NEWS ITEMS

Colonist, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8259, 28 May 1895, Page 3

NEWS ITEMS

(Fbom our Latest Exchanges.) Said Dal ley on a memorable ocoaeioa : — " Once acouee a man of a crime and people will be ready to believe him guilty. Place the most honest and pleasing faoe behind the rails of this dook, and it at onoe beoomes a face tbat expresses every evil pat sion. From Lemberg a Vienna correspondent learns that a terrible battle bas been fought at the railway station at Bawaruska. A menagerie was being oonveyed by rail, and when the train was stopped at the station a great noise wus beard. The guards went to the waggons oontaioing the wild beaßtp, and found the w« oden partitions whioh separated three lioneßßes from three bears, and these again from three hyrenos, broken down, and the animals engaged in battle. One bear was missing. Tbe lions had eaten him. skin and all. Tbey bad bitten another bear's paw off. and a hyrena lay dead on the floor. Two lions in a neighboring compartment remained ceslna. No one dared interfere between tbe fighting beasts, until the owner arrived in a sledge and separated them —not before he had been bitten by a bear, however. He claims damages from the railway administration because tbe partitions gave way. During the voyage of the ship, Tweedsdale from Rio to Sydney, a grand sight was witnessed in the course of an electrical storm. At intervals the whole vessel became covered with small balls of fire or corposants, which danced about in an extraordinary fashion, The display lasted for over an hour. Sik RoDis-KicK. Camehon, tho wellknown ship-owner of New York, and his daughter, were robbed at Victoria station, London, on April 12, of valuable jewellery and notes and drafts amounting to £10,000. The property was in a tin case that Miss Cameron, carried, and which was snatched from! her by a thief, who escaped in the confusion that followed. A few weeks ago a Polish lady, a refugee, named Mme. Rostowska, said to be 112 years old, appeared at the Prefecture at Lille to receive her pension from the French Govei_Jiuent. Her history is extraordinary. She followed the French army in the Russian campaign as a canteen woman, and took part in twelve campaigns in all. She was twice wounded, and wears the Order of the Silver Cross. In 1881 she acted as surgeon to the 10th Polish line regiment, in which her husband was a captain. For the laßt twenty years she has lived at Aniche, where she is known for her philanthropy. She brought up 15 children, though her last surviving son died several years ago at the age Of 80. Mrs Della T. Parnell, mother of the late Charles Stewart Parnell, who lives at Ironside, overlooking the Delaware River, near Bordentoun, New Jersey, was found bleeding and unconscious late on the night of April 18th, by the son of Farmer Casey (who has charge of Ironsides) on the road leading to the property. By her side were two small pieces of board, a piece of fence paling about three feet long, and a brick. Help was obtained and she was carried to the house of the farmer. Dr Phipps, who was hastily summoned, made an examination, and found that, besides several bruises about the face, the woman had a lacerated wound on the right side of her head. She remained unconscious for a long time after she was picked up, and on account of advanced age her situation is considered critical. She is believed to have been the victim of a brutal attack. The following appears in the Otago 1 Witness : — " Dear Civis, — Farmers are not the only sinners in providing poor accommodation for their employees. W hat is your opinion of landowners who can sign a cheque of six figures building warm brick styes, with clean straw put in every day, for their swine, and letting their workmen pig together in a filthy hovel of a hut where you could put your arm through the slabs, feeding them on ram-stag mutton, and bread made from weevily flour ? The text, ' How much better is a man than a sheep ?' has no place in their Bible, for they put more value on a prize ram than on a dozen men. — I am, &c, Jumbuck. P.S. — I could name six or seven such men in the Australian Colonies. Thb Hawera ' Star ' states : — The flairymen who have been supplying Honnor and Crockett's factories and creameries in the Mountain road district have taken them over as a co-operative concern, the price being £2,600. The • North Otago Daily Time*' says : — Over 600 bales of woo! were carted into Oamaru this season. Thia, we believe, is the largest nnrnber of hales carted in any season. Large quantities of grain were also carted in. All this means that tbe taxpayers oi the Colony have ta maintain both toads and railways, while one should be able to do nil the heavy work.

