Odds and Ends.

Otago Witness, Issue 1417, 18 January 1879, Page 21

Odds and Ends.

[Compiled expressly for the Witness.] The Hobartown Mercury saya that quite an impetus h&B been given to the timber trade in consequence of the abolition of the duty on timber by the New Zealand Government. The day fixed upon for the opening of the Melbourne International Exhibition is the Ist October, 1880. Intending exhibitors should comnunicate with Mr T. B. Hill, acting secretary. Sanskrit is in future to be acoepted Instead of Greek for the previous examination at Cambridge in the caße of undergraduates from Eastern countries. These have hitherto lost much time in learning Greek. Woods and M'Cormick'a reapera and binders have been working successfully side by side on Ellis Brothers' estate, (Harrington, Tasmania, on a crop of wheat averaging about 35 bushels per acre. The British Museum has lately acquired a small fragment of a terra-cotta tablet, con- j taming part of the annals of Nebuchadnezzar. The portion relates to hia 37th year and a war with Egypt. Tricycles have of late in England become a fascinating and exhilarating means of exercise and locomotion. Ladies have taken to them, doctors take their visits on them, and tradesmen circulate their goods by them. A deputation of Chinese merchants waited upon the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales lately to complain of outrages committed by a mob. A list of 27 outrages committed upon Chinamen within the month ending December 11 was submitted. The Scientific American of November 16 describes a new form of telephone which transmits a whisper, and requires no call or alarm, as a loud sound will produce a noise which will be heard .in any part of an ordinary room. The importation of a cargo of fresh fish into Marseilles from La Plata in South America is one of the results of the discovery of the refrigerating process. Elementary practical meohanical classes are to be started at Cambridge University under Professor Stuart. A workshop has been erected and supplied with tools and machines. The study of "the science and geometry of dress "—otherwise dressmaking— iß about to be introduced in the A and B intermediate graces of the Indianopolis schools. There are two olubs in London to which men and women have equal rights of mem* bership — the Albemarle in Piccadilly and the Bnssell Club in Regent street. The name of the inventor of the luminous watch- dial is Menitz. His employer, M. Rusaer, of Chaux de Fonds, Geneva, has already received large orders for watches on this system. Victoria pays for railway coal 30s per ton, while New South Wales pays for ooal used on the Northern line, an average of 13s l£d, and on the Western and Southern lines 17s 7d per ton. All the vacant land for miles around Dunedin is being divided up and sold in quarter* acre allotments. The tender of Messrs Mort and Co., of Sydney, have been accepted for the construction of 78 locomotives for the New South Wales railways, to cost about £300,000. The Sydney people have been adopting various means of supporting the seamen on strike. A concert for that purpose at the I Temperance Hall was a great success* The Hon. W. J. Clark, M.L.C., Victoria, is registered as the possessor of 164,352 acres of land, worth £476, 727. The land tax on this property is £6000 per annum. Vienna has 200,000 Jews. The leading banks, business houses, newspapers, and hotels are controlled by them. The prettiest women in the city are Baid to be Jewesses. The four ruffians, Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Stephen Hart, and Joe Byrnes, keep the whole of the north-eastern district of Victoria in a fever of excitement. It is a disgrace to the colony. Ex-priest Chiniquy, at last accounts, was at Goulburn, New South Wales. He makes a living by reviling the church and religion which he took a solemn oath to support. While the world has been waiting for Edison to prove that he has split up the electric light, great progress has been made towards solving the problem by Mr X,. Werdermann, of London. Some photographs were taken of Paris from the captive balloon, which are said to be most interesting, although there is in distant parts a want of distinctness, owing to the motion of the car. A sum of 700,000 francs has been voted out of the National subscription, Paris, for covering the travelling expenses of 5000 working men to the exhibition of science applied to industry to be held in the Palais de I' lndustrie in the spring. It is proved in Nature of the 31st October that Eilsha Gray first solved the problem theoretically of the speaking telephone, and Graham Bell solved it practically. It in supposed that the Rev. Mr Fitchett's views on scientific questions had something to do with his leaving the Wesleyan Church, although undoubtedly he had long protested against itinerancy. At a lecture and concert held at the Town Hall, Queenstown, on the 17th ult., Miss Tunnicliffe, who was leaving the district for Dunedin, was presented with a purse of sovereigns. The Evangelist siys that the scholarship which the late Sir John Richardson originated for the Girls' High School, in connection with Miss Dalrymple, will in a few years yield £50 per annum. Hia Holiness the Pope sayß in & letter to Cardinal Nina that it is with immense bitterness of heart he sees under his eyes heterodox temples and schools erected in the city of Rome in great numbers. The New Zealand Churchman says that it is not on pecuniary grounds that the Rev. Mr Fitchett has been tempted to join the Church of England, as he has been offered far higher pecuniary inducements elsewhere. President Seelye, of Smith College for Women, in America, says that in no ooq department, from the lowest to mathematics and Greek, has there been a deficiency. The girls study better than boys and Bhow higher scholarship. The Church of England people are evidently proud of the acQeaeion to their ranks gf a

