NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 64, 18 July 1874, Page 8

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Another section of the Oarnaru breakwater has been completed, mailing an increase in length of seventeen feet. Dr Cole of this city, has lately removed the whole of the breast of a woman affected with a cancer. We are told the patient is now in a fair way to recovery. Paris contains afc "present 1,851,792 inhabitants. In 1869 the number was only 1,825,271. In 1866 the males exceeded the females by 84,648, whilst in 1874 that difference was reduced to 12,656. During the year 1870 there were 1,384 twin, births and nine triplet births, indicating that one in every «ighty-two mothers bore twins, and that one in every 12,665 mothers bore triplets. In one of the cases of triplet births the mother had been married nineteen years and seven months, before she bore children, and then three came at a birth. The * Daily Telegraph ' recently devoted more than a column of its space to an article on the death of a monkey in the Zoological Gardens. Miss Elizabeth Morgan M.D., one of the physicians at the Hospital for Women, Maryleboue, is about to follow the example of her colleague, Mrs Anderson, M.D., by entering into the bonds of matrimony. Her future husband is a physician, by name Dr Hoggan. The 'Standard's' Calcutta correspondent telegraphs that hidden stores of grain have been discovered. Nearly half a million labourers are on the relief works. Most of the reported starvation deaths are considered doubtful. The total quantity of sugar consumed in breweries for tho year ending last September was— England, 56,576,2591b5 ; Scotland, 574 303 lbs ; and Ireland, 3,960,6671 bs. ' According to a return to Parliament, on the 31st of December last, the bank notes of the Bank of England held by the public amounted to £25,807,000, and on that day the total amount of bullion was £22,519,0000. The rateable property in London was assessed in 1871 as being of the annual value of very nearly twenty millions sterling. The Eegis-trar-General in his Annual Summary for London, observes that it is impossible to tell what the income of the inhabitants amounts to, but, taking seven times the above amount as a rough approximation it would be 140 millions a year. Presumably through the influence of England, a stop has been put to the Peruvian Cmolio trade. A plenipotentiary has been accredited to Peru from Buenos Ayrcs on a special and confidential mission. A Parliamentary return, containing a register of the owners of lands and heritages in Scotland, has been published. It is shown that there are 131,530 such owners ; that the estimated extent of their property is 18,946,694 acres, the gross 'annual value of which is £18,698,804. The native leader of the little rebellion at Natal has been Bentenced to imprisonment for life, and his sons and the head men to punishments ranging from six months' imprisonment to four years' transportation. A St. Petersburgh telegram states that the Neva became free of ice throughout its whole course ; and that the whole of the ice near Cronstadt is in motion. The authorities of the mint are about to coin a large quantity of half crowns, none of which have been made since 1848, when they were abolished by royal proclamation, and all those then existing were as they got worn ordered to be called in and gradually converted into florins. In the island of Jersey there are two currencies — native and English — and the incdnvieuce thus caused has been long felt, though it has not been remedied. As a step towards its removal the St Helierls and St. Aubin Railway Company state that they will neither take nor give Jersey coppers. Sixty immigrant ships sailed from the United Kingdom, for New Zealand, between February 1, 1873, and February 25, 1874. The three quickest passages made were by tho James Nicol Fleming in seventy-three days, by the Scimitar in seventy days, and by tho s. s. Mongol in fifty-one. Several Maoris write to a Wcsport paper, com planing that the female telegraphists at Nelson " muddle " their messages in transmission. The Maoris of tho Uupper Wanganui district appear lo bean enterprising race. The 'N. Z. Times' says they have just imported from the old country a flour mill, complete in all its parts, including an iron water-wbeel. An inquest was held afc the Royal Uotol, Timaru, on Wednesday, last, upon the body of Eliza Catterick, alias Eliza Shipley, before B. Woollcombe, Esq , Coroner. It was proved that the \leceas«d, who was of intemperate habits, had died while in an epileptic fit, brought on by excessive drinking. A verdict to that effect was returned. A quicksilver mine is saiH to have been accidentally discovered by some boys on the bank of the river at Head Weir, near Exeter. A vocal phenomenon has receutly appeared in Vienna — a tenor •who from some eccentric formation of the larynx causing two notes at once. - It is said that the Dnchess of Edinburgh's influence on the Court is already very marked. Her joyous and affectionate ways have done much to enliven everyone, and have had a very marked effect upon the Queen herself, who is caressed und chid by turns by the youn<* girl, who is as autocratic in her ways as her sovereign papa. ° A new movement, has been etarted in London. It is nothing less than a parliament of working men. A conferenco of tho most advanced amongst the leaders of the working class in London was held lately, when the organisation was formed, and a large committee appointed. The mania for old china, so amusingly characterised by Punch has extended even to the Sultan of Turkey. Hia Majesty ho s begun to form a collection of blue and white ware, and is sending all over Europe to secure specimens for his museum, which he ambitiously intends to be the most complete in the world.