General News.

Otago Witness, Issue 1586, 15 April 1882, Page 5

General News.

The Spanish Minister of the Colonies has sent instructions to the authorities in Cuba to abolish the infliction of corporal punishment upon negroes in the island. Truth learns that the Duke of Edinburgh has nearly completed an operetta, the scene of which is laid in a Russian village. Tho plot was suggested by the Duchess. Arrangements have been made for placing; the whole of the Government departments in London in telephonio communication with tho Ministerial rooms in the House of Commons. It is said that Mr Tennyson is engaged in writing a poem on the marriage of Prince Leopold. A similar compliment Was paid to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The authorities in the province of Ufa, in Russia, have discovered a large number of the self-mutilating sect spread over several villages, and 200 of the men have been sent to prison. This step is taken by the people to avoid conscription. Some portions of Montreal are so over-run with hungry rats that cats frequently become food for their voracious appetites. They will fall upon pussy in battalions, and when they dopart a few bones and a little fur only remains of the faithful feline.

The electric light is spreading over the whole world. The Shah talks of its superseding gas in his palaco. We also learn that the Sultan of Zanzibar intends to illuminate the streets of his capital with the electric light, and the Maharajah of Mysore's palace is to be lit up with it. " The Confessions of a Medium" is the title of a book which Messrs Griffith and Farran will publish immediately. For obvious reasons it will bear no writer's name, as it reveals in an autobiographical form the tricks by which deceptions are practised by professional and other mediums,

The iSt. Tetersburg police have issued an order forbidding the appearance of any actors or dancers on the stage of theatres of the capital whose dresses have not previously been rendered incombustible by means of chlorate of lime, The same rule has been in force in Berlin for five years. The claims of the merchants who lost their diamonds by. the great robbery in Hatton Garden have been undergoing rigid inquiry, which is now terminating. One company, the Alliance, in which it was stated the principal insurance had been effected, have settled everything by a payment of £8000. M. D'Arsonville, in the Review Scientific, is very sanguine about the future of electricity. He says that it will supersede all the motive 'powers by man, and surpass them in every way ; and he promises to prove, in an early article, that whatever natural force may be employed it is electricity alone which can store and transport it to any distance in aprao tical and economical manner.

The river Volga, in Russia, has been bridged at a point where it is a mile in width. So great are the spring floods at that point that the bridge has been built 100 feet above the lowest level of the water, the depth of the river being more than 50 feet. The bridge rests oft 14 piers : the girders are 364 feet long and 20 feet wide, and were riveted together on the bank of the river. This story is told of Belva Lockwood, the female lawyer, of Washington. A witty fellow was once her opposing counsel, and, when he desired to refer to the Hon. Belva was perplexed. He could not say "my brother," as he did when speaking of the lawyers of his own sex. He did not like to say "my sister" out of respect to that expression. He caused a smile by referring to Belva as "my sister-in-law," but she certainly looked daggers atihim. During the past 20 years 130 new churches have been built in the diocese of London, of which more than 100 have been promoted by the Bishop of London's Fund. There are still 60 churches within the city proper. A writer in Land says that a friend who has recently been travelling in the Crimea writes some interesting notes upon vine culture there. A few years ago land in the Crimea sold for from £7 to £10 the two-and-a-half acres ; but the enterprise of Prince Wornozof and others has been such that this same land now fetches from £110 to £140 the desiatina — two-and-a-half acres.

Consequent on the loss of H. M. ship Dotterel and other explosions, but of a less destructive character, the Admiralty have appointed an important committee to inquire into the subject of gas explosions in the coal bunkers of naval ships, and imperative instructions have been given for their deliberations to be commenced without delay. The grand jury at Sheffield, owing to the great ,'number of serious assaults in the district, recently asked the Recorder to bring before the proper authorities a recommendation that the judge and chairman of Quarter Sessions should be allowed to inflict punishment with the lash upon prisoners in flagrant cases of assault. The Recorder promised to forward their recommendation to the proper quarter The Vienna correspondent of the Daily News telegraphs that there can be no longer any' doubt that the whole Austrian army is being mobilised. Not a single Austrian officer, he says, has the least doubt that the insurrection in Dalmatia and Herzegovina is a mere pretext for sending the army south without too much alarm. He adds :—": — " Italy is preparing for war, and Austria expects a war within a short time."

At a fancy-dress ball given in Paris, the costumes that attracted most attention were a cock and hen, worn by a young married couple. The former was dressed in a bright yellow coat, a jabotof white feathers, knee-breeches of fawnbrown feathers, silk stockings, black shoes, and a field-marshal's hat, with a cock's crest in feathers. The hen was in white satin, covered with snowy- white down feathers, plush bodice, feather paniers made to resemble wings. She carried a tiny basket of golden egga. A cheap system of working the electric light is being tried in a tentative form at Lyons, and has a promise of a wide application when a little more experience as to the best machines, lamps, &c, has been gained. M. Lartet, of Lyons, is using the current of the Rhone to drive a number of water-wheels, which are employed to supply power to electrical machines for lighting the house of tho learned societies in the city mentioned. The shrewd Canadians (says tho Milwaukee Sentinel) have discovered that Churchill on Hudson's Bay is more than a hundred miles nearer Liverpool than the port of New York, and propose to tap the Northern Pacific railroad by another road running to that point, which is almost more than a thousand miles nearer the north-western grain country than New York is. If the scheme proved practicable a city of considerable size will_ soon be seen in what has generally been considered as an Arctic region of America. At Monte Carlo there h.is been considerable excitement over tho success of a young American gentleman named Mathows, who has cleared over 500,000f. during his stay of about a fortnight here, 30C,0C0f. of which ho won in throe consecutive nights ; his greatest loss in one night amounting to some 70 ? 000f.,

which seemed to be a very small matter to theH intrepid player, M. Luoider, of Berlin, well , known at Monte Carlo as one of tho best trcnte-ct-quamnte players in the world, after scarcely putting a note on tho table all the winter, tried his fortune one night, when, after , a few deals, ho left the table a winner of 400,000f., about the largest sum that haa been won by a single player in a night this .season. When people speak of the expenses of the Franco-Prussian war, they only think of the five milliards (5,000,000,000 francs) ; but this figure does not amount to the half of what it has cost France. With all tho accessories, tho fine makes a total of 5,742,937,824 francs. .In adding to that our own expenses, damages, and ( things destroyed (which had to be repaired) the non-gathering of taxes (304,000,000); and other things, wo find 11,238,500,900 francs j and in capitalising the income and taxes in Alsace-Lorraine (1,659,750,000 francs), we see the enormous total sum to be 12,898,310,900 francs.— La Semaine Francaiae. << , It is less than 40 years since Morse started the first telegraph line in the United States, and now there are about half a million miles in use in that country alone. Germany • comes next with about 150,000 miles ; nnd then . follows .Russia, France, Great Britain, with lines of over 100,000 miles each ; Denmark has G5,000, Spain only 25,000, while the vast Empire of China is credited with 1270 miles, which : are only in course of erection. South America, with the exception of a line crossing the coiltinent from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso, is practically without telegraphs ; while Australia , has 15,000 miles, and even /Persia is well supplied.