NEWS.IN BRIEF

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4254, 3 July 1895, Page 6

NEWS. IN BRIEF

A man who lately advertised in one of the Westport papers for a wife received eight offers. Haulage rates on the Southern CrossCoolgardie road are on the rise, teamsters now de maud ing £20 a ton. The British system of weights and measures is now being inquired into by a select committee of the House of Commons ; and, according to the evidence given before this Committee by an official of the Board of Trade, the various methods of weighing and measuring which obtain in different parts of the country are most confusing. Practically the only two European countries of any importance in which the metric system is not adopted are Great Britain and Russia, and the sooner that they fall into line with the others the better for the convenience of trade generally. Many weights and measures are in use among us which are not legally recognised, such as the carat, the boll (used in Scotland), the ell, the coomb (for measuring corn), the Winchester bushel, the butcher's stone (Sib), the miner's dish (a measure for ore used in Derbyshire), besides others. Then there were the Scotch and Irish miles, which differed from the recognised mile of 1,760 yds ; and, to go to smaller things, the druggist has two different ounces— one of 480gr and the other of 437^gr. It is to be hoped that the Committee will put an end to these anomalies, and apparently the best way to do this would be to adopt the metric system. A telegram received in Brisbane from Barcaldine states that an unusual scene occurred in a church there at a wedding, the Jjridegroom and bride being John Brown and Elizabeth Robinson. The ceremony was to take place at four o'clock, by which time the church was filled with the friends of the bride and spectators. The Rev. Mr Little proceeded to read the marriage service, and the responses were properly given until the bridegroom was asked the momentous question " Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife ?" Brown then, to the indescribable astonishment of everyone present, replied in a loud tone " I will not." To emphasise his decision he repeated the sentence three times, and then, before anyone could interfere, he picked up his hat hastily and left the church. In compliance with a return moved for by the House of Commons, our Government in October last sent Home a statement showing the number of divorces granted in this colony during the decade 1884-1893. The total number was 208; the highest having been in ISBB thirty-two and the lowest sixteen in 1884 and 1887. A medical authority asserts that colds and catarrh are most frequently caused, not by cold, outdoor air, but by warm, impure, indoor air. An amusing instance of the operation of the protective tariff in Victoria has been brought under notice. A resident of Euroa sent to Sydney for a special kind of seed which he desired to plant. The parcel was packed and sent on by parcels pos% but it was intercepted at Wodonga (on the border) and detained there until the Customs charges, amounting to one penny, had been paid. Mr John Murray, member for Warrnambool in the Victorian Assembly, in his speech on the Address-in-Reply, opened by regretting that no allusion was made in the Speech to the loss of one who, though not born in '< Australia, has identified himself for six , years with the country. The anguish that was felt when he severed his connection with ' Victoria was well known, and he could pay an honest tribute to his bravery, and the grandness of the many qualities that distinguished him above others of his race. He alluded to the illustrious, the incomparable, I the unvanquished Carbine. — (G reat laughter. ) The opportunity might have been taken of | his safe arrival in England of recalling Duncan Gillies and appointing him as AgentGeneral. — (Renewed laughter.) Mr J. Boothroyd, of Titnaru, sent Home to a relative who is about completing her course of training as a teacher at Darlington Training College a number of the school books published in this colony and used in the public schools. The lady writes out : — "I wish to thank you for copies of New Zealand school books. I think they are very much in the same style as our own. In ' some cases the drawing books are superior , to those we generally use. I liked one of . them particularly, that on teaching curves, j I took it to our mistress, and she was so ' taken with it that she has taught her chil- J dren this year on the same lines, which so far have been successful.' 