GENERAL NEWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVI, Issue 993, 24 November 1883, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

Mrs Langtry was a rather expensive companion for the devoted Freddie. In one New York jewellery store he spent 40,000d015.,in presents for her, one item being a 25,000d01. necklace. Just previous to her departure, he bought a 5000doL present for her. at the same sit»bliihment.— "Chicago Times," A correspondent of a Home paper suggests the oiling of the Straits of Dover. He writes: "A passage a mile broad would cost roughly £250, or, if done daily, £75,000 a year. Perhaps the oiling would not liave to be done daily, as probably after a few weeks the sea would be thoroughly becalmed ; but even if it should cost that sum, it would not exceed the endless sums that are now spent in quackeries by intending passengers and advertising the said quackeries, or the inestimable sums which passengers would give when half-way across." Some extraordinary results were obtained during the recent general election in Queensland. The "Brisbane Observer" says :— " At Thompson's Creek, where the Opposition got a majirity of twenty, only one man lives ; at Watson ville more votes were polled £ or the Opposition than there are voters in the district; at Lower Tait and California Creek, the Opposition state that there was more polling for the Government than there are voters. Great excitement occurred at Harberton owing to the fifty votes polled at Halpin's and 180 at California Gully. It is stated that there are not fifty votes in both places together." One of the latest novelties in explosives takes the shape of blasting paper, which consists of unsized paper coated with a hot mixture of 17 parts of yellow prussiate of potash, 17 of charcoal, 35 of refined saltpetre, 17 of potassium chloride, 10 of wheat starch, and 1500 of water. After drying, the paper is cut into strips, and these are rolled into cartridges. No information is given as to the destructive power of the new article, nor as to its superiority to everything else. From this it would appear that the inventor — Herr Petry, of Vienna— is in possession of a virtue that is rare among his class, namely, modesty. "Le Moniteur Industrie! " advises the protection of the Channel Tunnel by means of water as a precaution to be adopted at the French end, equally with the English, and which ought to secure both nations from any fear of invasion The syatem proposed is :— A small intermediate basin, somewhat inland, with communication which can be opened and closed between the sea on the one hand and the tunnel on the other ; a steamengine, rotary pump, pulsometer, &c, for pumping the water in and out. The admission of 176,000 gallons of water would render the tunnel impassable, without destroying the apparatus for illumination, telegraphy, &c, which, it would contain, and could be extracted when the danger was over, without excessive expenditure of time and money. The veracious chronicler who recorded some time since that the ark had been discovered on Mount Ararat, now announces that documents found therein have conclusively proved that the venerable ship was insured in the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, 51, Broadway, New York. The Vice-President of the Company, on searching the archives for the year 2300 8.C., has found the following note :: — l< An ark constructed by Noah, property ot Noah and Sons ; tontiage, 42,413,950; length, 525 feet; width, 87ft 6in ; depth of hold, 62ft 6in— gopher wood ; destination, transport animals and passengers ; classed Al." The manager declines to reveal the professional secret of the amount of the insurance, or whether Noah himself was insured separately from the menagerie. This anecdote is told of the late Commodore Vanderbilt :— At Saratoga, on one occasion, when sitting on a piazza of a hotel, a somswhat overdressed lady approached and claimed his acquaintance. The commodore rose and talked affably with her: his wife and daughter sniffed the air with scorn. ' ' Father," said the you ng lady an the commodore resumed his Beat, "didn't you remember that vulgar Mrs B as the woman who used to sell poultry to us at home ?" " Certainly," replied the old gentleman promptly, *" and I remember your mother when she used to sell root beer at three cents a glass over in Jersey, when I went up there from Staten Island peddling oysters out of my boat." As his homely reply was heard by a group surrounding the family, there was no further attempt at aristocratic airs on the part of the ladies during the season.

Few people when found fault with seem to forget the adage, " Any excuse is better than none." " Cabby, if you do not drive faster, I will give you no pourboire," said a French gentleman. "I have already run over two persons, and Monsieur is not yet satisfied," was the unexpected reply. An equally ready excuse was made by another driver in Paris for not running over a foot passenger. The horse was just about to knock down a lady, when the cabby, by a superhuman effort, reined the animal in, checking it so sharply that it reared up upon its haunches. "Bravo, coachee; nobly done!" exclaimed a spectator. " I wouldn't have upset her for the world," replied the coachman. " She would have been my thirteenth this month, and thirteen is always an unlucky number." A discussion was recently being carried on in the London papers on the subject of female clerks, and reference was made to the incivility shown by those employed in the post-office as contrasted with the manners of lady assistants in other callings. A correspondent in the " Pall Mall Budget" g^ves his experience in the following words :—": —" Going into an office in Fleet-street, I asked for a foreign stamp. Two young ladies behind the counter were conversing, and though they saw and heard me, they continued their talk unmoved. ' And did he kiss you, dear ?' said one to the other, with as little concern for me as if T had been a parcel. It was not till she had got from her friend a reassuring answer that one of them at length handed me my Queen's head. I am a quiet man, on the wrong side of middle life, with a family at home ; and I admit that I walked down Fleet-street a sadder if not a wiser man." Mr Gladman, principal of the training college for teachers at Melbourne, has, at the request of the Hon Mr Dick, agreed to give hii services as examiner in the subject of school management at the next January examination of caudadates for certificates under the New Zealand Education Department. Mr Gladman is the author of a very popular work on school management, and is regarded as one of the highest authorities on the subject in England, as well as throughout the Australian Colonies.