MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5015, 24 May 1889, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

Seven weeks ago a German blacksmith of Schleswig-Holstein ate four pounds of raw meat, washing it down with six quarts of beer, at a single silting. By so doing be won a wager of 500 marks. His funeral occurred three days later.

Mr Frank Harvey, the actor, gives the following as tiro drollest slip with the “ text" he ever heard on the stage. “ I once hoard,” he says, “ a nervous, excited, juvenile actor exclaim, ‘ Dare to harm one head of her hair, and the last moment shall be your next!‘ " Intelligence has been received from Piotra, in the province of Genoa, stating that M. Wiliiim Gcisendorll, son of the Swiss ViceConsul at Cannes, has been murdered near that place in a railway carriage in which he was travelling. He left Cannes with his intended bride and her mother, his destination being Ventimiglia; but he extended his journey to Genoa. On returning from that city by the Ligurian line ho went to Monte Carlo, and was lucky at the tables. His murderer or murderers evidently knew this, and they probably dogged him and entered the same railway carriage with him. The young fellow was stabbed and then thrown out on the line, where he was found with his face horribly mutilated. Near him was a travelling bag. His pockets as well as the bag were empty. Three hundred miles an hour is (remarks Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper , published in New York) the proposed epeed for the electric postal railroad of the future. An experimental lino has been erected at Laurel, 20 miles from Bah i more, Md. A compromise between the pneumatic tube and the ordinary railroad carries a miniature train of two cars solely for mails and light parcels, without any attendance. The road has three rails —one above the car for carrying the current and two below which carry the cars. The cars are built of sheet iron, and are 2ft square and 2lft long. Speed will bo regulated and power or brakes applied by electricity solely. If the experiment at Laurel succeeds, it is stated that similar roads will be laid between Baltimore and Washington and elsewhere.

Lieutenant W. H. Bcehler, of the United States navy, discusses the use of oil to still the waves of the sea, which he describes as magical in its effects, and recommends that all vessels and boats should be supplied with it, as well as with special oil distributors; that its employment should bo encouraged by marine insurance companies, by allowing a discount on the rate of insurance for vessels supplied with oil and oil apparatus; that the State should prescribe penalties in cases of marine casualties avoidable by the judicious use of oil; that life-saving stations should be provided with oil and oil distributors; and that similar precautions should be taken with respect to dangerous harbour entrances and channels. For these, buoys filled with oil have been invented, which can be made to discharge their contents by electric connections.

Professor Platon I. Eubasoff, of Moscow, has carried out a long series of bacteriological researches on malignant (cancerous) new growths, and has arrived at the following conclusions : —l. The d-scaee is caused by a special pathogenic rod-shaped microbe. 2. The bacilli have slightly ovoid outlines, and are arranged mostly in pairs and little heaps, their length amounting to one-fourth of the diameter of a red blood corpuscle. 3. In a pure cultivation the rode grow best on coagulated blood-serum at the body temperature. 4. When inoculated under the skin in animals, the microbe gives rise to a cancerous degeneration, commencing in the nearest lymphatic glands, and subsequently spreading to the internal organs, especially in the mesenteric glands, omentum, liver and pericardium. In all the organs genuine cancerous nodules are formed. 5. Of lower animals, rabbits and cats prove to be mast sensitive in regard to the bacterium. When inoculated they die in one or two months from cachexy, with generalisation of cancerous foci all over the body. 6. All cancel s (of any variety and any organs) seem to be caused by one and the same bacillus.— British Medical Journal.

