BRIEFLY TOLD.

Colonist, Volume XLI, Issue 9257, 23 August 1898, Page 4

BRIEFLY TOLD.

(From our Latest Exchanges.)

The front end of the* great glacier of Alaska presents a wall 500 ft thick,

and its breadth varies from three to

;en miles, while its length is 150

miles.

The other day, at Pretoria (says the Johannesburg • Star ') a school^ boy was fined £2 10s for contravening the Mask Law. It appears that the boy had attended a fancy dress ball in the guise of some historical hero, who, according to the tradition, wore a moustache. After the dance he was a moustache to the good, and being an ordinary boy, thought it very good fun to go to the circus with it plastered on his upper lip. Unfortunately he encountered the eye of a policeman, who had been stationed in the circus for the purpose of looking after the morals of the virtuous Fretorians. The luckless jester was promptly hauled before a shocked Landdrost, who punished him strictly according to law. News has been received of the death at Villa Maria, Sydney, of the Rev Father Hurlin, who was for threo years in charge of the parish of Timaru. To keep Mr W. X, Vanderbilt's steam yacht Valiant in full commission for twelve months cost between £20,000 and £25,000. Austria is the only Empire in the world which has never had colonies, or even transmarine possessions, in any quarter of the earth. Her ambition has hitherto been purely Continental.

BT SPEOIAti APPIONTMENT Pbab'B. Soap, makers to her Majesty tbe Queen The Japanese Government has under consideration a plan for the establishment of banks with foreign capital. The plan, as outlined, is designed to encourage foreigners to become interested in the support of industrial enterprises in Japan.

Says Auckland Observes :— He bad been walking up and down outside a public house, with a carpet bag in one hand and a parcel in the other, for two c? three hours, until at last a policeman's attention was attracted to him. * What are you doing here all this time, mister ?' kindly enquired the bobby. * Waitin* for a banker's son who borrowed £5 off me, and gimme' this parcel to 'old! 1 innocently replied the old gentleman. He was from the country right enough, and had forgotten to bring his wife with him. Prison, the stepping stone to Parliament. At least six members of the present N.S.Wales Assembly have • done time '—mostly on charges to which every outspoken Democrat is liable. — Sydney ' Bulletin,' The working of an advanced di-

vorce law in Australia has shown

that there is a tendency to looseness of life— in some instances — an utter disregard of the sacredness of the marriage tie. Says the Minister of Lands : Only the other day I received a letter from a friend of mine in a far-off part of the colony, and in referring to the Opposition he said, ' The only thing I can compare the Opposition to is the Spanish fleet, which is obsolete, useless, and ineffective.' In the New Zealand Parliament, at the present time, any silly pretext serves for a rambling debate on everything in general and nothing in particular, for utter waste of time, and for the debasement of legislative dignity.— Christchuroh c Star.' Says Tom Taylor, M.H.B.— Our Pablic Works Fund should really be split up and handed over to the various local governing bodies in this colony. We are not a board of works, and should not be a board of works here. Says Hon. W. C. Walker : If the principle oi the jury was so perfect, and applicable to all sorts and conditions of men, why was it that women had never been considered under it ? If men had a right to appeal to a tribunal of their peers, why should women not also have the same right? Thebe seem to have been some artistic curiosities in the art show held in Wellington, One painter — and the leading man in his line that Wellington owns — ia told by a Press critic that a certain alleged cloud effect resembles ( the shreds of a burst balloon,' and that in an attempted portrait * he mistakes human flesh for a strange conglomerate of whipped cream and green mould.' Expressive, if not exactly complimentary.