GLEANINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1674, 29 March 1883, Page 3

GLEANINGS.

A San Fraijcisco, young N lady, while Waking preparations!" for her Redding} okked he^lover-td 1 - mourifc'V step-ladder and wreathe some evergreens about the chandelier. He complied with the request, but a pistol falling from his pocket explotlecVand'killed 'JiTs'britlf; * THuAUoemcjin\JfyliiM£ttnii6unce& that a discovery has been 'made lately By a Bavarian archaeologist, Herr Sester, in a wild romantic district lying between Medatieh and Sanisat, on ■ the Upper Euphrates, of a line of megalithic,monuments, averaging between 16 metres and 18 metres in height, ai;d bearing inscriptions. They are in a remarkable state of preservation, and Herr Sester has no doubt that they formed part of some great national sanctuary, dating back some 3000 years or more. The Straits Times tells the following stoiy of personal bravery: — "Mr Fernandez, curator of the Kaffies Museum, wat informed that a large python or boa, measuring 22ft. in length, presented by H.H. the Maharajah of Johore, had escaped from his cage. The rsptile was found coiled up behind a heavy cupboard. He attacked this enormous boa, and after a most exciting struggle, succeeded in overcoming him— even though his legs were at one time encircled in the boa's fatal coils— and holding the reptile firmly by the throat, despatched him instantly by throwing a bottle of carbolic acid down his throat.", BriKR ix the Fatherland, —The London Globe has the following : — While the taste for beer seems to be gradually giving way in England before the growing attractions of more ardent spirituous , drinks, the robust appetite of the German continues with unabated, zeal to patronise the malt liquor to which he has been so long addicted. The statistics of the empire show that last year the consumption of beer within the Fatherland amounted to no less than 830,000,000 gallons. Of this amount about 24,000,000 Mcie consumed in Baden, 70,000,000 in Wuvteniburg, and 2(55,000,000 in Bavaria, the rest being provided for Prussia, and the smaller states by 11,000 breweries which are there established. The taxes an these places of business amounted, one way and another, to about £850,000, besides some £20,000 levied on exports cf bcei. Tbcpiopoition in which vaiious nationalities in the Empire indulge m their favorite drink is by no means uniform. Thus the general average is about eighty quarts a year for each individual, and in the Kingdom of Prussia the average is rather less than this. In Alsace-Lorraine it descends as low as fifty quarts. But every Badener dunks on an average about one hundred and seventy quarts, or nearly a pint a day, and every Bavarian at least two hundred. It is necessary to arrive at a fair estimate of what this means, to deduct from the total of consumers in the Kingdom many of these who, living in the Palatinate, drink wine rather than beer. When this abatement is made and allowance also given for the women, who are not great topers, and such children as are not yet nurtured upon malt liquor, it will be seen that the adult malo native of Bavaria who diinks beer at all legularly has to account dining the twelve months for something not far short of half a gallon a day^ ,