Local & General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5016, 23 July 1884, Page 3

Local & General.

The usual weekly sitting of the Kangiora Resident Magistrate's Court did not take place yesterday, the business being adjourned until to-morrow, when a special sitting will be held to take the evidence for the defence in the case R. L. Higgins and J. Morgan v. the Cust Road Board. Mr Haydon asserts that the ballast craft which sank in the harbour at Lyttelton did not leak. He is taking steps to raise her, and intends towing her into shallow water. The only portion of the barge visible is the top of the mast. In spite of the excitement over the elections, several votaries of the " royal game of chess " assembled at the Public Library last evening, when a few games in connection with the Handicap Tourney were played. Mr W. A. Adams won one from Mr Wethey, Mr Todd gained one over Mr W. A. Adams, and Mr Bevan won one from Mr Todd. The match between Messrs Hookham and Jacobsen will be renewed on Friday afternoon. A Sheffield correspondent writes : — Owing to the bursting of a tube of the engine attached, the morning up-train for Springfield was delayed yesterday for two hours, at a spot about one quarter mile below Sheffield. An accident, by which a valuable draught horse, the property of Mr G. Craig, was destroyed, occurred on Thursday night. The animal got its forefeet through the covering of a partiallyfilled well, and then, in its efforts to recover itself, worked its body through also, finally falling to the bottom, a distance of only ten feet. It was found quite dead next morning. The weather experienced in the Malvern district has been of a wintry character since last Wednesday, upon which date a snow-storm occurred. Again yesterday morning another snowstorm^ lasting several hours, passed over the district. When the verdict in the Guiteau case was delivered the prisoner leaped from his chair and cried, " God will punish you for this/ and then pronounced a prophetic malediction upon prosecutors, witnesses, and jury. The fulfilment of the prophecy is claimed by an American journal, which says : — " The District Attorney has lost his office and has nothing' to do ; another counsel is now a common drunkard j two jurymen

are dead, two failed in business, one is hopelessly insane; three doctors who declared Guiteau sane are dead, a fourth is himself insane, and, lastly, the chemist who traced poison in the bouquet sent Guiteau on the morning of his execution, has been committed to a lunatic asylum." Moral : Never convict a murderer. The Shah of Persia is in great trouble. Twice or thrice every year one of his eunuchs leaves the Imperial Palace at Teheran for the farfamed Women-bazaar at Herat. These agents carry with them large sums of money in gold, for the dealers in women allow no credit on their beautiful goods. The last mission of the Imperial messenger was, however, unsuccessful. He had scarcely crossed the Afghan frontier when a band of highway robbers overtook him, robbed him of every penny, and he has had to journey back to Teheran with empty hands and empty pockets, and without the convoy of delectable damsels which the Shah was expecting to replenish his hai'em. The Kablcas, the new Tiflis paper, published under the auspices of Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff, the new Russian Governor in those regions, talks openly about the possibility and desirability of turning the English out of India —in other words of assisting the Hindostanees to free themselves from the British yoke. The Russian Foreign Office affects great indignation and consternation at this unwarrantable language, which it disclaims. But it seems that a good many unwarrantable things were said under the auspices of Prince Dondoukoff Korsakoff in the days before the Berlin Treaty, when he was ruling in Bulgaria ; yet somehow his language proved to be no inaccurate representation of his Government's thoughts, -wishes, and intentions. Many Turkish ladies have of late years adopted Western fashions of dress, and, worse still, have dispensed altogether with the veil, which, according to the 24th chapter of the Koran, ought to be worn by every Mussulman woman. The Sultan, who is much scandalised at these departures from ancient usage, has now decreed that all his female subjects, under pain of a heavy fine, shall discard their accursed European mantles, their crinolettes, and their Paris boots, and that henceforth every Mahometan woman shall shroud her head in a veil of modest opacity, and clothe herself in all ways after the decent fashion of her ancestresses. The decree seems somewhat harsh ; yet, possibly, the husbands will not object to it, for it will save them a good deal of expense. Dr George Hand-Smith, an American chemist, who has been working for many years at physics, has made the most remarkable discovery that certain pigments can be made to penetrate extremely dense substances such as marble and ivory. The penetration is the result of molecular influences, and is not due to chemical action, nor, strictly speaking, to heat. Dr HandSmith's discovery is likely to be of great importance to art, more especially in its decorative departments, and in the interior of cathedrals and churches its application is likely to be extensive. Michael Angelo called mosaics " painting for eternity ;" but this new method of painting will have all the permanence of the tessellated work without its mechanical drawbacks, and a freedom of style will be possible which the " tesserae " scarcely permitted. It is indeed somewhat alarming that in point of fact any artist, whatever his powers may be, will be able, after a little technical instruction in the management of colours, to paint a picture which will last for ever. Dr HandSmith claims for his discovery that the colour penetrates so far that it might even be cut through after the manner of a veneer, and one or more replicas at once produced in this way. The surface of the marble can either be left rough, or it can be polished ; and if the general face of the picture is left unpolished, whilst here and there a gloss is given, the varying effects of light and shade can be produced in a very way. It will be seen from this that the discovery can be made use of for colouring marble in a way that has never been dreamt of before. The Pall Mall Gazette says : — There may be as many gambling women as men in Europe, but there are, to our knowledge, as yet no gambling-houses exclusively instituted for women. In that respect America has the advantage, or the disadvantage, of Europe, if we may believe an American newspaper, which publishes a description of a so-called ladies' club in New York, a palatial edifice to which only women are admitted, and in which, like in any other gam I bling-house, fortunes are daily won and | lost. The proprietress of this " club "is thoroughly proficient for her post as superintendent, having for many years lived with the proprietor of one of the most famous gambling-houses of New York. After quarrelling with him she hired the house where at present she rules supreme over a staff of female servants and assistants. No outsider is admitted who cannot show a card from the proprietress or an introduction from a frequenter. Only once has the bank been very low, but at the last moment a Creole gamestress appeared, lost a fortune at one sitting, and since then business has been flourishing, and the handsome proprietress no longer thinks of closing. This is a Llnl r.f female enterprise which, it is to b. \ ■>;> ■•■<]. will remain on the other side of the Atlantic. At the annual show of bicycles and tri- ! cycles at Birmingham, Mr Jaffray stated : that the average make of bicycles and tri- [ cycle now ranges from five hundred to six hundred per week, the output for last year being estimated at thirty thousand, while more than ten thousand tricycles were sold last year in the United Kingdom alone. The capital employed is about half a million sterling, and altogether some ten thousand hands are directly engaged in the trade. The annual entertainment and presentation of prizes in connection with the St Mary's, Merivale, Sunday School took place last evening. The programme consisted of glees by the choir, recitations by the scholars, and a series of dissolving views by Mr Crooks, all of which were loudly applauded by the audience. The prizes were presented, to the number of sixty-eight (including twenty-six for regular attendance), by the Rev Francis Knowles, and addresses were delivered by Messrs H. B. WeWi and W. H. Shaw. Hearty cheers for Mr Knowles, the Superintendent and teachers, brought the entertainment to a close. It is often the case that we sacrifice our lives by delaying the use of proper remedies. A few hours ost ia often fatal in acute diseases. Fever and inflammation wait for no mau, but when unchecked hurry on to mortification and death. Do not be guilty of this fatal delay ; use freely Bristol's SAKSArAKiLLA and Pills, in them you have safety nnd health.