AN AUCKLAND SENSATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 17 April 1901, Page 55

AN AUCKLAND SENSATION.

AUCKLAND, \pril 13. RepmN aro lvi rent lespecting; H Johnston, for *e\ eral ve t >i«. managing director of t' % c Kmri Timbe' Company Johnston Vfi Aiakl.i'ir 1 or. Apiil 1 for Melbourne to iiHfivie>v ihe dre -tor* there X ;.s stated that 'k hd^ iur u.ehed Melbour le Many reports ,up current as to the cause of his niHi-aniv.il It is understood that the dilec^or- here , nd at Melbourne are cnn^iderlii^ tlu circumstance 15 . Ti i, >w n .inspires that Johnston was m Sui ll}l 1 } oi TJim'«duv Sirce his departure (11- lei'ii'ie- li ive bcon di'coveied in hi Q -icoiin'- amen ntin^ t>t between £2003 and £3000. SYDNF.Y. Apnl U Henry Johnston has oeen am-sied <,n a pi (, visional ■wairant on a chaige oi !nrcippi\>;,r\itin.! £512 belonging to the Kami limber Comnanv Brrlin has refu-od to accept a legacy o£ 120.000d0l left by Profe^ov Baion for" the establishment of an oiphan asylum, with the condit'on that the orphans should \v brought no on a purely \eoetanan diet. Brcslau is ready to accept tlio gift, but the Prussian Government withhold their mn-ent, and it is likely that the money w^'l ic\eit to the Siat"'. New V ii. f er .Shipment- — T. Ross has opened a srand lot ot ladie-.' hand-' ;ne fawn lacket.- bi.i-ilifully braided, 12s 9d to 45^. New shapes in best lamproof coats 21& to 4is. Two thousand umbrellas v. ith pretty handles Is lid to 25.. New lace and sil'< ties, white, cream, and all colon", from 1-. New fur necklets in white. 51 cv. fawp, brown, and block, from Is 3'l. Muffs to match fiom 5s lid, and the finest lot, n kid cdo\is and ca>-hmeie btockiiig- in tov.u at T. Koa'b, importer.

MBLTUM IN PARVO.

• — A juryman gave some good advice to mothers at an inquest at Northwich concerning the death of a child who«e clothing caught fire from a lighted stick flung by another child. If people, he said, would only rinse clothing, after washing, in a solution of alum and water, they would never take fire ; if they came in contact ,veith a. dame they would merely smoulder. — In 1801 there were no railways in Scotland in the sense we now use the term, or even in England. To-day the railways of the United Kingdom extend to about 22,000 miles of line, which have been constructed at a cost of about 1300 millions of pounds. The annual gross receipts now exceed 100 millions, and of the expenditure, which amounts to over 60 millions, fully one-half is distributed in wages to over half a million of employees. — The work of constructing a railway tunnel through the Simplon Pass, Switzerland, is now being pushed on as rapidly as possible, although at present the task is not Llf completed. About five miles have been bored, and there still remain about another seven miles to conFtruct. The tunnel when completed will be' by far the longest in the world, and will practically revolutionise railway travelling between Europe and Italy. Altogether the tunnel will cost o^er three and a-quarter millions sterling. — The index of books at the Bntish Museum is at last complete, after 20 years of bard woik. When the printing of the great catalogue began in 1881 the manuscript catalogue then used contained 3,000.000 references to about half ns many book= — crops titles accounting for the difference betweer ihe figures. In all there are over 600 volumes of the catalogue, containing the titles of 2,000,000 books. The subject index is to be commenced at once, bat will not he ready for 15 years at loa^t. — There ar° several tiees and plants in the •world whose berries, juice, or bark are as good to wash with as real soap. In the "West Indian Islands and in South America grows a tree whose fiuit makes an excellent lather and is used for washing clothes. The bark of a tree which grows in Peru, *nd of another which grows in the Malay Islands. yields a fine soap. The common soopwort, which is indigenous to England, is so full of saponine that simply rubbing She leaves together in water pioduces a soapy ather. __ —It has g-enerally been assumed hitherto that the hair of the human head grows about an inch and a third per month, or 16in a yeai. But an investigator who has made minute measurements at various times of life finds that his own hair grew only a little 'snore than half an inch a month in his twentieth year, and rather less lapidly in ihis sixtieth. He made some other interesting disco\ erics. In contradiction to the common belief, he says that cutting retards instead of promoting the giowth of the hair, and that the normal rate of growth is not restored until a considerable interval has elapsed after cutting. — Doubtless the most unique spot in •Europe is the little village of Altenberg, , where on its border three countries mee T . Hi is ruled by no monarch, has no soldiers. no police, and no taxes. Its inhabitants speak a curiou3 jargon of French and German combined, and spend their days in cultivating the laud or working in the valuable Da 1 .inline mine cf which the -village boasts. — The members of the Army Nursing Service Reseive in South Africa are receiving better pay and allowances than they had ripeeted — possibly because of their proved va'ue. Tha pay, gratuity, and allowance of c superintendent are leckoned at £226 per annum, out of which £55 has to be paid for food and other necessaries. The total rejr.uneration of the ordinary nursing sister is £206. — One of the strangest of the recent 'developments of fashion is in the direction of hand-painted gloves. These are being ; worn principally by brides; but there is a possiblity of their coming into more general use in the near future. The gloves are painted by a lady who lias been fortunate enough to discover a preparation of paint which will stand the heat of the body without becoming unsightly or cracking. The .pattern on the glove is generally arranged to match that of the dress, and to carry the of decoration on from the thoulders jro the hands. The most favoured designs »re flowers, butterflies, lizards, or practically anything of the sort that lends itself to a striking and effective display of colour. Of course such gloves are beyond the means of any but the wealthy. — Lord Roberts will have to pay about £1500 for the two honours conferred upon him. Court functionaries will be enriched to the extent of nearly £200. The barony will cost him £500, including robes. The earldom, including robe* and eoionet, will cost; about £800, and there are some rather lieavy fees connected with the Garter. When 'Lord Wolseley wa» raised to the peerage he refused to pay the more extortionate fees which go to officials who do nothing whatever for their money, and it was only after pressure fiom his friends that he consented to pay. — The Duke of Westminster, whose wedd ng is to be one of the big society events of the year, owes his fortune to a lucky marriage long, long ago, but many of his colleagues in the peerage have humbler origins. The house of Lansdowne wa« founded by a pedlar, who was so poor that he lived for three weeks on walnuts. The Strutts of Belper, one of the best-known families in the peerage, owe their position to a man ■who worked on a farm and made stockings when a boy. Lord Tenterden owes his rank and fortune to one who begar life as a barber in Canterbury, Lord Warwick to a ■wool-stapler, Lord Essex to a draper, and the Duke of Northumberland — the head of the £roud Percys — can trace his fortune to a ondon apothecary. — The highest towei in the world is presently to be built as one of the great attractions of Buffalo during the Pan-American Exhibition, which is to be held in that city this year. It is to be 1152 ft high and 400 ft equare at the base, and will be a much more ornamental building than the Eiffel Tower. 'It will be served by no fewer than 33 electrical elevators, 16 of which will run only to the first landing, 225 ft above the level of jfthe ground. The whole journey from the jbottom to the top will ni cessitate four jchanges of elevators, and wjll take about while the elevators will have a carrying capacity of 10,000 an hour. The estimated cost of this tower, which will be built of steel, is £160,000, or about twice as much as that of the Eiffel Tower. — On the Missouri-Pacific railway the fires of the locomotives are lighted by spraying the coal with petroleum. Air from a West)nghou ccc c i^ump makes the =pray. w-hirli i* lighted and directed on the surface of the coal.

