Multum in Parvo.

Otago Witness, Issue 1505, 18 September 1880, Page 6

Multum in Parvo.

(Compiled for the Otago Witness.)

"India in 1880" Is the name of a book vy Sir Richard Temple which will shortly appear. A handsome monument has been erected n Shanklia Cemetery to the officers and men who perished in the JEurydice. j The Church Congress of 18S0 will be held at Leicester on September 2S, 29, 30, and Ootebar 1. A society for the relief of shipwrecked mariners 1 families has been formed at Paris, on the model of the English society. Bret Harte is lecturing in London on early emigration to California and the North-west Pacific Coast. His lecture is called " The Argonauts of '49." Xtsv. Mr Adam, of Rochester, N. YMY M Coa.cregational church, has created a sensation by boldly and publicly denying the doctrines of 'ft hell and a devil. The Dean of Westminster is preparing a aeries of essays on ecclesiastical subjects, which will be called "Christian Instituions." The strength of the Dutch-Indian army is returned at 1466 officers, 36,640 non-com-missioned officers and men, with 1281 horses. Of the officers only two are natives. Dunedin aßd suburbs have a population of 31,800, and 179 places at which liquors can i be procured, of which 108 are hotels and 71 grocers' shops. It is expected that an arrest will very toon be made in connection with the mysterious disappearance of gold in transit from the Queensland National Bank at Cooktown, to the City Bank, Sydney. A Barcelona telegram states that a cotton mill in that city had been set on fire by the operatives, 1000 in number.. The flames were extinguished, and toe ringleaders arrested. Dr Pears* n, the new Bishop of Newcastle, is described by a contemporary &s * man 6ft high, with an expression full of intelligence bat not suggestive of keen intellectual power. . A " Movem," or ninety days devotion and prayer lor rain, was held recently in the Catholic Chuohes of Brisbane. Bain ia very much wanted, not only in and around Bria- 1 bane, bat all over Austra'i*. The Ordre, of Paris— the Bonapartist ' organ — preoiots that before long the remains 1 of Napoleon lit. and his son will be brought from Chiaeihurat end placed under the dome of the Invalides. Several human boua3 reoently unearthed •* Plymouth, U.S., are claimed to be part of the Pilgrim Fathers who were buried there in .the first winter, which made suoh havoo with them. French history in the past hundred years exhibit! three women who have perhaps experienced more splendour and more bitter grief and mortification than any other three •women in the world- Marie Antoinette, Josephine, and Eugenic. A large and influential committee 0! shipbuilders and marine engineers has been formed in GUagow for the purpose of pco mbting an exhibition of naval and marine engineering models in that city. borne cattle from Zululand, presented to the Queen by Sir Garnet Wolseley, have arrived at Windsor. They are handsome specimens of oxen, but exceedingly small. On their arrival at Windsor, they were taken to the Prince Consort's Shaw Farm. The Br*Bsey family in England must, next to Mr Vanderbilt, be almost the largest holders of securities, other thaa real estate, in the world. Their father left them over £6,000,000 in personal property, and they do not own more than £20,000 • year of real estate. Prof. Baeyer has discovered and patented a method of obtaining artificial indigo, which is to be worked on a commercial scale by the Baden Aniline Company. The indigo is obtained from chloride of isatine, which is produced from benzole. After he was outlawed, Ned Kelly received ft letter from a reporter of the Age, who was desirous of seeing him in the ranges ; but distrusted the communication, thinking it came from the police. A Swede io making the round of Europe In a car drawn by three Irish dogs, and he hopes to complete bin tour by Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Italy, and England in six months! This exceptional tonrist is oonvessant with many tongues. Seventy five persons recently, after attending a wedding dinner at Ch&telet, in Belgium, experienced violent pain, and several were confined to their beds for some days. The cook had put hemlock in the soup by mistake for parsley. The French Jesuits recently expelled from their own country have requested, permission from the Spanish Government to establish a penitentionary colony in the Island of Fernando Po; The request is receiving consideration. Sir James J. R. Mackenzie, Bart., formerly of Rosehaugh, Ross-Bbire, is now employed as a clerk in London at a small salary. He is the direct descendant of the infamous ** Bloody Mackenzie," of Covenanting times, His family estate at Roßehangh and other residences were sold for the benefit of his creditors about fifteen or twenty years ago. The statistics of the Queensland Colleotor of Customs shows that tne quantity of sugar exported from that colony during the fortnight ending July 30tb, was 348 tons— 3o2 tons of which were shipped in Brisbane, and 46 tons in Maryborough. Sir Richard Temple, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, paid a high tribute to the valour of tha British troops in recent campaigns ; to the sepoys, who had equalled them in endurance and discipline and to the scientific men — civil and military —who had planned the lines of railway. A radical English paper lately offered a prize of two guineas for the best poisible English Liberal Cabinet. There were 700 competitors. 350 gave the premiership to Mr Gladstone, 260 to Lord Hartington, and 94 to Lord Granville. A general order has just been promulgated by the military authorities at Munich, strictly forbidding the officra of the garrison to use the tramcars of the Bavarian capitil, on the ground that "it is not decorous that^ officers should show themselves in public conveyances ut>ilj«ed by all classes of the people."