Among, expressive Amerioan eayinge now ont of date was that bandy ont ! »• from July to eternity." A gentleman wished to take witl l bim from Poland into Russia a book ot tbe subject of Twardowski, tbe Polisl Faust. It was simply an aooount o tbe Faust legend as acolima tised among tbe Poles. But tb< Russian offioiale of tbe censorship bureau were wonderfully keer -sighted, and they declared tbat the 1 alleged legend was simply a satire or , the Russian Government in Poland " Faust," said one of them, " is Poland Mephistopheles is Russia . and Poland in accepting Russian rule, sells he* soul. We are not such fools as you think. We understand the allegory ; and, for that reason, cannot allow you to introduce your mischeivous book into Russia." A despatch comes from Newark) Ohio, April 15, tb the following effect:—" Christopher Columbus Bitter, wbo, through J. Wilkes Booth's influence scoured a position in Ford's Theatre, Washington, tells the story of Lincoln's assassination, claiming tb&t Boston Corbett shot Edward Fuohs, the actor resembling Booth, and not President Lincoln's assassin. Bitter is well tduoated, and his charaoter is above reproach. He de^ clared_ that be assisted Pooth to escape, and that they sailed for Brazil, Marob 2, 1865. He soon left Brazil, but be met Booth by appointment in Hamburg seven years ago, and on tbat. oooasion Bcoth gave him piotures of his childreo born by a South American wife. These pictures hear a strong resemb.a__ce to Booth, aud are now in Bitter's possession. Rit er says he keard from Booth last winter, and tbat he was then on the South American stage. There was a novel kind of Bhip launch at East Boat, n on 4th April, the launching of the float which will Scarry the theatre Floating Palaoe Amusement Company. This is the very latest thing in theatres. The theatre will be auohored ofl the Marine pier, South Boston, for part of ihe summer reason, and will also go to Bar Harbor, Coney Island, and v other summer resorts. In the winter it may go south. It is built a good deal like a lighter exoept that it . has a rounded bow and is very strongly put together. The stage will be at tbe stern, and will be 40ft by 58ft. The main floor of the theatre tuns forward to the round of the bow, and bas an incline of 10ft in its whole length. It is arranged so that tbe seals oan be taken away and the floor raised to a level, giving an ideal danoe ball. There will also be a gallery, whioh wiil be a little above the deck, lhe house wiil rise 80ft above the deok, giving a total height of 40ft for the theatre. Mr Arthur Clayden continues to urge the value of emigration to New Zealand as •« tbe supreme" panaoea " for the present congestion of population in Great Britain and for the ills resulting therefrom. Eight servants in tbe employ of the Marquis of Londonderry, at his residence, Mount Stewart, N6W Tounardo, County Down, went out in a boat on April 20th on Loch Btrangford, and not having been heard of since are supposed to be all drowned. •• Thb penitentiary of Pentridge is rapidly becoming Melbourne's chief chai itable institution, for thereto the magistrates are sending poor infirm creators arrested as vagrants, rather than they should be allowed to die of starvation in the gutttrs."— The Be i oon. On one occasion when our reporter was travelling through Taranaki in wet weather he pot up at a country pub., and Bridget MoGuinness, the young lady who presided over the stove and slung the hash around, provided dry clothes and slippers. Next morning the traveller asked Bridget for hiß boots. "Eowly Saints I" said she, "I put them in the oven and forgot all about them. Never mind, boss, it ain't everyone who gets baked soles for breakfast in Taranaki."—Wellington * Ferald. ' The English football season b»s closed (s<_yg a London despatch of April 27) and the ' Westminster Gazette ' publishes its annual football " butchers' bill. The bill shows thiit daring the season tbere were 20 death* from injuries reoeived on tbe football field, and that over 150 legs, arms, and collar bones were broken, besides msny oases of concussion of the brain! and .-pine, paralysis, knee caps split, and hundreds of minor casualties. The Edinburgh correspondent of the Loudon ' Times, ' under date April 16, says : — " Professors Flinders Petrie, in a lecture delivered before tbe Edinburgh Royal Society, declared tbat recent exoav tions made in a district 30 mi'es north of Thebes pointed to tbe existence, 3000 y> ars before Christ of a raco quite distinct from the Egyptian. The* 'limes* comments editorially on the importance of Professor Pc trie's discovery in transforming Egyptian history and in encouraging excavators in Greece and elsewhere. A Bristol Welshman has left in bis will £300 for the erection near Pontypool of a publio building resembling in appearance Rachel's tomb near .Hebron, iv I'a'estine' In Melbourne, the other day, £10,000 was lent on mortgage at 4 per oent for 10 years. The outlook is an all-round fall in intireat. The Head Constable at Liverpool, in his report, reflected upon tbe oonduot of oertain barmaids who were employed in public-house " Bongs." The barmaids referred to brought an aotion against the Heai Constable, but the Judge ruled tbat his report was privileged. At Warrnambool poa oes are selling at 6s 6d per ton. A few years ago they were £5. The English police authorities have ascertained that John Barnard, for whose arrest, on the charge of whole- . sale incendiarism, a warrant has beei) j issued, is in the United States. Barnard is charged with being accountable for some 800 incendiary fires in various parts of London. The total payi ments by the insurance companies on account of his operations reached ; £40,000. In one of the fires for which i he is held accountable seventeen girls , came near losing their lives. Bar- . nard's accomplice, Alfred Warnei i Walsh, has just been sentenced to 1 I years' penal servitude for his share ir hese diabolical operations.