Admiral I). D. Porter, of the United States navy, is reported to have said, apropos of the Samoan difficulty, that in 60 days he could improvise a fleet and set about destroying German commerce. But a British admiral, whose opinion was asked on this point, has proved (remarks the London correspondent of the Argus) that Germany is quite able to retaliate, as her mercantile marine contains double the number of steamers that the .American docs, besides being of greater speed. In the matter of armed cruisers, when Germany’s present naval scheme is completed, she will have 28 vessels, and America 19, but six of them will be faster than any in the German fleet. Ihe guns in tho American ships abroad are pronounced by the British expert to be mostly of an antiquated type, while German ships are said to be armed with modern Krupps. In regard to ironclads, the United States possessed 18 obsolete vessels, without having a single available seagoing battleship. Germany has, on the other hand, 25 ironclads, of which 12 are for coast defence, three are obsolete, and 10 compose a fighting fleet, which is well armed and armoured. The superiority at sea therefore rests with the Germans, and their advantage is enhanced by the extent of the United States coast lino. The interests of the two Powers which would bo jeopardised at eea in tho event of war are not very unequal, amounting in the case of the United States to £271.000,000, and in that of Germany to £293,000,000. These interests comprise steamers and sailing ships, and imports and exports in course of transit. Who in the world is -it (asks a contemporary) that gulls our friends at Home so ogregiously ? A day or two ago we republished an extraordinary yarn about Te Kooli, from Modern Society, Here is another about, our supposed sufferings in New Zealand from hordes of wild pigs. It is clipped from the Sheffield, Independent of a date in March last:—“The latest grievance from the Australasian colonies recalls the old days of “ Merrio England.” We have heard much from Australia about the kangaroo plague, and how the importation of rabbits has been followed by the multiplication of the species in a manner so alarming that it threatens to eclipse in deadly effect that plague of locusts of ancient days. And now from the neighbouring colony of New Zealand wo have tidings that the swine have run wild and increased so abundantly that to-day they roam about iu vast Irenes, destroying the crops, devouring tho farmyard stock, and working havoc more terrible than the wild boars which were hunted in the forests of England in tho days of bluff Eing Hal. Thus does history repeat itself, only in this instance the terror of the swine docs not appear' to be surrounded with that halo of romance in hunting which made the presence of the wild bow? not an vimpitigatpd evil.”

More than £1,600,000 has been collected for the new Catholic University at Washington.

