BRIEFLY TOLD.

Colonist, Volume XLI, Issue 9108, 28 February 1898, Page 4

BRIEFLY TOLD.

♦ (From our Latest Exchanges). M. M. Cahuzac latoly sent to the , editor of the Temaine Horticole six flowers which were said to be the result of a cross between a chrysanthemum and a dahlia, though the evidence of hybridisation did not appear very marked. Not long since Mr Lowe sent to the Gardeners' Chronicle flowers of a cross between a sunflower and a dah'ia. The editor of that journal remarks that impossible as such orosses appear, it would be rash to assert ihat they are not possible. Very often the application of the foriegn pollen seems to induce enhanced growth of the seedling without actual change of form having taken place. The Queen has granted the succession of the peerage now held by Lord Burton to his only child, the Hon. Mrs Baillie, of Dochfour, and to her heir's male. The Mont de Piete plays an important part in the life of Paris, handling nearly 3,000,000 articles, and having an annual turnover of £4,000,000. A new branch of business lately opened enabled these institutions to advance money on acrip, thus playing the part of stockbroker as well as banker. During the last twelve months nearly 30,000 people deposited or renewed bonds and stock with it to the value of fourteen million francs. The object is to assist small investors, and no single pledge must exceed 500 francs in yalue. A clever workman in a outlery factory in Sheffield has made a dozen pairs of shears, each so minute that they altogether weigh less than half a grain. Each pair is perfect, and would cut if sufficiently delicate material could be found. Lying on a piece of white paper, they seem no larger than pin-heads. A vote of £30,000 has been passed by the Western Australian Parliament for the erection of public batteries on the goldfields. The Chinese have conquered their, inborn aversion to railways. Saysj a contemporary : — " Probably, sufficient credit has not been given in the matter of this modification of public prejudice to Li Hung Chang. In his own province the long-headed statesman started a colliery at an appreciable distance from the river at Tientsin. It was necessary to have communication with the river, and Li laid down a tramway. This was gradually extended until it connected the colliery with the nyer.

Theo, when the inabitants had be- " come familiarised with its presence, - the tramway was converted into a j railway pure and simple. By this j time the Chinese of the neighbourhood had been weaned from their superstition, end regarded the larger line with indifference. The following story is told by Mr Rene Bull, the war correspondent of ' Black and White " in the Afridi campaign. Meeting with a couple of " Tommies " bubbling with mirth, Mr Bull asked the why and wherefore of their merriment. Said one : "The general told us to burn everythink we v could find, so Gunner Green and me went down the 'ill and found a little 'ouse. When we went inside we found a poor old bloke who said his son 'ad gone an' left 'im." Mr Bull said : " i hope you didn't hurt him ?" " Lor' bless you, sir, why 'urt him," he said, " Why we carried 'im outside, put 'im under a tree, put a chattie of water by 'ia side and a choopattie in 'is 'and, and then we jurat his bloomiog 'ouse." BY SPECIAL APPOINTMENT Peaks' Sup, makers to her Majesty the Qoeen. Virginia (in the United States) evidently disbelieves the maxims that it is impossible to make people moral by Act of Parliament and that boys will be boys. The local Legislature is beginning its experiments in the reform of its citizens with the Virginian youth. Its boys are to ba made less brutal by the anti-football legislation of last year, and now Senator M'Cune i 3 turning his attention to both boys and girls. Flirtation with school girls is to be pu<; down with a strong hand, and the precincts of th° young ladies seminaries are not to be desecrated by the presence of the mere male. The Bill that Senator M'Cune has introduced into the Senate makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than lOdol nor more than 50dol, or imprisonment, for any man or youth to loiter about near any female school or seminary, and forbids any man to enter the premises of such institutions without the permission of the principal or teachers.