New Items.

Colonist, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5815, 29 May 1890, Page 4

New Items.

sOjfEof Uhe: latest -accessions to the. ranks of journaFiVm is the Countess. Ella Nbyßaikbw,. an Eaglfsh woman married to a Russian noble, who spent seven miserable yeers of poliiica.l exile in Biberia. Wb<;n liis conslitutioD had broken down un der, the ferocious brutality of the treatmen he received, bia exile was cancelled ; and now hid devekd wifj supports him by her con-: tribmions to the English at& American Press. ■ At the recent matriculation examma iou of the London University,, out of 185 women who were candidates only forty-seven .were tucceesfuF. Thepreviousyenr there were eighty grftdnatesj from a much smaller number of candidates. While there was an exceptionally large number of failures among students of both sexes, the most marked ones were famished by 'the females.. '■".;,. It is now possible to bo cremated for half-a-crown ia Paris. This is the result of the new system adopted at the Pere Laohaise Cemetery in August la>:t. Coke has been substituted for wood as fael, and other improvements have been incorporated with the Siemob'4 system, which have had the efftoi of greatly reducing both the time required for effectual combustion, and the cost. A n vel; aad at the same time clever, operation baa just been performed ia the Edinburgh Royal lafi:mary. A farmer was suffering from a diseased leg bone, induced by an accident. On medical advice be went to the infirmary, and was put under the case of Mr Mi.ler, surgeon, who determined to remove the diseased portion and substitute an ox rib. A healthy part was accordingly substituted for the useless part. The operation was performed a month ago, Rnd it seems it has been so bucces.-fuly that the man be about again shortly with a licab as strong acd healthy as evr r. Annat correspondent of the Christchurch ' Pr(S3 ' writes : — A person in this district has received advice of the sale ot a large consignment of butter, which was sent Home in the summer the net result being a clear profit of 9£d per lb after paying all charges. It is dangerous business in Germany to comment too freely upon the toilet or appearance of a lady. At a ball in Berlin some time ago a lady told a friend that another lady present had bleached hair and a false complexion. The remark was repeated, and the fair goseip waa made defendant in a suit for damages. Tha case was tried and a fine of £10 was imposed upon the indiscreet critic, who was also treated to a severe lecture by the Judge. The Manawatu Gorge Bailway is now fast approaching completion, and Will be opbned in about three or fonr months time, says the * Times.' The big iron bridge over the Pohangina is finished as far as the bridge is concerned, but the approaches have yet to be made. All the tunnels in the Gorge are through. In fact, all the way from Woodviile to Palmerston there seems very litle to be done, merely the finishing off of a very bfg work. That was a fine satirical touch — the best kind of satire — in the Dean of Manchester's sermon on Elizabeth Mapp, the last Hetty Sorrell, or, rather, the last modern Hagar, who, outcast and starving, could not bear to look at the sufferings of her child. If we must'hangher " he was sure," said the Dean, "there ought to be a very long and painful procession to the gallows, beginning with the clergy who had neglected their duty; the politicians who had declared that religion had no concern with law or politics; the journalists who had put an ijsue of strife before all other issues ; the lawyers who were contented to administer law blindfold; and respectable citizens in troops, who 1 were 'content to rise early and retire late, spending their time between business and pleasure, disclaiming the duty of being; their, brother's keeper, while revenue returns increased and cotton, mflls multiplied. A RBMABKAELB feat was recently accomplished Jby- the Miadctison equafe Theatre (Jompany, qf New York,.with their farcical comedy « • A ant Jaok." In orflcr'tp play at Washington in aid of the actors' fund, the Company left Jersey City station, at half -past eeven in the morning, and arrived at Washington (a distance of 227 miles) at . about a gaarler to twelve. The performance oi "Aunt Jack" began at ono o'clock-, before President Harrison and a brilliant audience ; 'and at 26 minute* to eight the comedians were iafely baok in Jersey City. Later in the evening, they played the comedy as usual in the Maddiaon Square Thfafcre; shotting no trace of fatigue after their big journey. How the Company 'felt next morning is not recorded. If we can depend upon the claims of • New England chemist, he has made • most -wonderful ■ valuable discovery. This discovery' consists' of ~ a cheap method of dissolving zinc by combining it with hydrogtn, forming a solution called jbiho water, ' Which has the property of rendering 'wood, to which it fcaj been applied/absolutely fire proof. The cost cf the material and the application is, said to be, very li^ht,'tmi the discovery will be of J the greatest value to hotel- and 'theatre proprietors; and the owners of all large bnildirrgs. . " A Dunedin paper, states that,about fifteen years ago a ' warder" in' the Puaedio, gaollost hu eye, ' We pre-

