CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4856, 23 January 1894, Page 3

CURRENT TOPICS.

The circumstances of the death of tl»o old man John Bussell, whose body tir 1 found in the Yaria near the Botanical , Gardens, Melbourne, were inquired into by : the city coroner, Dr Toul. The evidence k showed that the deceased, who was sixty- • three years of age, boarded at a lodgingi house in West Melbourne. Early on the • .morning of Jan. 10 he left his home, Baying if he did not get work or money that day > he would drown himself. Afterwards the J following letter in his handwriting was ' found:— "Jan. 8, 1894. I am crazed by 1 the prospect before me. I have not a 1 pound in my possession, and I sea no > chance of earning the money to provide ma board and lodgings, for which I am now in j debt for about £3, My clothes are shabby, • and will soon be unfit for me to go about ! in. I have exhausted my borrowing among i my friends. I owe about JE2O (not more) [ for Bmall loanß, which I cannot increase. 1 I have not a shilling of earnings for about l three weeka. 1 am out of health, and I ' can see no prospect of improvement. In this I am only only one of hundreds. I ■ aye outlived my time." A verdict of • found drowned was recorded. t ____ i A remarkable incident occurred at | Beldon, a village some miles from Sunder- ' land, where the sails of a large windmill ' were caught by a gale and wheeled i round with such velocity that the Motion ■ set some woodwork on fire. The flames i were fanned by the sails, and it being ■ impossible to stop them, the mill was ' quickly destroyed. > Henry Edward Bumbold, thirty-Beven, a I Grimsby skipper, was charged at Lincoln 1 Assizes with the murder of Harriet Euehby 1 at Grimsby. The prisoner was in love ' with the girl, bufc became jealous at her I mode of living while he was at sea. On ' returning from a voyage on Nov. 17, ' thinking the young woman had been unl faithful to him, he bought a revolver and - shotherdead. The prisoner was found guilty ) and sentenced to death. Before sentence I was passed the prisoner said he killed the 1 girl, and it was right he should be haoged. > He stated he waß a great smoker, and ■ asked to be permitted to have cigars and 1 cigarettes, so that he might not break ) down. He wanted to die an English' hero. t He expected to meet the deceased girl in - the next world, and if she knew he broke down in this simple affair she would poke fun at him. > The Age states that the stage haß an ■ able defender in Mr Wybert Eeeve, the 3 well-known lessee and manager of the • Theatre Eoyal, Adelaide. Mr Beeve does r not enter into the old-time controversy of i the Church and the stage without fortifyb ing himself not only with a well thought i out reasonable argument of his own, but - with some of the weightiest opinions of j political, theological and litarary lights. > Herein lay the chief force of the philippic I against the bigoted religionists who 7 never lose an opportunity of denouncb ing the Btage which he delivered at s the Melbourne Unitarian Church on i a recent Sunday night. He quoted Mr i. Gladstone, Sydney Smith, Professor i Blackie, the Prince Consort, the Eev s H. B. Haweie, Martin Luther, the late a Bishop of Manchester, and others raoßt ? effectively, the opinion of all of these c weighty authorities being that nothing • tends more to promote culture and raise J the tone of the people than the theatre in j v the higher branches of its art, and that it :, w.ould be ridiculous to stamp out such a s morally noble amusement. Mr Beeve •t argued that the Church and the stage had '3 an affinity in that they were both it intended to be benefactors of the race, a They both Bought to make life brighter, c happier and more hopeful. Therefore, it g was to the advantage of the civilised f- world that they ehould be friends and not a enemies. 1. There was quite a scare behind the d scenes at the Princess's Theatre, Mel- -- bourne, on Saturday, Jan. 6, caused by the 5- ignition of a large bowl of benzine in one y, of the children's dressing- roomß. It ie occurred shortly after six o'clock, when most of those engaged in the pantomime 's were having a aurried tea after the ja matinie, and were preparing themselves ie for the evening performance. The a children's dressing - room, where the .11 incident occurred, is situate on the second id floor from the stage. Here, on a large at table, was placed a bowl containing some ip benzine used for cleaning costumes and other purposes. One of the children, is, thinking the liquid in the bowl waß water, >n carelessly thre»v a piece of lighted paper id into it as a means of extinguiehing the pc flame. The effect produced was naturally is, alarming. Immediately a large body of us nre shot up, and the children, of whom there were a considerable number in the tie room at the time, and who were of tender k, years, rushed downstairs shrieking, and re livid and trembling with fear. Fortunt nately, a wardrobe woman was at hand, rd and with commendable preeence of mind . a she quickly succeeded ia extinguishing the d- flames before any damage had been done id beyond a slight charring of the table, he Needless to say, the incident caused conly siderable commotion for a time, especially i." when the elder artists saw the children it, tushing into their rooms in such a state >st of fright. he "It was but lately," says the Sydney he Morning Herald, "that news reached of Australia of a violin made from a gourd ,nt in East Tennessee, declared by the Press en of San Francisco to be 'one of the in- queerest musical instruments ever knowo, ire and perhaps the only one of its kind.' lg. This paragraph caught the eye of Mr E. 3tn Kinneman, of Canley Vale, who, after ten bis years' industry and ingenious application )is of hiß knowledge of various kinds of wood, ;he has succeeded in making a violin from a ias cocoanut shell. The new instrument ca which is probably as unique in its way at sal the other, has been polished to a lustrous ;le. black colour, and in shape and appearance ten closely resembles a gigantic sheep* ;he kidney. The cocoanut chosen for thii ad. experiment in acoustics was a black shel lis- picked up in the Seychelles lelands. Thii iis has been patiently hollowed out, ant t craped and polished to a thickness of one

sixteenth of an inch, one-fourth oE ita original size in that respect. The shell forms, of course, only the body of the instrument, to wbich the inventor haa added a ' neck ' of native hardwood, to- , gether with a bridge aud other accet saries necessary to complete the violin.- The tone is very clear, and possesses remarkable 'carrying' power, so that in the hands of a good player the new violin would probably prove of practicable u£e.'* The South Australian Begister bag the following interesting itßm: — We printed yesterday a letter signed "St Mungo,"' claiming that Mrs M'LeJlan, of Goodwood, was a granddaughter of the famous Scottish bard, aud speaking somewhat slightingly of the title of Mrs A. V. Burns Scott to rank bs a direct descendant of the poet, being ia fact his great-grandchild. We have no wish to say a word in disparagement of the claim put forward on behalf of Mrs M'Lellan, who no doubt has all the evidence necessary to establish her relationship, but we feel it only right to mention that we have in our possession incontestable proofs of Mra Burns Scott's descent from Bobert Burns and Bonnie Jean. Her mother, still living in the old country, is the widow of Dr B. W. Hutchinson. With her husband she migrated to Victoria, and her surviving family consists of Mrs Annie Vincent Burns Scott, born in 1854 at Warrnambool, and two other daughters and a son. Mrs Hutchinson herself was born in India in 1821, her father being James 31encairn, third son of Bobert Burns, born August 12, 1794, cix years after the poet's marriage to Jean Armour, and her mother Sarah Eliza Maitland Tomb?, who was married to James Glencairn Burns in India. The line of descent is thus complete.