NEWS IN BRIEF

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1869, 10 February 1892, Page 5

NEWS IN BRIEF

The resident minister has arrived in Glasgow to consult with doctors respecting a strange malady which carries off all the newly-born infants on the island of St. Kilda, On the eighth day after birth the fingers close and a kind of lockjaw sets in. The first-born, as a rale, escapes, there being seldom two in a family, Some attribute the infant mortality to the intermarriage of the islanders.

One of the most noted women in the Dominion of Canada has recently died. Cleophe'e Tetu, or Sister The'rese, as she was commonly called, was the .daughter of a French-Canadian notary. She entered the Order of Sisters of Providence when twenty, in 1544. Eight years later she was sent with another nun to relieve the spiritual and temporal wants of Indians in the Far West, her travels on that occasion including a journey on horseback almost to the Pacific coast, in a region where no white woman had been before. In 1866 she was made general treasurer of the whole Order, and soon after laid the foundation of the immense insane asylum which was burnt down, with one hundred of its inmates, early last year. Sister Therese was mother superior of this establishment till her death. Among her patients at one time was the famous Louis Riel, afterwards hanged for the North-west Rebellion of 1885.

The Balaclava celebration in England in October last was characterised by special enthusiasm. The non-commissioned officers' ball at Hounslow barracks was attended by representatives of the Bth and 13th Hussars and of the infantry of the garrison, and all the officers of the 17th— the "death or glory boys," who in 1854 were stationed at Hounslow when the regiment was ordered to the Crimea. On the following Monday the survivors of the world-famed charge, who formerly served in the 17th, were entertained at the barracks. These included Troop Sergeant-majors Williams, Purvis, and Wightman, Sergeants Tizzell, Mustard, Nunnerley, and Herbert (the latter of the 4th Light Dragoons), Trumpeter Landfried, and Privates Mullins, Marsh, and Soley. All these won three or four medala with clasps for Balaclava, Inkerman, Sebastopol, and Alma, and nearly every man of them was wounded in the charge. Several of them were visiting the old quarters for the first time since 1854. Regimental Ser-geant-major Clark presided at the luncheon and gave the toast of the evening, which was responded to by Mr Purvis and Mr Landfried. The bandmaster of the 17th having composed a set of waltzes in honor of the occasion, Mr Landfried, who was the regimental trumpeter on the glorious 25th of October, 1854, sounded the call which is introduced into the music referred to, and then, amid outbursts of enthusiasm, he also sounded the regimental call, the walk, the trot, the gallop, and the charge.

A truly wonderful case has just been placed on record by a surgeon (says the London correspondent of the 'Manchester Guardian '). A boy was Bhot with a revolver, the bullet entering the forehead just above the left eye, and he was believed to have been killed. However, the surgeon on being summoned probed the wound, and detected plainly the presence of the bullet. As soon as the latter was touched it could be felt to move backwards. This was followed by a twitching of the limbs, respiration, and signs generally of returning life. The third day afterwards the boy became conscious, but he had no recollections of what had happened. Within three months he was able to be up, and some paralytic symptoms which had resulted from the accident had to . a large extent disappeared. Before the injury he had been able to read, write, and do ordinary sums in arithmetic, but on recovery he had lost all recollections of the alphabet, and had to learn it over again. Remarkable, however, as it may seem, his ' capacity for calculation had increased tenfold. Ultimately he made a perfect recovery, his health being completely restored. He lived for nine years and a-half with the bullet thus lodged in his brain, and then died in consequence of a blow received on the opposite side of the head to that of the original accident. On examination after death the bullet was found embedded in his brain.

In Sydney telephone circles a serious complication has occurred. A leading merchant was conversing with a friend when, all of a sudden, the wires became entangled, and he overheard a conversation reflecting upon himself and the firm of which he was a member. He believes he recognised the voices of the interlocutors, and he has now begun an action for slander.

They do not seem in Madras to believe altogether in Mr Rudyard Kipling. Mr Rees, chairman of the Literary Society there, in a recent address " warned the students not to look on Mr Kipling as a trustworthy exponent of the life of the English in India. Mr Kipling outgauged whatever he touched, although in Mb touch is ever the all - redeeming attribute of power."

In accordance with a long-established practice, the Aldermen of London met at Guildhall on December 8 to inspect and select the cloth annually sent to the great officers of State and other functionaries, A gift of four and a-half yards of the best black cloth is sent to the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chamberlain, the Vice-Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household, Controller of the Household, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the "AttorneyGeneral, the Solicitor-General, the Recorder, and the Common Sergeant. The Town Clerk receives six yards of black cloth and six yards of green cloth, and his principal clerk four yards of each. There are also gifts to minor officials. The cloth so presented is called "livery cloth," and the custom comes down from the time when the citizens used to wear the cloth or livery of their special guilds or fraternities.