MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5029, 10 June 1889, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

The London correspondent of the Qlasgoio Herald states that when Stanley returns to England he will probably be re-naturalised as a British subject, and receive at the hands of the British Government higher honours than usually fall to the lot of either journalists or explorers. Madame Christine Nilsson (Comlesso Miranna) Ims a hobby. It is fan-collecting. The great singer baa one of the finest collections of fans in the world, the dainty things ranging in date from (ho mediaeval fan to the latest silk and tortoiseshell product of the Parisian workshops. Among the treasures, and chief of them, perhaps, is the fan which Queen Marie Antoinette used in her last days,, and another valued fan is one which originally belonged to Madame Da Barry. It is -said Madamo Nilsson has paid us much as £SCO far a rare specimen, for she is determined to have the projpier pollegtifa of face

An organised gang of burglars is'working in ■ Adelaide and the suburbs, tboir method being ; to climb verandah pnsts and enter upstair bedrooms early in the evening, even when the occupants of tho houses are at homo and lights are burning in the roooms which the thieves enter. Four houses have so far been entered, and money and jewellery carried off to the value of £l5O.

The report of the New South Wales Department of Public Instruction, for last year, shows that 2237 schools were in operation at the end of the year, with accommodation for 181,357 children. The statutory school population is 212,774, or an increase since last census, in 1831, of 65,450, or 44 per cent. 188,692 pupils, of whom 151,604, or Bf2 per cent., were of statutory age, attended school, the records of attendance showing a satisfactory improvement. Tho percentage of pnpils in average attendance, 69‘7 per cent, was higher than in any previous year. Thetotal expenditure was 11 less per pupil in average attendance than tho previous year. It is stated that tho expenditure per pupil of year’s enrolment was £2 16s and the sum spent on school premises £2 7s s|d, the cost per pupil being less than in Victoria or Queensland, and a decrease on all previous years. A ’romantic story was told in the land Judge’s Court, Dublin, last month. Mr Staunce said the Master of the Eolls had directed that a receiver should be appointed over tho Waller estates in tho counties of Cork, Limerick, and Mayo. Sir B. Waller, the late owner, left the estate, the rental of which was £2600 a year, to his successor in title, subject to a charge of £3OO a yearon the property for lady Waller. A search was made for the successor in title to tho baronetev, and ha was at list found at Los Angeles,* in California. His name is Sir Charles Christian Waller. His father, who was a distant relative of the late baronet, emigrated to America in ISI2, In 1835 the present baronet was born in California, and ho has been identified as the person entitled to tho estate. For the present, however, tho estate is of little value to him, as the charge which Lady Waller has on it and tho encumbrances amount to £2400 a year, or nearly the whole rental. Judge Boyd appointed a receiver over the estate.

Since the departure of Colonel North, the nitrate king, from London to Chili, it has gone hard with some of hia friends and followers in London. The man of the hour, •worth millions, the head of the great nitrate industry, he loft England in a blaze of glory, and many of his most enthusiastic supporters in the crowd thought nitrate shares would not only keep their price, but go higher. 'lhe moment North was out of the way, the bears on the Stock Exchange attacked his stocks, and they have gone down with a run. Many who cannot afford to hold on have had a bad time of it, and one or two have been ruined. There was a rally in some of the nitrate stocks, North’s brokers, on instruction from Chili by telegraph, buying largely; but this was not sufficient to support the market, which has gone back again, and there are many wry faces in West End society among professional and other people who cannot afford to “ carry over.” These operat ions arc quite irrespective of the intrinsic value of stocks. Lord Palmerston had 58 years of public life," Gladstone must have another year in order to tie the score.

The Princess of Wales has suddenly fallen off in her looks to an appalling extent. From being the most youthful woman of her years in all the kingdom, she is now said to be only a much made-up caricature of her younger self. Paper manufacturers at Home are awaking to the value of the fibres of Fiji, of which there is an abundant supply available. His Excellency the Governor has had an enquiry from an English firm as to whether the Colony could supply 5,000 tons per annum of papermaterial.