3 —' Herald.' j The fastest time ever recorded on a j United States Railway was made on the ' line between Philadelphia and Atlantic City last month, the distance (fifty-two miles and a-half) being covered in forty-five minutes. The Colonial Secretary of Queensland is a man who evidently has the courage of his convictions. A deputation from the Brisbane licensed victuallers waited on him lately and asked for relief from certain disabilities that the "trade" labor under, but they never dreamed that they were to be spoken to with the directness and plainness that the hon. gentleman answered them, else they would have postponed their interview till a more favorable opportunity. The Hon. Mr Tozer told them at the outset that he had long desired to speak to them, and forthwith proceeded to do so with almost bludgeon bluntness. Their complaint was that certain sly grog-sellers and beer traders were not being looked after by the police as they should be, and Mr Tozer answered them in this language : " When they came to him to complain of other people they should themselves come with clean hands. Publicans were as great sinners as anyone in breaking the law, since they supplied aboriginals and kanakas with grog. When they reformed themselves and did away with the curse which now prevailed they would receive the greatest consideration, At present the proper thing to do seemed to be that they should go and clean up their own house." At this stage a member of the deputation ventured to remark that "the sinners among them were very few." "Then why not eject them," retorted Mr Tozer. " Such people are bringing disgrace on the colony. He had scarcely visited a place where representations had not been made to him of the iniquities caused by the drink traffic among the blacks and kanakas. They must clear themselves of this stain before anything could be done for them. He would never be a party to giving further facilities for getting people drunk." That deputation must have had a very bad quarter of an hour. Lord Rayleigh, lecturing last April on • Waves and Vibrations ' at the Royal Institution, exhibited some very beautiful experiments with water jets, electric tuningforks, and singing flames. The flame was shown to correspond in action to the bellows of an organ, the tube or brass sphere held over it playing the part of the organ pipe ; the resonance, however, is due in part to vibrations within the column of gas as well as to vibrations in the resonator. Powerful notes, of a deep booming character, were extracted from a long pipe of common iron, 6in or Sin in diameter, suspended from the roof, and containing, about a foot from its lower end, a partition made of a few layers of common wire gauze. A powerful Bunsen burner, pushed up the pipe, heated the gauze for a few moments ; a second or two after its withdrawal the sound began and continued until the gauze cooled down. If the pipe was turned upside down, so that" the gauze was nearer the top, the sound could be obtained only by

keeping the gauze cool and sending hot air up the pipe. Even more interesting were the experiments made upon the sensitiveness of the human ear. One method showed that the ear can detect an amount of condensation and rarefaction in the air equal to one twenty- millionth of an atmosphere, though another plan went to prove that the amount of condensation heard was a tenth less than that figure. The ear can tell with a certainty whether a pure souud, such as the note of a tuning-fork, came from the right or from the left hand, but is quite at a loss if they were produced directly in front of or behind the head. But the direction from which a voice came, or the sound of clapping hands, is not subject to any such uncertainty. Messrs Bethune and Hunter, of Wellington, were recently informed by the Bank of i New Zealand that a sum of £36 remained standing in the books to the credit of Mr George Hunter for the Lancashire relief fund. This money has been lying thirty years in the bank, and is supposed to be an amount paid by a collector after the fund had closed. The executors of Mr Hunter have handed the money over to the Benevolent Institution. In the House of Commons on May 16 a Bill was read a first time to amend the law relating to English friendly societies. The Bill is based upon the suggestions made in a report of a conference of friendly societies affecting over 2,500,000 members and over £19,000,000 of capital. The Bill is of a non-contentious character, and is intended to carry out improvements in the Friendly Societies Acts which twenty years' experience have shown to be necessary. The two main points of this Bill if carried into law will have a lasting effect upon the thrift and comfort of the working classes of the country. The first point is to enable juvenile societies to amalgamate with the adult societies with which they are connected, and the other point is to allow any society to make a rule admitting: members at one year of age, and to enable a child once admitted as a member to continue therein without break during the whole period of his life, while at the same time making it possible, by a small payment from infancy, to provide for a pension in old age. The number of public lamps lighted nightly in England and Wales is somewhere about 300,000. A pig, eleven months old, that turned the scale at 3501 b, has been