Thb • Timaru Herald' says that, ac . about 7.30 on Tuesday night, a «" orse, owner unknown, bolted into a ie oi a resident at B\_ .ereingcon while tbe inmates were to itting at the tics, In entering it J° roke two tables and then rushed iuto tie bedroom, smashing the toilet stand nd ware, then got between the largf ti ouble bed and the wall, and there got E tinned. It subsequently rolled on to *' he bed, kicked the wall, breaking the p ilas.er, and smashed tbe beadstead to >iece<j. It then plunged until it got n tut cf tbe bed, and kicked and (.mashed he remainder of the furniture in the c oom; then got into tht. passage, E imashed all round, breaking piotures, r fee , and finally, gettiog out, galloped ' iway. It is doub.ful whether it can , 3e identified or not. as the night was f rery dark and the people left it Bole _ sooupant while it was in. The j lamage is calculated to be £12. ; In a gentleman's r<Jßidei_ce in the Auckland distriot reoently, a Servant, . on entering a Bpare bedroom, discovered < a Bmell of fire and found a small mat on ' a wooden washstand in a blaze. The ' sun's rays passing through a water bottle on the waßhstand had be iocueed on the mat, and cc. it °n fire. The late Mr Biohard Godson, killed I on the railway at Granville lately, was the oldest Mason in &ew South Wales. It is over half a century ago Bince he took steps to iorm the first Masonic lodge (the Australian Social Mother; in that Oolony. A contributob to the Ohristohuroh ' Truth * says : —" I'm on " early days," bo I'll have a gossip about the old original sod houses that usea to dot the neighborhood weßti of Ohri&tchurob. Templeton, Yaldhurst, and Upper Biccarton had many of them, along what was called in these times the Kaiapoi road. Oi one of these houses—Jones's—an amusing story is told. The houee had grow a we*k at one side and had to be propped up. The owner had mortgaged land and house and the mortgagee foreclosed and took possession, Joneß olearing out. But he oarefully took with him the props which kept up the house, they not being inoluded in the mortgage, and the building at onoe fell io the ground. The Lord Mayor of Liverpool (Mr W. H. Watts), who is an ultra-Liberal oould find nothing kinder to say at a publio dinner of the unemployed than that, " there was nothing for that seotion of them who were unskilled but to go to the devil." Thiß remark naturally oaused a rumpuß. Shortly afterwards the unveiling in ct Georges \ Hall of a statue to the late Mr Edward Whitley took place, aud when : tbe Lord Mayor, accompanied by [ Lord Gross, arrived, there waß a gieat . uproar. The unemployed in thou- ! sands stood on the steps leading to 1 the hall, and hooted the Mayor lustily aud on his return he took care -o be [ escorted by a guard of mounted police , the crowd vigorously execrating him : en route. , At a sale of armour iv London a i broad-sword, supposed to have be- . longed to Cromwell, realised £120, a | suit of bright steel armour fetching £283. NOTHING LIES SOAP. [ Pare Soap, good soap, honest soap Psabs soap.