter-power fame, is hopelessly bankrupt. An editor, who is one of his deluded stock-holders, says if Keely gets his deserts, he will furnish motive power for breaking stones in the penitentiary. Ex-President Grant and his wife visited the Pope. Cardinal M'Oloakey presented him to his Holiness, who received him with every mark of distinction.

Sir David Salomons suggests that we should abandon Europo to Germany, Russia, and Franco, and take possession of Africa, 'lhus wo could redress the balance.

Mrs Hooker's late addre3s upon "Woman's Rights," before the congressional committees, hti3 been " ordered to be printed," haviug been taken down by a phonographic reporter. The average life of an apple orchard is about 40 years, and, generally speaking, the best way to restore an old one is to plant a new one.

The first newspaper published in New Zealand, the Observer, was printed at Kororareka, Bay of Islands, by Mr Benjamin Isaacs, who now carries on the printing business at Windsor, N.S.W. To the shame of English legislators, be it said, agricultural children are an exception to the law, that if a child of school ago is not being efficiently taught he cannot be employed in remunerative labour.

The new Pope is tall in stature, with a clear resonant voice, a dignified bearing, and a commanding presence. His life has been characterised by many acts of selfdevotion to the faith.

We see it stated in the Fiji papers, that the French Government contemplates the establishment of another French convict station in the Pacific. The location seems to be the New Hebrides.

Prof. J. W. S. Arnold says that Mr Edison's speaking phonograph, or talking machine, is probably the greatest invention in acoustics of this century. The first cattle fair held at Castlemaine (Vie), on the 11th May, proved a great success. The number of animals — horseß, cattle, And sheep — offered was 1286. The Christian Evidence Society of London will have two series of lectures on Christianity delivered in a hall opposite the French Exposition Building, during the season. One series will be in English, and the other in French.

The first woman to be cremated in the United States is Mrs Jane Pitman, wife of the well-known phonographer. Mrs Pitman was a Miss Bragg, of Binghampton, England. At a concert at the Albert Hall, London, on St. David's Day, Madame Patey sang " The Minstrel Boy " so gloriously, that she had to reappear twice, and eventually to repeat the last ver3e. Atrocities in dress are common enough, but we must draw the lino at black satin studded with gilt knobs, and looking exactly like a coffin for buried taste. A petition from Chinese merchants for a separate school for Chinese children in Ban Francisco has been laid on the table by the California Legislature. The Roman Catholica of Ireland are demanding of the British Parliament a, system of denominational educational. Mr Stanley carried with him through the whole of his arduous journey a heavy photographic apparatus, and succeeded in obtaining many very good negatives of views and groups on the great lakes and on the Congo. The fine dust floating in the air of collieries, and that found in malt and other mills, maybe easily ignited and produce destructive explosions. Amongst the other "virtues" of the telephone is that of preserving the voice of your wife. According to a contemporary, you can, so to speak, it up and keep it for years. A firm of American exporters have undertaken to supply London and tho Continent with quail, prairie hens, wild turkeys, canvas-back ducks, and other game and poultry, direct from Chicago. The Paris Municipality has voted 10,000f . to the Voltaire Centenary celebration, though one member thought oOOOf. enough, while another wished to give half the amount to the Rousseau Centenary. Tho dlite of London and Paris are adopting the turban, and Turkish scarfs are more fashionable than lace.

It takes just 31,687 years 17 days 22 hours 45 minutes and 5 seconds to constitute a billion of seconds of time.

An American firm has introduced a machine into its establishment, which will scrapo a large scalded hog in less than ten seconds, and small pigs almost momentarily. Among the English customs which are still being introduced into France, _ after having been well laughed at first, is the fashion of a lady bowing first. Inferior races have heads smaller than Europeans ; the heads of negroes, Red Indians, and the Cochin-Chinese being particularly small, although, by way of compensation, they are particularly hard. The French, German, and Bohemian Socialist clubs of New York on a recent Sunday evening celebrated the establishment of the Commune in Paris. Red flags, badges, and roses were numerous. State detectives at Tewksbury, Ma3S., have arrested a number of men on a charge of living in opon polygamy. An attempt is being made to establish a polygamous colony at Tewksbury. Women have small heads, but, as a journalist hints, a deal of mischief is sometimes packed in them. Men in the South have smaller heads than those in the North, mountaineers than denizens of the plains, artisans than artists.

Father Secchi paid particular attention to spectroscopic subjects, and perhaps achieved greater results in that line of research than any other European obsorverl

People who study natural history in the States aro raising a great outory against tho English sparrow. He mobs tho orioles, bluebirds, robins, martins, and many other native birds, and drives them out of the city parks and gardens.

The German universities cost the Stato just $2,500,000 a year. This is the exact amount charged for them in the budget of the Empire, and the money thus spent is divided amongst 1,300 professors.

San Francisco, the capital of California, which in 1815 was a village with only 100 inhabitants, contained a population of 150,000 ten years ago, and now contains 330,000 inhabitants. Earl Nelson has organized a " Home Beunion Society." Its object is the reunion of Nonconformists with the State Ohuroh.