bred by Mr G. Ingram, of Nelson. In the Maharahara district (Hawke's Bay) one saw-mill is employed almost entirely in cutting totara sleepers. The Government pay 2s 6d for each sound sleeper delivered at the railway. At Tauranga a peculiar accident befell Miss Ivy Joraon. She got on to the rail of a well to mount her horse, when the cover gave way, and she fell a distance of 72ft. She kept her head above water until assistance was procured twenty minutes later. lv recording a conviction against two Christchurch dealers who were charged with infringing the Gaming Act by inserting prize coupons in packets of tea, Mr Bishop, S.M., said the defendants had rendered themselves liable to any fine not exceeding £200 ; a recurring offence would make them liable to the same maximum fine, with imprisonment added. No doubt all concerned would take note of the result of these prosecutions. The Court would deal more severely with any future cases. Defendants would each be fined £5, with costs and solicitor's fee £2 2s. Mr Kippenberger, counsel for defendants, expressing surprise at the amount of the fine, Mr Bishop said he thought he had not been severe ; at any rate he could not see his way to reduce it. The Act seemed to indicate heavy penalties, besides which defendants had probably made large profits on their operations, and could well afford to pay the fine imposed. Twenty -five horses, the property of Messrs Cobb and Co., Queensland, were boiled down at the boiling-down works, Bourke, last week to save them from death by starvation. Thus spoke a Victorian M.L.A. during a recent debate : "It was impossible to get from any tailor a pattern of Victorian-made tweed in which any man who cared to dress decently would like to appear. He had asked the hon. member for Ballarat West (Mr Vale) why the mill in that city did not turn out good patterns of tweed, and he replied: 'Look at me.'— (Laughter.) He looked at the hoii. member, and found the clothes he wore were not those he (Mr Smith) would like to wear. — (Loud laughter, which was renewed as Mr Vale hurried into the Chamber.) He scanned the hon. member's apparel very closely, and thought if he were the walking advertisement for the Victorian woollen mills he was a dismal failure." — (Roars of laughter.) — * Age.' G. H. Henty, who has thrilled every boy in the land with his accounts of " adventures," has been through ten wars, chiefly in the capacity of "war correspondent." He has written more than twice as many books. The greatest sum of coin that was ever, it is believed, collected in one spot was in the national treasury of the United States in the silver crisis, when no less than £350,000,000 was contained there. Great Britain makes over 130,000 bicycles a year. An electrical letter box has been brought out in Chicago. When the postman inserts a letter it starts a simple clockwork, which closes an electric circuit, and rings a bell announcing the fact. It does not matter how far the box is from the house, and hence the novelty would be useful in country distri«.*» .a 1 farms and gentlemen's seats. Out of 253,177 recruits incorporated into the German army in 1893, there were 617 who did not know how to read or write, or 24 in 10,000. In France during the same year, among 343,651 conscripts, 22,096 did not know how to read or write, or 643 in 10,000. Although the proportion of illiterates is constantly decreasing — it was 982 in 10,000 in 1889 — it is none the less painful, says a leading French scientific journal, to record our inferiority to Germany in this respect. When a Spanish physician presents himself at the house of a patient he is, according to an unwritten law, offered a cigar, which politeness constrains him to accept. London has 320,000 maidservants, and yet ' Tit Bits ' readers are constantly complaining that they can't find one. Lady Goss was the widow of Sir John Goss, for thirty years organist at St. Paul's Cathedral, London. They were married in IS2I. Her last request was that her loveletters should be placed in her coffin, and it is interesting to notice that the first was written when both she and her future husband were only sixteen years old. Steam tramways are more general in Italy than in any other country. At the end of 1890 there were 1,575 miles, and, notwithstanding the period of commercial depression, there have been at least 300 miles added since. The lines radiate principally from Turin and Milan and the Valley of the Po; but they are not confined to North Italy. There is a much-frequented one between Naples and Pozzuoli. It is calculated that 33 per cent, of the cigars sold in London are not made of tobacco at all. John Morley, the Irish Secretary, is the most difficult subject in England to portray in black and white. •Vanity Fair' has changed hands. The new owner is said to be a gentleman of taste and credit. It will not be run on new lines. It is a Conservative paper, and therefore no violent changes are contemplated.