Odds and Ends.

Otago Witness, Issue 1449, 30 August 1879, Page 24

Odds and Ends.

(Compiled for the Otago Witness.)

The new Eddyatone lighthouse is being erected on a more solid portion of the rock than that upon whioh the old one stands. It is to be of granite, 138 ft high, and will cost £78,000. The fastest run on record was made by the English nail steamer Durban. She ran from Cape Town to Plymouth— 6ooo miles — in 18 days and 22 hours— making for the voyage 13.1 knots. The American lighthouse board are about to adopt a buoy which will emit a light visible seven miles, and give a whistle signal which will be heard from two to four miles. German beer is becoming more and more naturalized in France and other parts of Europe, as the supply of wine is diminished by the destructive aotion of the phylloxera. The Egyptian post-office, whioh it under the management of an Englishman, cleared a profit of £130,000 last year. We don't believe it. With two of the Manoe heliographs, intercourse has been carried on over a distance of nearly 100 miles by the English army in Afghanistan. It is useless in cloudy weather. More men die at 63— the grand climaterio or turn of life — than at any other age, leaving violent deaths aside. A like critical period for feminine humanity is 47 years. We have in New Zealand a public school system which is the admiration of all, What we now want as an adjunct necessary for the education of the miiid in maturer years, is free public libraries. The Dunkers, who settled in Pensylvania 160 yean ago, no longer hold their land in common, but divide it up like other people. Their language haa become a curious mixture of Dutch, German, and English. Mr Elliaton, late mate in the P. and O. service, who suffered much ignominy through Weiberg s gold box robbery, is, through Mr A. K. Smith, M.P., seeking recompense from the Victorian Parliament. The Boston School Committee having ordered that all sohool teachers should give lessons in natural history, professors are employed in teaching the teachers. The Dunkers of Pensylvania keep the original Sabbath day, and celebrate the Lord's Supper at night — washing each other's, feet as an act of humiliation. There were 15 British and foreign wrecks reported during the week ending June 14th, making a total of 735 for the present year, or an increase of 69 as compared with the corresponding period of 1878. The last remarkable application of papier macho is the manufacture of a revolving dome for the astronomical observatory of Prof. Greene of the Polytechnio Institute at Trvy. Afe the Boston celebration of the onehundredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas Moore, poems were read by Emerson, Holmes, and Longfollow. The total endowment of the public schools of the United States is reported to be $8,000,000, and it is estimated that the average daily attendance is 4,500,000. Lord. Dftlbousie, in conscquencco of ttlO

