MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5013, 22 May 1889, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

A very curious ease is just now attracting the attention of the medical men of a Berlin hospital. The patient is a boy of about twelve years of ago, who was suffering from a slight inflammation of the windpipe. On being examined it was found that his heart was not in the left but in the right side of his chest —a fact of which his parents had been in entire ignorance. Tho deformity does not, however, interfere with the boy’s well-being at all, and it is only remarkable on account of its great rarity.

In the course of an interview in Melbourne Dr Barry, who is relinquishing the Primacy of Australia, denounced in very strong language the insanitary slate of most of the cities in Australia. Ho said that if he was an Australian Premier ho should hold himself guilty of manslaughter for every death that occurred from preventable disease. The bishop regarded the flocking of the population to the towns as a very bad sign indeed, saying that the colonies had the problem of London before them, only under much more da'igerous conditions. The water supply at Tokio, Japan, is by the wooden water-pipe system, which has been in existence over 200 years, furnishing at present a daily supply of from 25 to 30 million gallons. Square boxes are used in various places to regulate the uniformity of the flow of water, which is rather rapid, for the purpose of preventing aquatic growth. The water is not delivered to the houses, but into reservoirs on the sides of the streets, nearly 15,000 in number. The rapid development of “ process ” work —that is to say, the mechanical reproduction in facsimile of original pictures and drawings—is one of the marvels of the present day. Within the last few days, writes a contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette, I have been permitted to see what is perhaps the greatest wonder of all, but inasmuch as all the patents applied for throughout tho world have not yet been completed, I withhold for the present any reference to the details which constitute the "secret” of the invention. Lithographic, typographic, and even steel and copper-plate proofs of originals can by this wonderfully ingenious yet extremely simple process, be produced in hours, which in tho ordinary manner has hitherto taken days and weeks. A “ ground " on copper plate for mezzo-tinters, which by the ordinary method of “ rocking " takes hours to produce properly, can now be obtained in about two minutes. iTourportrait can literally bo engraved “ while you wait,” and d sjieel plate of a man who died to day can be issued to-morrow, as an “India paper proof before letters! ’’ While I stood beside him, the operating artist reproduced on the lithographic stone before him a life-size bead—a beautiful stippled drawing of a beautiful girl —in 20 minutes by the watch 1 Apropos of tho testimony, confession, and suicide of Pigott, the following prophetic conjecture qf Mrs Carlyle, wife of Thojnas Carlyle, cap be found on page 2iJO of “ Letters and Memorials of Jane Walsh Carlyle,” and written in her diary, April 27th, 1845. Aftep describing some other Irish visitors to her husband, among whom was the lamented patriot-poet Thomas Davis, she thus alludes to Mr Pigott:—“As for young Mr Pigott, I will here, in the spirit of prophecy, inherited from my great ancestor, John Welsh, tho Covenantor, make a small prediction. If there be in his time an insurrection in Ireland, as these gentlemen "—referring to her husband’s Irish visitors —" confidently anticipate. Mr J?igott will ripe to he a

Robespierre of soma sort; will cause many heads to be removed from the shoulders they belong to, and will eventually have his own head removed from his own shoulders.' Nature has written on that handsome but fatal-look-ing countenance quite legible to my prophetic eye, * Go and got thoyself beheaded, but not before having lent a hand towards the great work of immortal smash.’ ”

Having been much surprised by the statement which has recently appeared in certain newspapers to the effect that Mr Froude had declared himself in favour of Home Rule for Ireland, a Mr W. Waithman Caddell wrote to him and asked him if there was any foundation for the report. Mr Froude’s reply was as follows; —“7th March. Hear Sir,—The opinion of a person like myself on a great political question is not of sufficient consequence for the notice of the newspapers. Since, however, random stories have been circulated, and you think it worth your while to ask mo what that opinion is, I can only answer that it remains what it has always been—Home Rule will bo the first and probably irrevocable step towards the separation of the islands; it will increase the wretchedness of Ireland, and will be followed at no distant period by the break up of the British Empire.—J. A. Froude. To another correspondent Mr Froude writes as follows : —“ The paragraph which you send me is absurd. I should regard the passing of a Home Rule Bill as a national suicide. I may have said, however, for I believe it, that the English constituencies are so ignorant of the nature of the Irish people that they may make Homo Rule a necessity, and will only be convinced of the folly of what they have done by seeing the consequences.”