man of the Rev. Mr Fitohett's ability. The New Zealand Churchman says that he long had leanings towards that Church. A "writer in the Hobart Town Mercury complains of the hardship which Congre* gational clergymen have to endure in delivering two sermons per week all the year round, and suggests that the Wesleyan system should be adopted. When removed they would simply have to furbish up their old sermons and re- deliver them. The New Zealand Churchman says that "Breadth of toleration, with loyal submidsion to the prayer book, are the two distinguishing characteristics of good churchmen nowadays." It is said that there are many in Australia of a type so low as to consider the exploits of the Kelly gang of bushrangers, acts of daring bravery and heroio courage. Various trade societies in New South Waleß have voted sums of money for the support of the seamen on strike, and the Sydney tailors resolved upon voting the whole of their funds sooner than the seamen should give in. There is in Scotland a school for girls— the St. Andrew's Sohool— which is fitted to prepare pupils for such ordeala as the University of London Matriculation Examination. The November number of the American Mail and Export Journal contains a sketch of the resources of the Australasian. Colonies by Mr W. John Stonhill. Paris claims a resident population of two millions, and during the exhibition there were half a million strangers in the city. <It seemed as if half of this number emptied itself into the plain where the late Sunday review of 50,000 troops was held. It i 3 a mistake to suppose that discoveries spring ready accomplished from the brain of Mr Edison. He says that his experiments relating to the carbon telephone alone cover many thousand pages of manuscript. "Tahite," of the Australasian, lately intimated that Morton Tavareß was "a bogus manager," whereupon Tavares lets out tha fact that Tahite took " tip " on two occasions, and the latter admits that he received the cash "underpressure." Mr Berry took to London with him the balance of the debentures for the £5,000,000 Victorian loan which has been authorised. There is great distress in Cornwall. The suspension of the Oorniah tin-mining industry has now become almost total. The few mines still working have largely reduced their hands. The London bird-catchers are now busy in their professional vocation, trapping and netting linnets and goldfinohes, and are realising a good harvest at their oalling. All financial proceedings in respect to the Channel tunnel are postponed on account of the want of English support, in consequence of the disfavour with which the scheme is looked upon by the heads of the English Government. The physician of the Michigan State Prison saya that fully 90 per cent, of the sickness among the conviots consists of throat diseases, and recommends that they be allowed to wear beards. It is said that apples are so plentiful in New Hampshire, aad prices so low, that the farmers cannot afford to pay for picking them. In the American State and Congressional elections the Republicans were successful in 13 Northern States, and the Democrats have been victorious in 15 middle and southern States. In great Britain they are dying of plethora. They have too much coal, too much iron, too much cotton, too much everything, including privation. Mr B. W. Roberts, a workman from New Zealand, is fitting up troughs In cattle-trucka for watering stock while in transit, on the New South Wales railways. Mrs Hardinge-Britten has been lecturing in Sydney, on the Chinese Labour question. Her remedy Is a graduated scale of wages and a graduated scale of labourers fixed by law. It 1b stated in the Brisbane Week that the Wesleyan and Presbyterian ministers of Rookampton interchange pulpits, and once on Sundays use the Church of England service. The hut of a man named John Grace, at Glazier's Bay, Tasmania, caught fire whilst he and his wife were away, and their three children were burnt to death. ' The eldest was four years old. The postal correspondence of the Japanese islands during the year 1877 included 22,053,430 ordinary and 606,354 registered letters, 6,764,272 post cards, and 7,372,536 newspapers.