MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3196, 11 May 1871, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

Dr Lancaster estimates that there are 20,000 cases of small-pox in London at the present time. The Prussian Government have introduced the North German penal code in Alsace and Lorraine in place of the Code Napoleon. The United States Patent Office, during 1870, granted 13,321 patents out of 19,17 b applications. Of the patents granted, 349 were to subjects of Great Britain, 89 to Frenchmen, and 206 to all other classes of foreigners, The Dover Young Men's Christian Association bave, by a majority, decided not to allow " Punch" to lie on the table of their reading-room, on the ground that it is a (l publication contemptuous of religious influences, if not absolutely hostile to them." The Registrar General's return for the week ending March 11, gives the aggregate mortality as 27 per 1000 ; in London 26, in Bristol 24, in Birmingham 24, in Liverpool 41, in Manchester 27, in Leeds 24, in Sheffield 20, and in Newcastle 21. London births, 2261 ; deaths, 1 60 1 . Small-pox, 194, showing a further decrease. The aggregate mortality in Paris is still at the weekly rate of 68 per 1000. The " Daily News " states thut at a conference on Saturday of the supporters of Army Reform in the House of Commons, it was Agreed to oppose, one by one, in Committee, the abuses which swell the expenditure without increasing the efficiency of our military system. A meeting, attended by about five hundred persons, including several women, took place at Lambeth Baths, London, on Monday, to consider the best means to adopt for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Resolutions for that object were supported by the Rev. G. M. Murphy, who presided, Professor Sheldon Amos, J. Baxter Langley, George Howell, and other speakers, and were carried. Several ladies attended on the platform. In Brooklyn, near the Ferry, I saw hundreds of sparrows boisterously enjoying themselves. Tbey have come to good quarters in America. It is quite a rage in New York and Brooklyn to have houses built to entice them, like our I robin-houses. It is only four or five years since they were taken over and naturalised. And they seem to be thriving like most other emigrants. Washington, Tuesday. — The House of Representatives, by a two-third vote, has passed a bill for the repeal of the ! duty on coal. The price of coal and I coke has been raised by miners' strikes and speculators' combinations to 20 dollars per ton. A meeting in favor of legalising marriage with a deceased wife's sister was held in Willis's Rooms, London — Dr. Brewer, M.P., presiding, Dr. Adler, Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Church, who was unable to be present, wrote : — " 1 am convinced that marriage with a deceased wife's sister is not prohibited by the Word of God. 1 know that for 3000 years such murriages have been contracted among my own people, except in those countries where they are prohibited by the law of the land ; and T have learned, by my own experience, that such alliances have proved happy." Resolutions were passed condemning the law as inflicting a great social hardship on the poor, who cannot satisfy their consciences by foreign marriages, and also on the ground that their prohibition over the whole kingdom was unjust to those who are not members of the Church of England, which has prohibited such marriages by its canon law. It was also resolved to petition Parlia ment and tbe Bishops in favor of Mr Chambers's bill on the subject. Among the speakers were Mr Chambers, M.P., Mr Gr. Heywood, M.P., the Rev. Lord Bevan, and others. A return which was moved for by Colonel Barttelot ha 6 been issued, showing the sums whioh have been paid lo inventors by way of rewards in connection with ordnance and small arms. It shows that Mr Westley Richards received £2375 for his breach-loading carbine. For the plan of converting muzzle-loading small arms into breachloaders, Mr Snider, Colonel Roden, and Mr Wilson were awarded £16,000. Major Palliser obtained £15,000 for his invention of chilled projectiles, and £7500 for his plan of converting cast iron guns. Captain Moncrieff received £10,000 for his method of mounting guns, in addition to whi^h he receives a salary of £1000 per annum, and will be paid £5000 as a final payment when his services shall no longer be required. The Paris correspondent of the " Times" gives a touching description of the condition of the children placed in the Enfant Trouves during the seige. Here, he says, seated in a large semi-circle round a Kiild and suffering looking woman who was in charge, were a number of little children, from two to live years old, silent and motionless on their little stooles, the picture of resignation and disease. One-third hud bandages roun.l their eyes, from opthalmia, and were sitting in darkness ; others had their hands and feet bandaged up, and were covered with sores. Nearly all seemed suffering from inherited disease of a most horrible and revolting character, and, gazing al their shrunken frames, already so disfigured and destined to so much suffering, it seemed almost a cruelty to prolong their existence. Here, as in the room above, there seemed the same incapacity for crying ; the stillness | among these sick and suffering children j told its own tale. And yet this was not an hospital ; it was a place of deposit for new born infants and healthy children, and this was their condition after five months' siege. The abandoned babies are distinguished from ! those which are deposited by tickets pinned upon their breasts. The mortality from the Ist September to the Ist of January amounted to 960, as against 189 of the previous year. The total number of children deposited was 1366, and the children abandoned 2071, making altogether nearly 3500 children