In a recent lecture at Birmingham,England, Professor Austen, of the Boyal Mint, said " Here is a bar of tin, two feet long and one inch thick, which it would be most difficult to break, though it would readily bend double. If only I rub a little quicksilver on its surface a remarkable effect will be produed—the fluid metal will penetrate the solid one, and in a few seconds it will, as you see, break readily, the fractured surface being white, like silver.” This is one of the curiosities of alloys. The Me’bourne Gas Company have just put into use a gasholder, the tank of which is 35 ft deep by a diameter of 100 ft. It took over four million gallons of water to fill it, and over one million and a quarter of bricks were used in its construction. The holder was made in England - . Eight hundred and fifty tons of iron and steel were used in its construction, audits capacity is three million cubicfeet, requiring the yield of gas from three hundred tons of coal to fill it. It is technically called a three-lift tel wcope holder, that is three separate cylinders fitting one into the other, each being 35ft deep, by diameters of 188 Ct, 191 ft, and 194 ft respectively, and when quite full rising to a height of lOoft. The total cost of holder, tank, mains, building', governors, valves, boilers, engine, and pumps will be nearly £50,000.

There is one way in which gas companies hare an advantage over other companies, if the following paragraph is a statement of fact, and that the idea answers well About four years ago the Board of the Consolidated Gas Company in New York hit upon an idea of avoiding the expense of laying down special tubing for the telephone service between the works and the central station, the wire being simply passed through the gas conductor, to either end of which a perforated pla‘e was screwed bearing a glass tube. The telephonic wire runs through these tubes, and is supported at intervals by insulating rings. The new telephonic line is, of course, preserved from storms, and on being examined some time, ago was found to be completely intact, although large crystals of napthaline had been formed on it.

Sandhurst quartz mines have lately been the prey of thieves on Sunday, and some of the mine managers instituted watches to capture the thieves. On a Saturday night last month when the night shift came up at 11 o’clock the manager of the Johnston mine with two men went down to 1130 ft. level to the watch till morning. After a time two men came along with lighted candles in their hands. One remarked, “ It’s all right; no one’s here.” The lander laconically remarked, " Oh, yes, there is,” and presented a revolver at one of the interlopers. Both men then blew out their candies, and ran back along the level. The lander fired three shots after them, and the watchers followed the men. One of them, who was eventually found hidden behind a shoot, was captured, brought up in the cage, and handed over to the police. The other man escaped, but at half-past 4ho was again heard in the mine, and once more escaped. It is believed that the men found their way down one of the shafts of the neighbouring mines, and proceeded by old workings to tho Jobnston.

Yet another of those Yankee puzzle horrors has been launched upon this respectable British' community. We have scarcely recovered from the demoralising effect of the “ hen-and-a-balf ” iniquity when an otherwise respectable cilizen introduces the “ Pigs in Cloyer” puzzle to debauch the public mind of; 4.uclfland with its fiendish fascination. To lopk at, the thing appear? a toy simple and innocent!as the smile upon thp face of a sleeping babe ; but those who in a playful moment yield to its allurements find themselves held in the grip of a seductive vice which tends to destroy their moral fibre as business men, upon whose exertions the support of helpless families depends. The toy is merely a wooden disc upon which four concentric circles of cardboard are glued, edge uppermost, with an opening in each of the three inner circles, the innermost one having a wooden covering,and being culled the “pen.” Into this pen you are invited to drive your “pig*/' in the shape of as many common marbles, simply by manipulating the disc without touching the marbles. This is the problem to the solution of which, wo are told, statesmen, diplomats, lawyers, j udges, doctors, merchants, financiers, and railroad presidents arfl in America bending their giant intellects The mania has already taken root in Auckland and is spreading like a pestilence, until before long half the inhabitants of the city will be “pif driving” Ww*