It is claimed that about £1 worth of dogs have killed £2OOO worth of sheep in Michigan in the past year. A London cablegram in the Australian papers slates that Maharajah Dhu’eep Singh has written an insolent letter to her Majesty the Queen, in which he insists on her restoration of the Koh-i-noor diamond, the largest belonging to the British Crown. An Indian legend tolls that the diamond was found in one of the Golconda mines, near the Kishna river, and worn 5000 years ago by Kama, one of the heroes celebrated in the Mahabharatta. It was in the possession of Baber, the founder of the Mogul dynasty in 1526, and in 1739 it passed to Nadir Shan, the Persian invader of India, who gave it tho name of Koh-i-nor, or Mountain of Light. It was handed on from the successor of Nadir Shah to Runjeet Singh the ruler of Lahore ; and in 1819, on tho annexation of tho Punjaub, it was surrendered, and presented to the Queen. It has since been recut in rose form, and its weight is now given as 106 l-16th carats. A curious incident, says the Sunday Times to the Queen at the drawing room. It appears that when. Lord Salisbury came forward to make his bow, her Majesty motioned him on one side for the purpose of addressing a few words to him. When the Queen turned round to speak to him, however, suddenly, to the horror of all those standing around, Her Majesty’s cap, tiara, and veil were torn off her bead, and there tho Queen stood before a full Court crowned only with the natural adornment of her hair. The explanation, however, is extremely simple. Her Majesty’s veil had got entangled in the jet trimmings of the mistress of the robes’ dress, and when this lady had executed a slight rear movement to meet tho Queen’s altered position, she naturally dragged the veil off with her. The Princess of Wales and tho other Princesses present quickly surrounded Her Majesty and attempted to repair the damage, but so great was the Queen’s mirth and their own that it was several minutes before this could be successfully done. In an interesting despatch, Dr Macgregor, of New Guinea, gives some curious particulars of the arrest of a native named Bokano, accused of murder. He says : —“ The scone that followed tho arrest of Bokano was very impressive, and illustrated in a very striking manner the deeply affectionate feelings these peop’e entertain for each other. As ho was led through tho village, men, women and children joined on to the procession, forcing themselves forward to embrace the prisoner and to embrace him ; and once some persons began to cry, and then crying became general, and I was obliged to interpose to keep back the constantly accumulating crowd to leave a passage for the prisoner. When he was taken away from the beach in the boat several hundred people were crying and lamenting along the strand, and many of the women waded into the sea, wailing plaintively, and beating the water and their breasts as manifestations of grief. A great number of them remained on a projecting sandspit, gazing steadily out to sea as long as the vessel was in sight. I should mention that Bokano’s friends offered me as his ransom some native ropeity and Bokano’s wife.” Henry George, interviewed respecting lis acquaintance with the Irish leaders and the Irish land question said : —“I met Mr Parnell in Kilmainham gaol in 1881. I did not have much discussion with him on the land question. I, however, was fully aware of Mr Parnell’s position. He did not agree with me then, and does not, I suppose, yet. His aim at that time was peasant proprietary, in which I can see no solution of the Irish or any other land question. Even if the large scheme of established peasant proprietary were carried on in Ireland it would only give to Ireland the condition from which we in the United States started, and which wo can now clearly see cannot continue,but is passing into such concentration of land ownership as has taken place in England since the time which, according to Macaulay, was at the accession of James 1., and when the majority of English farmers were owners of the acres they tilled. Davitt has all along been, I think, more radical on the land question than Mr Parnell; but I would not claim him as a single tax man, nor do I know precisely 1 how far be goes.” i England is hot content to remain beaten by America in yatohing. Lord Dunraven has issued a challenge for the America’s Cup, and the race will probably take place at New York in October next. Lord Dunraven is building a new yacht sxity feet long, at Southhampton. It will probably be launched early in May, and it is described as a beauty. The cutter has a seventy foot lead line with an extreme breadth of sixteen feet. The frame is of steel; the floorings, top and sides are planked with teak, and the bottom is planked with American elm. The yacht is designed as a keel cutter, but a slot in the keel and steel flooring are designed for a centreboard if required, and she will be raced es a keel cutter or a centreboard which ever proves the faster after tho trial races. Her bow will be the same as that of the Thistle, but her stern is much na-rower. General Payne, the owner of the Volunteer that beat the Thistle, states that his business will prevent him from entering the Volunteer or building a new boat. Tho New York Yacht Club will attend to the challenge. The American yachtsmen did not expect a challenge this year, and have been caught napping. It they have not time to build a new yacht, they must put out one of their best ones, which will be selected from the Volunteer, Titania, Katrina, Shamrock, Bedouin, Puritan and Mayflower. An extraordinary story is reported from the lake of Como. A well-dressed elderly gentleman took a passage at Como on one of the steamers for Colico. During the voyage he presented to one of tho waiters a neatly folded white paper packet, which contained some diamonds, telling tho man it was “ a tip.” The recipient, on reaching the shore, threw his present away, believing tho diamonds were only fragments of glass. The strange passenger before landing made several similar presents, to other persons. This becoming known, ho was questioned at Colico by the police, and stated that his name was Leopold Landauer, and that he was a diamond merchant. “ I live,” said he, “ upon diamonds, and I pay with diamonds.” Thereupon he proceeded to swallow several of these gems which he had in his possession. Tho police communicated with tho German consul, at whose request Herr Landauer wfljs relegated to a lunatic asylum until tho arrival of his friends. He had upon his person 162 brilliant, valued at 80.000 francs. On learning that the waiter had thrown away his diamonds, the people of the place instituted an immediate search for the treasures.

The following taken from the “ Vallejo Times (D.S.) will afford food for reflection to tho lovers of the supernatural Some days before the late disaster at Samoa, the wife of an officer at Mare Island awoke from her first sleep, trembling and in tears, and related to her husband a fearful dream she had experienced. She thought she had 1 been in her dream transported to the island of Samoa, and from the shore of the harbor of Apia looked upon the American and German fleets. Suddtnly a storm arose and tho harbor was swept by a fierce tornado. Ship after ship wont ashore, and the spectators united in offering up prayers for the preservation of the remaining .vessels. Lastly the Vandalia and irenton dragged their anchors, and, as the former rescel was dashed upon the reef and almost immediately sank, Mrs witnessed the death of Copt Schumakor, Lieut Sutton, and Paymaster Armco, the three officers who were the victims of the actual disaster of March 16th, The picture was so vivid and real that jj rs for days was nervous and agitated, thinking only of her dream, and relating it to others, always asserting that the vessels and friends so recently gone from Mare Island must certainly be exposed to some fearful peril.

Li Hung Chang, the Chinese statesman, recently said to an American correspondent that witbin 50 years China will be gridironed with railroads; its immense mineral resources developed ; manufactories with modern machinery will spring up, and with tho numbers, skill, industry, and abstemiousness of the Chinese, they will be able to manufacture for fhe world.