EXTRACTS.

Colonist, Volume XVII, Issue 1898, 8 April 1875, Page 4

EXTRACTS.

Hepwoeth Dixon in a recent letter states—The other day I saw the case leportedof a girl suing for a separation from her husband at Indianapolis, on the ground that she is too young to be a wife and mistress of a house. The girl is stated in the pleas to be only thirteen years of age ! By the old Common Law of England females might be married lawfully at the age of twelve, males at the age of fourteen. Many of the States affect to follow the Common Law. " Colonial Knights."—Apropos of Sir George Grey's ridicule of the "titles "given to colonial statesmen, we may mention a circumstance which shows that some of the best of our public men failed to appreciate the doubtful'honors offered to them. Mr Stafford received the offer of what may be termed the " colonial" order of knighthood some time ago, but he failed to appreciate this inferior order, and wrote a very indignant, letter declining the offer. A similar offer was also made to Mr Pox, who adopted a different tone in his reply, and filled a page of foolscap with banter about the offer cf a knighthood which could not be recognised in England. He failed to see it.— Echo. Teachers. —A Clergyman at a recent teachers' meeting in Ohio, said that teachers are too often selected in the wrong way. "Examiners make an intellectual requirement in Btraight-jacket style, and pay no attention whatever to the peculiar, natural, and innate adaptedness of the teacher for the profession, and thus men and women are found at the head of our schools who are no more able to develop the human mind than a Modoc is to draw a picture of the heavenly Jerusalem with charcoal."

" The Times" correspondent writing from Madrid on January 18th, gives the following respecting young King Alfonso : —Don Alfonso, it seems, had already retired after his day's work on the evening after his arrival at Valencia, when he was waited upon by Marshal Cheste and Cardinal Fernandez, Archbishop of Valencia, two of the most uncompromising retrogradists of the Moderado Party, who pressed upon him the expediency of breaking with Canovas del Castillo, separating himself from the Literal Party, and proclaiming himself a Koman Catholic and Apostolic Monarch, bound to establish the unity of the Church, on the terms of the Concordat signed by Queen.? Isabella and on the principles developed by the Pope in his Encyclical and Syllabus. The King stood firm throughout a conference which lasted more than an hour and a half. He said he would take care that justice should be done to the Catholic clergy, whose temporal interests had suffered grievously during the Kevolution; that he was anxious for his own sake that the clergy should be well paid, in order to have them more readily amenable to his control; but that, for the rest, he intended to be the King of all Spaniards, that he would make no distinction of religious or political parties, and that Freedom of conscience, of creed, and worship should be enjoyed by the Spaniards as amply as by the people of any other European State. There is no doubt, that the King will be staunch and stand his ground like a hero. If there is any fault in him it is a coldness of temperament. He may be destitute of enthusiasm, but if resolution qualifies a man to reign, you may be sure he possesses that quality to an extent perfectly wonderful at his time of life. Protection" to Birds. — The German Parliament are meditating a treaty with Italy and other southern countries to protect birds of passage during their annual migration to and from Africa. The number of those birds in Germany is steadily diminishing, while the numbers of dangerous insects are decidedly on the increase. A Valuable Calf,—The famous Shorthorn cow 10th Duchess of Geneva, which

was bought at the memorable New York Mills sale for Earl Bective for seven thousand guineas, has just given birth to a promising red heifer calf at Underley, with 2nd Duke°of Tregunter for sire. It is proposed to erect at Copenhagen a bronze statue of Hans Christian Andersen, who is in his seventy-first year. Men, women, and children are subscribing towards it.

Archduke Johann Saltator, of Tuscany, an officer of the Austrian army, has been ordered under arrest for having, in a pamphlet on military organisation, /violently attacked Germany, and declared that war between Austria and Germany was impending. All converts from Mohammedanism to Christianity in Turkey have of late been subjected to " uniform and bitter persecution." A volcanic outburst of Moslem

fanaticism on a far larger scale than the appalling scenes enacted some years ago, at Damascus and elsewhere, seems far from improbable. Geobge V, —Some sensation has recently been caused in England by an advertisement offering £1000 for a single volume of a book. The name of the book is not mentioned, but from the names of the publisher and printer, which are given, the book is recognised as a sort of scandalous chronieJe which was published some years since, aad which gave what purported to be an accurate account of the secret marriage of- King George IV. with Mrs Fitzherbert, and of the issue of that marriage—a eon—who was either kept in concealment or spirited out o£ the country,: but who, if this story be true, could now;imake very strong pretensions to the British throne and the title of George

V; ■ ■-.■■'.'.■-■ in. '.--•■■• ••: ',-■•:■.'.:■<■ r : ■ In Belgium seventy thousand francs 1 have been contributed towards a memorial to M. Van de Weyer, to be erected at Louvain.