The objections to Lord Ripon's religion are neither felt nor expressed by any eeotion in India. ! It is stated that some of the Jesuits exiled 1 from Fran c mteni to settle in Wales. They htve leased the Corbet Arms Hotel, Aberdovey, Merionethshire, for 21 years. A petition from the medical" profession is to be presented to the Imperial Parliament, praying for the revival of the Medical School at Oxford, which is now practically In abeyance. The Marquis of Bipon has given 20,000 rupees towards the expenses of the erection of the proposed Roman Catholic Cathedral in Simla. Mount Vesuvius has bsen lit up by the electric light, three lamps being placed at the tramway station, nine along the tramway, and three on the cone. An extensive sale of autographs, which recently took place at Leipzig, contained some English specimens of no small interest. Amongst them was a letter from Qaeen Elizabeth, in her own hand- writing, which fetched 300 marks. The Melbourne model lodging-house con« tlnues a commercial success —35,429 lodgers, 10 per cent, dividend, L2OOO to the reserve fund, aad L 62 cash balance is not bad for one half year's work. The ritualistic society, the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, at its annual meeting, just held, reported that 69 priests and 1000 lay communicants had been added to the roll of members . The society now has 900 clerical and 12,000 lay member*. The French Government have introduced telegraph cards, which are sold at postoffices and tobacoa shops for a franc. By means of these a message can be sent to any part of Paris, and a reply received without extra charge. Advices received at Washington from the I Spanish authorities concerning the firing upon the Ameiican schooner Ella A. Merrit by a Spanish war vessel off Oaba show that the Spanish authorities incline to the belief that the vessel which committed the outrage waa a pirate. M. Uhevernl, now completing his ninety • ' fifth year, is delivering his course of lecfcnreg on chemistry in the Museum of Natural History, Paris, with all the vigour and enthusi- j Mm of oi a man in middle life. It is said that German workmen give a very fine temper to their edge-toools by | simp'y heating them to a white haat, and plunging them repf atediy into sealing-wax, so that finally the tool is too cold to penetrate the wax. The bill for the establishment of post-offica savings banks, based on the English system, bas passed the French Chamber of Deputies. The maximum account will be raised to £120, instead of £40, «s at present hi the French savings bank. j The British Museum has recently received five boxes of antiquities from Babylon, the results of the excavations. Amongst the recent arrivals are some tablets containing the names of Kandalanu and Nabonatur, the Kinne'adan- s and Nabonassar of the Canon of Ptolemy, the last the celebrated monarch o* the era dating from b.o 747. It is maintained by Dr J. M. Anders that a large proportion of the vapour of the atmosphere may be accounted for through the process of transposition from plant life, and he considers that the practice of forest culture should be highly commende i as a means of improving atmospheric conditions. The natural increase of population in the United Kingdom in 1879. by excess of births over deaths, was 437. 192, which was rather larger than the number ia 1878 ; but there was a considerable increase of emigration in 1879, and, so far as is known, a decrease of immigration. The coast line of British Columbia is as follows : — Vancouver's Island, including inlet's, 1723 miles ; Continental shores, 4774 miles ; shores of Queen Charlotte group, 684 miles ; thus showing an approximate total of 7181 statute miles, or more than doable the coast line of Great Britain and Ireland. The well-known writer, Mayne Keid, has been experimenting with Mexican seed potatoes in Herefordshire, England, thereby doubling his crop and entirely escaping the blight, which has been so fatal to the English and Irish potato crop. Lieutenant Commander Micheson haa lately called attention in the New York Academy of Soience to some curious effects of sunlight when seen through a narrow slit. As the width of the slit is diminished the diffraction bands spread out and separate, until nothing is eeen bat the central bright space. On a Sunday evening recently, while the Rev. Dr Morrison, of Glasgow, was preaching to a large congregation in the E. U. Church, Greenock, some peison entered the porch or lobby of the building *nd poured a quantity of whisky into the water which the congregation use for drinking. There are seventy-eight islands in the Tahiti group. The native population of the entire archipelago only amounts to 3500, and they are mostly Protestants. The chief induß tries are the preparation of cocoanut oil and mother-of-pearl shell, which is bought up by two firms at Papeete. The whole of j the industries amount to about £10,000 per annum. A singular discovery was made in Paris recently during the alterations which are now being carried out at the General Postoffice. In a panel near one of the boxes was found a letter, which had been posted exactly 50 years ago, and which by some mischance had got stuck in the panel instead of finding its way into the box. "The original Manchester Railway," says the Liverpool Mercury, "consisted of 30 miles of line, and a few little tea-kettles for engines, and cost £1,000,000 sterling. That j has developed into the London and NorthWestern Kail way Company, with a capital of £100,000,000 sterling, a revenue of nine to ten millions, which employed nearly 50,000 people and carried 50,000,000 persons last year — one-sixth of the railway passenger tsaffic of the country. They had 2220 engines, 40,000 waggons, 6000 carriages, and 3600 horses." The Liverpool steamer Teutonic, which recently arrived in the Mersey, from Canada passed on the outward voyage many largo icsbergs. She steamed 30 miles through closely packed ice, sometimes being nnable Ito make any progress. Eight vessels were fast in the ice with their sails, furled, and 20 others could make so way.