loises sustained by his tenantry, is to make an abatement of 10 per cent, from the rents of 1878 on all holdings of £10 and upwards. The largest stock-raising farm in the world has just been formed in Colorado, by the amalgamation of the Hermosilla and Huerjano ranches, near Puoblo. The farms together contain nearly 100,000 acres. The Bathgate, Linlithgowßhire, Cricket Club has won a splendid victory over the club of the Edinburgh Young Men's Christian Association. The State Line has six steamships named after the States of Indiana, Nevada, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Alabama, running between New York aud Glasgow. They are alt comparatively new. Cyrus W. Field has subscribed £25,000 to the new Submarine Cable Company to lay a cable from California t1)t 1 ) the Hawaiian Islands and thence to Japan, completing the electric circuit of the earth. Barnara'a great show, now in Canada, took 57 railway cars to bring it to St John. There are 307 people, 202 horses and poniaa, 78 waggons, 11 elephants, and. six camels connected with the concern, There are throughout the world upwards of 15,000 Masonic lodges, and the number of i brethren ia calculated at about 5,000,000. Ia | the Unified States there are 9894 lodges. It is said that an eminent Methodist divine once invited Cardinal Newman to a theological discussion ; but the latter dei cltned, and offered to play the violin against 1 his Methodist brother. It appears that the new Queen of Holland has a good deal of difficulty in learning the language of her adopted country. Before marriage she learned high Dutch. She has now to learn low Dutch. i The Commissioners of the International Exhibition think that the buildings will be completed on the 13bh September, and that the opening will take place on the 17th. A correspondent at Sale says that the scarcity of fat sheep in the district is so great, that some people are seriously contemplating trucking a supply from Melbourne. It is reported that Mr Jefferson intends to abandon Rip Van Winkle for a time, and act in a play by Boueicaulfc, " The Parish Clerk." The people of the United States pay $700,000,000 a year for spirituous and fermented liquors, and only §55,000,000 for education, and $48,000,000 for religion. It is estimated that the seven weeks strike of the 'longshoremen in New York caused a loss to the steamship companies of $250,000, and to the men of $140,000. Under the New Constitution, every male inhabitant of California over 21 and under 60, will pay an annual tax of $2 into the State School fund. Denominational sohools oan receive no publio money. Trees are being planted in all the wide streets of Melbourne, and also in some of the less busy thoroughfares in the heart of the city. Last year a sum of £2800 was Bpent in this work. A ohapel was built on the deck of H.M. S. Orontea, for the coffin of the late Prince Napoleon, and the Rev. Dr Rooney took passage' from the Cape to say daily masses. The New South Wales aoc abolishing the duty on gold was assented to by his Excellency the Governor on Tuesday. It comes into operation on the Ist October next. ! The Kelson Colonist says that upwards of twenty tons of ferns and shrubs were snipped by the s.s, Claud Hamilton on the 9th August, for Melbourne and Sydney. In oomequence of the low prices ruling in the Sydney market, stockowners in the Dubbo district are commencing to again send their cattle to Melbourne for sale. The trees at present being planted in the streets of Melbourne are the oak, elm, poplar, ficus (Morton Bay fig), pinus insignia, and blue gum. The person who undertakes to teach English, has not to teach the 26 letters, but he has to teach 150 habits of translating black marks into spokea sounds. A Boston company turning out 8000 cans, or 24 OOOlbs, of baked beans and codfish balls daily, finds a large outlet for both articles in England, France and South America. An effort is about to be made by a committee of Roman Catholic clergy to have the State laws modified so that a lottery scheme will ba inaugurated for the benefit of Bishop Paroell. In the mining camps of California it is usual to work on Sundays, and all over the j State there is but little church- going, Sunday being a day of recreation. The pastor of a Congregational Church at Mansfield, Ohio, has a telephone in his pulpit with the wires leading to the houses of several aged and invalid members of his parish. The progress of scientific knowledge is so rapid that the great cyclopaedias instead of being always infallible authorities, are com1 polled to make frequent amendments. Philadelphia, for its population of 800,000, has 564 churches and mission stations. Of these 96 are Methodists, 84 Episcopalian, 84 Pi eebyterian, 67 Baptist, 44 Roman Catholic, and 36 Lutheran. Sixty thousand tons of iron ore have lately been imported from the north of Africa for making Bessemer steel at Bethlehem, Scranton, and Baldwin, Pa. It came as ballast. Over 500 Canadian emigrants, with their baggage, filling 48 cars left Paris, Ontaria, Canada, for Manitoba. While the grain has just been sown in the North-western States, the wheat harvest in Texas ia almost finished, and harvesting in California will begin in three weeks. The secret of the objects of Stanley's new African expedition had been well kept up to the time of the departure of the last mail ; but it was generally supposed that his destination was the Congo. A French lady, Mine. Rolland, taking a wedding tour wifch her husband round the world, was stooping to fill a silver drinking cup, when she fell into the Niagara river and was carried over the Falls. A merchant, BittiDg in hia office in South street, New York, recently received an answer to hia dispatch sent to Shanghai, six hours previously. Thirty thousand miles in air hours is good time. Committees of the Cornwall Central Relief Fund and of the Cornwall Wesleyan Relief Food, are devoting a portion of the funds

at their disposal to assist miners to emigrate to the colonies. Some 50 new species of fish have been discovered in American Atlantic waters during the year 1878, by the labours of the U. S. Fish Commission. A system of pneumatic tubes took the place of telegraph lines in Paris on May Ist, for the transmission of messaged from one part of the city to another. Legacies to local charities, amounting in the aggregate to £15,000, are announced by the trustees of the late John Ross, jun., Esq., Jordanhill, Edinburgh. The' Utah and Northern Railway is completed to Eagle Rock Bridge, Snake river, Idaho, 210 miles north of Ogden, Utah. Cork is coming into use in Germany as a filling for winter bed-coverlets in place of feathers. It is described as being warmer, lighter, and cheaper. A meeting has been held at West Oalder, Scotland, for the formation of a Conservative Association, in anticipation of the contest between the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone and the Earl of Dalkwith. The Victorian Volunteers have been mastering the new drill for a twelvemonth past, similar to that introduced in the British army.

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