News items.

Colonist, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5936, 17 October 1890, Page 4

News items.

SEVENTY-nine persons in Great

Britain pay tax on incomes exceeding £50.000 per annum. The total aggregate amount of incomes thus assessed exceeds £8,000,000. White pine boards are said to be now obtained by reducing small trees and limbs of clear wood to pulp and pressing them in moulds of any desired size. A vessel arrived, lately at Odessa which belongs to the Monastery of Mount Athos, and it is manned entirely by monks, *dl of whom perform their duties on board arrayed in the habit of their order. She is named the Prophet Elias, In the process of photographing colors, lately discovered, the photographs are taken on glass and paper, and the tints range from a deep red, through yellow, to bright blue, but green is absent in all the positives. Very long exposure is required. Tinned rabbits from the Gore faotory realised 11s per dozen in London, and Mr Valentine informs the Tapanui 'Courier' that the rabbits were considered the best ever sent from the Colony. Edison gays that " many extremely useful improvements on the telephone are in the possession of those controlling the invention, and are safelj locked up from the world because ol the great extra expense which attends their application to existing instru ments." The first weeping willow in Englanc was planted by Pope, the poet, Hay ing received a present of some fig* from Turkey, and observing a twig in the basket ready to bud, he planted il in his garden, and it soon became c fine tree. It is said that from this stock all the weeping willows in England and America originated. Mrs Dolliver (to the new girl) : ' Noreeca, throw this water out of the window ; but be sure you look out. (Ten 6econdß later) : • What's thi matter ?' Noreena : ' I looked out mum, and I saw the water go ovei as fine a gentleman as you'd oars tc meet 1 ' This question was put to the house holders in thirteen towns and cities ir Scotland, including Edinburgh, GiaS' gow, and Aberdeen : — " Are you ie favor of the prohibition of all licenses for the common sale of intoxicating liquors?'' 81,610 noteholders answered •' Yes,'' and 31 ",J0 "No." A remakable letter i ms just appeared in the Press from a Vice-Presidentoi the National Secular Society. He writes £on the work of the Salvation Army, ajnvpos of their great demonstration lately. He frankly confesses that seventeen years' active work as a Freethinker has compelled him reluctantly and sorrowfu'ly to admit that Secularism has no message to the < most unfortunate and degraded of our fellow-creatures. He feels that the Secularist principles are a series of more or less philosophical propositions which are grotesquely inefficient in the i face of the terrib'y brutalised ignorance which surrounds us. His unique communication concludes thus : — " It is surely well that our brethren should be lifted from the moral quagmire in which many thousands of them are sinking to lower depths of poverty, crime, and debasement ; it is surely well that our fallen sisters should be tenderly and lovingly taken by the hand and led upwards from the path of sin and shame. If our shibboleth of Secularism be ineffectual, and if the shibboleth of Faith succeed, then let it be so ; I care not how, so that it is done." This letter is at once a striking testimony to the success of the Salvation Army and a proof of the necessity for a religious foundation in the most difficult forms of social work. A well-known London preacher, famed alike lor bis outspoken discourses and for his utter fearlessness of consequences, recently startled a West-end evening congregation by announcing in his sermon that a lady whom he knew bad murdered her coaohman. Everyone was at onoe on the gui vive. 'She went,' said the preacher, ' to a bait ; not knowing how long she might ba, she told the man to wait. He waited three hours in the bitter cold and frost ; the cold struck his lungs, and he was removed to an hospital. At that hospital, I,' continued the preacher, ' attended him. He died, and his death must surely be laid at that lady's door.' The congregation, thoroughly solemnised by the stern words, eat ia profound silence, svery eye inlently fixed upon the speaker. Judge, therefore, of the further thrill which awaited them nrhen the preacher, after a pause, leaned forward and said, 'My breth :en, that lady is present in this church ip-night.' What is described in an American meobanioal journal as the largest boiler ever built was tested a week or »wo ago at one of the electric-lighting stations in New York. It is said to be encased in a vertioal shell fiu ihiok, and to contain 600 tubes, eaoh rf which is Bin in diameter. The length of these tubes if stretched oat nrould reaoh 7,200 ft, or very nearly >ae.vjud;.a I :li}al4^ileß. r ..- :^e 7 wbole. 1 Doiler contains 6,000 square feet of seating surface, and is of 1,000 horse "^.■■■"■''"■:---:---