. ... n[ „ , . .. _ - 7- -n joml&sb*irn^^rttic t e 5 * b'e^rh'imiwliile" in JhWj execution/of his ;duty. He| worked what our contemporary calls the ' piojna dodge,' and got a pension, Df d6IBB a-year aUowed him. He has qow no Jittle'Ejoperty in Dunedin, As' For himself iha is playing the part of. Dbsectee in Europe, spending bis pen-Bion-like ft* lord. ' Happy "man. He was not born.gnJu.af gqod times. Had he lost his eye now, unless he could iuduce twelve' godd men and true to think he bad a : ojjum on the State, we fear-hia chance" of a pension oi £138 a-year wonld be smalJ. Gdaytpwn, psrhapß better known ag Spring' Creek, about 50 miles east of Sandhurst, Victoria, has beoome a sort of 'No Man's Land,' being a defunct boro"glJ,'Which"onoe boa3tea.;a; mayprlapdjßounciK and five' banks w do the business of the inhabitants. The territory that appertained to the borough of Gray town was almost surrounded by the M'lvor shire, and.'was over 'six miles by two miles in size". The people are'not troubled by the tax •collector "an^ pay 'no " and are envied.by ell outside residents. Many persons will remember' Sptihg ; Creek jrush , but from the,, pifesent , appearan cc Jthey woril3nut r know' the place again. There, are two hotels and several houses, but only the remains of the streets and roadways, and old lamp posts. The occe well-known flat ! is now covered with many thousands oorf r young saplings, growing in and aroimd the numerous holes, makiog it nearly impossible^to pass^ through.' Menelik 11, the newt King of Abyssinia, is the son of a beggar woman ' who took his father's fanciyv 1 He is almost, coal black, ehort ancLdompy. Unlike his. uncle .(Ras Darghe) and others among his chief advisers, he is very friendly to Europeau|, and wants to introduce their arVs into hfs country. He has a remarkable fondness for maohinery and implements of all sorts, and- his greatest delight is to examine their mechanism. Explorers say be rained about a dozen watches and alarm clocks, taking them apait and trying to put them together Bgain. He became at last, however, quite a proficient watoh tinker. A 'native gentleman in Bombay, 1 says the ' Madras Mail,' ' who sympathises with the miseries of the young Hindu widow, has offered to bear all the legitimate expenses of a criminal prosecution of a case in which a young widow had been subjected to the disfigurement of shaving her hair, and is compelled periodically to face the barber and submit to a repitition of the operation. The only condition is that the case selected for prosecution should be one of the Brahmin castes, and, that it be carried through all the stages till an authoritative decision is obtained of the precise provision of the law on the subject.' In reference to the price of wheat our London agricultural correspondent writes : — This subject is very interesting to wheat-growers in Australasia, now that there is a considerable surplus to dispose of. I fear that this surplus destroys the last hope of a substantial rise in prices if the prospects of the new crop in nearly every country are to remain as favourable as they are now reported to be. The market waa very dull on Monday, chiefly because of the Australian surplus and ©f the surprisingly large stock of wheat reported to be in the hands of American farmers. As a top price for New Zealand longberry wheat, 38s a quarter in London is very disheartening. The larva of the codlm moth is full of resources, and evidently has the faculty of adapting itself to circumstances, as is shown by what Mr James Fergusson, of Cambridge noticed the other day. He had some bottles of lemonade and hop beer stored in a room, in which was also a quantity of apples. Noticing that some of the bottles were fizzing he investigated the matter and iound codlin moth grubs in some of the corks. .Mr Fergusson brought down four apparently intact, corks to Mr Hewitt, and on their being cut open, in the presence of Mr Chas. Tuck, grubs were found in each of them, in one instance there being two well-developed healthy looking grubs in a single cork. We see that our comments in referer.ee to ' The Dead Bird ' have had some effect. In Dunedin its

simulation* has 'been stopped, >as apj pears fconna special telegram published in another column . "Whether'a similar coursehas beenadoptedin Christchurcbj 4 we have no,t heard. In Dunedin the Customs authorities opened a number of packages supposed to contain copies of < The Dead Bird,' but found only ordinary literary supplements. We understand that one of the meand adopted to introduce this publication into New^ealand'is thus : stewards of steanders bring down large packages,' and sell them to local dealers. As we said before, « The Dead Bird ' is a I most indecent publication, and itsj Sydney publishers should not be al- . lowed to shoot such filth in this I Colony. — * Uhristchurch Telegraph,'; I The " people of Northampton arell considerably alarmed at the discovery I that ; the water mains, in the larger; parts of the -town are infested with frogs. Their presence was discovered | through three, in different localities, I x becoming forced into the service-pipe,: , which they conjested, and thus stopped- j the water supply. Frog spawn also h has temporarily blocked the water v supply in'flome houses. The frogs, it I , is believed, ', were introduced into the mains through a head of surface water, opened during the time of the water famine in Northampton in 1884. This supply has been drawn on eyer since, and lias been distributed without filtration. The reservoir into which this water is pumped will hava to be