placed in the institution during the last four months of last year. A correspondent writing to the " Times," under date 22nd February, says : — J was delighted to hear last night that our lady hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens was successfully conl fined yesterday. Both mamma and baby were doing well last evening, indeed, better than could be expected, as the female is a surly brute, aud the sages hommes feared that she would bite her infant in two as soon as it made its appearance. But, on the contrary, she is very affectionate towards it, and, as she has a splendid udder of milk, there is every chance of rearing the calf. Of course, the public are not as yet admitted to see it, for the dam is very suspici ■ Otis and jealous. Even the keepers are obliged to act on the sly for the present. There have during the last half century been a few instances of the birth of hippopotami iv Europe ; but they have not lived long, if born alive. A number of British subjects in Rome, some Catholics and other Protes. tants, have made a representation to the British Minister at the Italian capital, to the effect that, on Friday, the 10th instant, they were subject to insult and danger when, for the purpose of devotion, simply attending the Lenten service in the Church of the Gesu; They state : The congregation, on attempting to leave the church, found the doors beset by a band of men, some hundreds in number, armed with bludgeons. We stayed in the church until Signor Gadda the Royal Commissary, appeared with twenty or thirty soldiers, who made several arrests within the church. The soldiers liad their swords drawn, and | with cries of '* Birboni," slashed right and left as they chased men and women into the side chapels and behind the rails of the high altar, where a priest was celebrating mass and administering to communicants. Women faintod, and one of us saw a female savagely struck in the forehead with a sword, and the blood gushing from the wound. Several of us saw unoffending persons struck with swords. Signor Godda was present during all this. Whvn we appealed to him for protection, and informed him we were foreigners and British subjects, he escorted us with a file of soldiers to the outside of tho church as far as the Via Cossarini, when he saluted us and left us. "La Province " says : — " The revelations of the Blue Book distributed to the House of Commons, contains the discussions which have taken place in that House, as well as in the House of Lords, and, above all, tbe articles in the English press, leave but few doubts as to the policy of the English Government with regard to France in the war against Germany. This policy has been not only a neutrality favourable to Germany, but alsoopposed toErance. The States which sympathised with France from a similitude of race, religion, political interests, degree and class of civilisation — Belgium,ltaly, and Austria — have been watched and discouraged by England in their action in favour of France. History will say, and will say soon, what has been the motive of the English Government for this policy. The friends of England declare that it wished by theso means to prevent a general European war under conditions disastrous for Western Europe. If this fact is established later on, England, while sacrificing France, will have ren dered a service to European civ ; lisation, and France would only have to blame herself for having engaged without armies in so disastrous a war. But many persons dispute the danger invoked by England, and it is certain that in the discussions of the press and of Parliament only a feeble allusion has been made to it. Without doubt, the denunciation by Russia of the Treaty of 1806, after tbe surrender of Metz and the large armaments it has made for six months past, cannot permit of any doubt on the subject of an understanding between Russia and Germany ; but was this understanding of a nature to oblige Russia to interfere in every case ? This is ecergelically denied by many politicians. Diplomatic history will soon decide this debate. At all events, the conduct of England towards France for the pastsix months frees^ us from all engagement towards it, and leaves France absolute liberty of opinion." — R. British Columbia is looking up. We hear that four or five of Thompson's road engines are being employed in the transportation of freight on the great Cariboo wagon road — which, by the bye, in the canons of Frazer, is one of the finest pieces of successful engineering on the coast. The Lane & Kurtz Company, who have obtained from the now enlightened Colonial Government a lease for thirty, one years of four miles of "The Meadows" (lower end of Williams' Creek), have forwarded a quantity of steam machinery, pumps, &c, to that region. A private telegram has just bean received reporting rich discoveries (coarse gold) on Jack-ofClubs creek. The doubters may be reminded that the much-abused Williams' creek, in the immediate neighborhood, has yielded up to the piesent time not less than sixteen million dollars' worth of the precious metal ) All old Caribooites. whatever their experiences of tho past may "have been, have unlimited belief in the quartz of that section Nowadays Cariboo is connected with Victoria by steamers and first-rate stages. One can live up there in excellent style — the beef, even in other days (the writer's experiences were obtained in '08) was better than the average of that we can get here. The country only wants moI derately cheap labor, and the advantages derived from the employment of steam machinery, to enable it to go ahead in brilliant style. The (Lane & Kurtz) Cariboo Mining Company is the first in the field, and deserves success. Until the above-named consignment was forwarded, British Columbia did not possess a single set of steam hoisting and pumping machinery. — • " News Letter."