NEWS FROM ALL SOURCES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 1250, 18 February 1881, Page 2

NEWS FROM ALL SOURCES.

A curious case of blood poisoning is reported from Echtica. Mr. Saltrnaral), bookbinder, complained of a small pimple on his lip, which gradually disappeared, but reappeared a couple of days later and increased rapidly in size and virulence. On January 30 he was confined to his bed, when the whole face and head assumed a purplish green hue. The lip split in varioua places, he was in intense agony next day and was delirious till three o'clock in the afternoon, when he died. Hia medical attendants used every known antidote unavailingly. It i 9 surmised that the deceased had been bitten on the lip by some insect and scratched the place with his finger nail, and the coloring matter used in paper ruling was introduced into the wound. He leaves a widow and family wholly destitute. A Sydney paper says : — " Sir James Palmer, baronet, is now and has been for many years been a constable in the Victorian force, notwithstanding that he has a private income of at least five or six times his poor 'official screw. 1 Another baronet, Sir Kenneth -, was, when last heard of, getting an honest living by packing between the Hodgkinson N.Q.) and the coast." The following curious advertisement appeared a short time ago in the ' Appenzeller Zeitung': — "The undersigned knowing his failing and foreseeing his weakness, of his own free will entreats all innkeepers and cafekeepers to give him nothing whatever without payment of ready money, and even then to let him have no more drink than is good for him. If, on the other hand, the proprietor of any such establishment sees that I am drunk, or even slightly affected by drink, I earnestly beseech himjto give me nothing whatever, and I take the liberty also of asking in this sense the support of the honorable public. — Urnsaeoh, October 23* (Signed) JOH. RIONER AN DER KraEG." The English papers have got hold of one of Mr. Parnell's leases with his tenantry. It is found that although Mr. Parnell denounces on the platform landlord's interests, that in the document referred to the landlord's interest is guarded in the strictest terms. What will the Irish land leagners say to their leader proving to beas great a ' " tyrant " as those he denounces. On the departure of Bishop Selwyn for his diocese of cannibals, New Zealand, the Rev Sydney Smith is said to have taken leave of him in these affecing terms: — "Good-bye, Selwyu ; I hope you will not disagree with the man that eats you !" The British Medical Journal prints an article denouncing Mr. Tennyson for his new poem entitled " In the Children's Hospital," because a doctor is therein described as having red hair and " happier in using the knife than in trying to save the limb(!)"' One of the principal papers draws (in print) the following horrible picture of the present state of affairs in Russia : — " Beetles, flies, and locusts devastate our crops. The diminution of our flooks and herds surpasses belief. Diptheria decimates the rising generation. Bread has risen to five copecks the pound, and meat to twenty. All feel that Russia is living, not on the produce of her soil and industries, but on her capital, cutting down the forests, selling offer her stock, tearing the straw from her roofs, the clothes from her back, the shoes from her feet." We not hesitate (says the Saturday Review) to pronounce the exhibition of what is termed professional pedestrianism more and not less degrading than prize-fighting, which had at leatt a very definite reference to the practical affairs of life, and the disuse of which, though it has no doubt stopped & great source of blackguardism and rascality, has perhaps exercised in some respects an unfavourable influence on the behaviour and disposition of Englishmen. It was useful to know how to use your fists upon occasion, and the use of them was not the worst way of settling quarrels. It is not useful, and cannot be useful under any conceivable circumstances, to be a bid to trot or stumble so many hundred milea in a given time on a prepared path, with elaborately given stimulants, restoratives, and appliances of all kinds ready to hand. A receut decision of tho Privy Council and an earlier one, both on appeal (remarks a home paper), determine how far a slanderer can safely go without getting within the law, as they only asserted a suspicion, and did not make an absolute charge, of felony. And " Have you not heard that K. Y. is suspected of having murdered W. '/,. his brother-in-law ? A proclamation offering a reward for the apprehension of the murderer is now in my office, and there is only one link wanting to complete the chain." The plaintiff in the latter case had been nonsuited on the ground that only a suspicion of guilt, and not aotual guilt, had been alleged, and the Privy Council confirmed the nonsuit. A very important discovery to naturalists has just been made in Newgate Gaol. Upon some repairs being made a petrified cat was found in a crevice of an old atone wall. It subsequently came under the notice of the late Mr. Frank Buckland, the eminent naturalist and editor of "Land and Water," and was of opinion that the cat must have been in this condition ever since the fifteenth century. " That being bo," said Mr. Bucklaud, " I have but little t doubt that it is the celebrated cat of Sir Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London." The cat is exhibited in the window of the " Land and Water '' office, and was attracting a good deal of attention. The mayor and leading doctor of a Riverina township made a conjoint book on the New Year's races. For a time relates " ifCgles," Fortune seems to smile upon their vocation. The market was active, and wagers were laid by each separately with astonishing rapidity. But times changed, betting collapsed, and the partners found they had time to review their books and ascertain their real position. After patient investigation, with aotuarial assistance, they discovered that if the fovorite wonjthey must l«oae £'80, and if an outsider first past the post the firm Btood to loose £230. The magnates have now more reapect for bookmaking. A boat's crew, comtaining eight men, were found frozen to death, after venturing on a journey «n water one night, in Columbia.

It ift said that the Japanese were practically acquainted with the art of luminous painting nine centuries ago, thus anticipating the inventor of th« supposed new phosphorescent paint. A Japanese cyclopaedia cites an account of an ox which left the frame to graze during the day and returned at night. Thia picture canib into the possession of an emperor of the Snug dydasty (a.d. 967-998), who sought an explanation, which none of his courtiers could gwe. At length a Buddhist priest showed that a certain gaseous subatai.ee obtained from oysters, when ground into color material, rendered the pictures painted with the latter luminous at night and invisible during the day. The figure At the ox was painted with this phosphorescent pigment, and, becoming invisible^ by day, the superstition arose that the animal had gone out to graze. *-* Says the Leader . The temperance movement must be doing great work in Victoria, the net falling off in revenue upon spirits in less than for years being over £85,000, and the net decline in the brew of Colonial ale last year being 1,600,755 gals. There were no less than 6fty or sixty at table, and when the guests were in the height of animated conversation, and just as the cloth was drawn, they were interrupted by a crash. A servant, in removing a cut-glass epergne, which formed the central ornament of the table, let it fall, and it was dashed into a thousand pieces. An awkward silence fell upon the company, who hardly knew how to treat the accident, when the host, the late well-known George Payne, relieved their embarrassment by cheerfully exclaiming, "James, break as much as you like, but don't make such a confounded noise about it !" And under cover of the laugh this excited, the fragments were removed, and the talk went on as if nothing had happened. A queer case of justices' justice " liaa been made public through the Wellington Press. A man, well known in Carterton, was found a few evenings ago in the house of another well known resident, and an information charging him with burglary was laid at the instigation of the police. When, however, the case cams on for hearing, it was found that the accused was frequently in the house in question, and the owner had nothing to say against the alleged burglar, except that he objected to his being drunk. The sapient justices of course had to dismiss the charge of burglary ; but while they endorsed on the information their disbelief in his having any felonious intent, they also entered up a conviction for drunkenness— an offence for which there had been no charge laid— and sentenced the unfortunate man to three months' hard labor. The prisoner has been brought to Wellington to undergo his sentence, but in the meantime the facts of the case are being brought under the notice of the Minister for Justice by Mr. H. Bunny, M.H.R. The matter Ls, we are informed, the subject of much unfavorable comment iv this district. A Western physician announces that brandy is a cure for the Btaggers ThAt remedy must be on the homoeopathic principle of like curing like.