--' Mt SfcDDON has been 'offered a labor sfeat in Wellington, but declined the honor, saying he could not see his way (to become a _mere delegate for any body of men. One of the standing properties of the prison of XJsknb, Macedonia, is a collection of large ants. Fifty a-atfe, placed on the body of a man chained to the floor so that he can't move limb or head, will cause as extreme torture a? can be devised. , , Keupp has just tamed out the biggeat gnn yet. It is made of cast steel, weighs 235 tons, and has a calibre of 13£ in, and a barrel oi 40ft in length. It fires two shots per minute, and eaoh charge costs £300. It was tested at Essen, and after penetrating 19iu of armour, the proectile went 1400 yds beyond the target. The New York papers announce the death of Mr John W. Watson, who was born of English parents in that city sixty-eight years ago. He was originally an engraver, but had strong literary tastes, and in 1858 wrote 'Beautiful Snow.' He was a friend of Bryant and of Greeley, both of whom defended him from false claimants to the authorship of ' Beautiful Snow. 1 Conversation between a clergyman and friend on a Melbourne tramcar: — * Aye, it's evil times for as all ; bad for every branch of industry. And I'll undertake to say neighbour, that even yon do not find business brisk as usual.' 'You are altogether wrong, 1 replies the professional celebrant of matrimony. « Bless your heart, any change is better for me. If it's good time, they marry out of joy ; if bac?, for consolation's sake. If it's strike time, why, I suppose they have nothing else to do. Would you believe, now, that I turned off nine couples yesterday ?' It is related that a well-known circus proprietor up North, while standing outside, and hearing peals of laughter, was constrained to peep inside. Noticing a small hole in the canvas, he inserted one of his fingers with the object of making it larger, and at that moment a lynx-eyed attendant noticing the protruding digit raised his stick and caught it such a blow that this unfortunate 'peeping Tom* for some time afterwards extolled the worth of his attendants, that is, when his finger was not in his mouth. The seven Bibles of the world are the Koran of the Mohammedans, the Tri Pitikes of the Buddhists, the Five Kings of the Chinese, the Three Yedas of the Hindoos, the Vendavesta, the Scriptures of the Christians, and the Eddas of the Scandinavians. The Koran is the most recent of the five, dating from about the seventh century after Christ. A watchmaker in Newcastle, England, recently completed a set of three gold shirt studs, one of which is a watch that keeps excellent time, the dial being only three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter. The three studs are connected by a strip of silver inside the shirt bosom, and the wftch contained in the middle one is wound up by turning the stud above. The hands are set by turning the one below. Misa Jeanne Victoire Snook, aged 10, has been presented by the Mayor of Portsmouth with the honorary certificate of the Eoyal Humane Society, for saving her little brother's life in April. The lad fell from a landing stage into 12ft of water, and must have perished had not his sister, who was unable to swim, jumped in and managed to keep him afloat until a waterman came and rescued both. The case is eaid to be without a parallel in the annals of the Eoyal Humane Society. Prince Louis of Battenburg formerly took a fancy to the career of a printer, and became so far a master of his profession as to set up type in a highly commendable fashion. Subsequently, when the star of Battenburg rose to its zenith in the political firmament, Prince Louis relinquished his unpretentious calling and became an officer in the British Navy. A short time ago, when serving on the Dreadnought, it occurred to him to turn his early training to account, so he printed a history of the Dreadnought and presented a copy to each of his shipmates. How characteristic of Ruskin are his views of the bicycle, which have just been unearthed: "I not only object, but am quite prepared to spend all my best ' bad language ' in reprobation cf bi-, tri-, and 4-, 5-, 9-. or 7-cycles, and every other contrivance and invention for superseding human feet on God's ground. To walk, to run, to leap and to dance are the virtues of the human body ; and neither to stride on stilts, wriggle on wheels, or dangle on ropes, and nothing in the training of the human mind with the body will ever supersede the appointed God's way of slow walking and hard working," Of course, on the same principle, we shouldn't wear any clothes, or eat cooked food, but perhaps Buskin didn't think of that.