— A great American railway scheme, m which it is propobed to link the various Republics of North and South America by a grand trunk line, is at present on the tapis. It will connect New \ork and Santiago, Buenos Ayres and Rio de Janeiro. There are immense difficulties in the way of constructing such a line, chiefly on account of the nature of the countries through which it would have to pase. It would frequently have to cross pa=ses of 10,OOOft to 14.000 ft in height, and hundreds of tunnels would bo necessary where the ascents and descents were | too abrupt to run over. If this project is carried out it will undoubtedly be the greatest railway undertaking ever accomplished. — The Tribuna states that after repeated trials with a furnace of 150-h.p. for smelting iron by electricity, a furnace of 500-h. p. has now been installed at Brescia for the production of iron, steel, and other metals, direct from the ores. The process is the invention of Captain Stassano, of Rome, and the expciiments were conducted before a commission composed on Signori Arno. of I the Polytechnic of Milan; De Lungo. of the Institute of Spezia ; and Engineer Siracusa, director-general of the Italian Electric Company, of Turin. — From observations oi symptoms of poisoning after eating boiled artichokes, German 'scientists have found that a poisonous bacillus vegetates on the artichoke, and this gives it the peculiar bluish colour. Artichokes should be consumed immediately after being boiled, and no portion reberved for future consumption. Artiokokes which have become quite blue should not be partaken of at aM. The symptoms produced by this poisonous bacillus is something in the nature of cramp or a choleraic attack. — Not maiiy Jiving links with the Tiehborne case now reman. ()no has just been snapped by the death in Wagga Wagga, New South Walc=, of John Carter, who was the contemporary, the friend, and a fellow-tradesman of the claimant in that historic Australian town. They were both buichers. Carter's faith in the claimant's story and pretensions was unlimited. He sold out his business in Wagga Wagga. placed all the money he could command at the bervice of the fat impostor, accompanied him to England, and appeared at the gieat trial as one of the most cccksure witnesses for the long-lost baronet. When the audacious claimant was bowled out, Carter returned to his old Australian town and strove his best, with but httl» success, to get his old business together again. — The perfume industry is known to be a very large a>id important one, but chemistry places on the market quite a goodly number of scents which have been synthetically made — that it, have been built up by the chemist combining the atoms or molecules which ho finds entering into the composition of the natural substances. This process has given us many imitations of plant products. Salicyclic acid, for instance, obtained from the bark of the willow, and a remedy for rheumatism, can be imitated in the laboratory. Artificia' substitutes for musk are u°ed in perfumery. A substance called ionone gives the smell of fresh violets.