GENERAL ITEMS.

Colonist, Volume XXVI, Issue 3699, 1 September 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

GENERAL ITEMS.

It is said that 2000 mules and 1000 horses are employed in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Kailway, and altnoat 5000 men, including teamsters, &c. The sum paid away monthly in wages average nearly £50,000. The " Fortnightly Beview " Bays : —"It is surpriniDg that so astounding a legislative assembly as our House of Lords can have existed so long iv a country inhabited by sane human beings." That's what people will soon be saying of our " lords." Says Billings : —There is a great deal of chep material worked up into pedigrees, and put on the market. Virtew iz the only kind of pedigree that will transmit worth a cent. Op Thomas Babington Maculay, Sydney Smith paid : There are no limits "to his. knowledge, on email subjects as well as great; he is like a book in breeches. In 1882,181 Jews in Vienna became Roman Catholics. The natives of New Guinea are passionately fond of tobacco. —Kuka (tobacco) is the first word a Btranger hears at Port Moresby. Pope Leo's income is given at £360,000 a year. John Dunn, the British " Zulu Chief," has fifteen wives. The followers of Mahomet nnmber about 175,000,000. Last year there were sold in America 300,000,000 cans of preserved food. The French are building thirty-six men-of-war, of which fourteen are ironclads. The number of lives saved by the National Lifeboat Institution during fifty-nine years is 29,608. An eminent medical man in Eng«" land states that the increasing decay of children's teeth is due to vaccination; Up to the Bth May the claims made in connection with the burning of Alexandria amounted to 230 million francs. Sir "William Abmstrqng, the English guatnaker has given £150,000 to Newcastle, Englaad, during the last •twenty years. An instrument, has ,been invented at Munich which.exactly intimates^the} cries of thirty-seven animals, as well as'the human voice. •.. General Booth, of the • Salvation, Army, recently stated in London he.'spent within the last nine-months upwards .of &9000 on musical instruments., ._ . Pbobessor Cohn, of Germany, Bays

that the use of slates.by school children causes shortsightedness. He recommends artificial white slates, and black pencils. The Massachussets Senate has passed a Bill incorporating a company for the construction of a ship canal through Cape Cod, with five millions of capital* The deepest soundings yet taken '"n the Pacific Ocean show a depth of 27,232 fpet, or about fire and one-third miles- The deepest Atlantic soundings are 27,366 feet. Iheee is said to be at Eedcar, a small village in England, a cork model of Lincoln Cathedral, made by a ploughman, which contains the extraordinary number of 100,000 old corks, and occupied ten years and seven months in building. A story comes from Canton, China, of a woman, who to punish a female slave who had Btolen some food, cut a slice from the girl's thigh, and made her cook and eat it. i Wanton Injury to a Chttech.— A neat little church is being built for the Eoman Gatholic congregation of Wyndham, which has just been the scene of a wanton outrage, Tke altar and sacristy were almost finished and a few days would have seen the woodwork of the interior entirely completed. Some person or persons, animated either by the spirit of deai truetion or by private spite against the contractor, entered the building on Sunday, and with a saw deliberately set to work to damage the edifice. The top of the altar was defaced, the doors of the sacristy were sawn almost through, and one of them smashed. The ornamental work at the b'as^ of the communion rail was taken outside and smashed, and what the ' Mataura Ensign' calls " other giant-like feats " ""»»•« nerformed. The contractor, for I some nnexin-i.-j Q y 8 not placed the matter in the hands in police. At least one child who was rescued from the crush at the Victoria Hall, Bunderland,in a dying state, was restored to animation by means of electricity. Dr Alrath, of the Sunderland Hospital for Foreign Seamen, had the gratification of being the successful operator iv this case. Al amusing Bcene occurred recently at Salisbury, England, during a conference on the temperance question. The speaker asserted that the vfarmers of England were: heavy drinkers, aud suggested the discontinuance of- alcoholic drinks ia the harvest field. A local farmer became excited, exclaiming that the speaker lied and that no more respectable, straightforward, and sober men lived than the English farmers. As far as he was concerned he hated drunkenness "as much as Satan hated holy water," but he denied the right to any paid lecturer to come down and rob the honest laborer of his beer. A man could do his work better on a pint of beer than on a pint of water, and he would bet the lecturer £5 that at either pitching or mowing he would ' lick him' in a days work, he to drink beer and the 'other to drink water. The bet was at once accepted, but the farmer withdrew the money when be perceived the other in earnest, and on the plea that he wanted a glass of beer withdrew and did not return. Thebe is a good joke about Mr Biggar going round the House of Commons. After the irerdict against him for £400 an admiring friend sent him a cheque for the amount. He accepted the gift in the generous spirit it was made, and wrote the donor a handsome letter of thanks. Innocent youth! the donor had not 400 farthings; there were no assets to meet the cheque. It was simply an artifice to get his autograph to put after a ridiculous -picture. It was quite worthy of a man rejoicing in she name of Blazes. At the time of an expected invasion at the beginning of the century, some of the town magistrates called upon an old-maiden lady of Montrose and solicited her subscription to raise men, (for the service of the King.. ' Indeed, ishe answered,-right, sturdily, -M'll do sic tiring.:••»■■-'■ I never could raise a man.for myself,,;,.and I'm no gaun to 'raise Wn for-Eing G-Por»e.' " Thirty-five Ways of Popping^ the Question "is this title Jof: a book' puolisned lately in England.- - ■