NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 94, 13 February 1875, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The police and fire department of Paris for one year cost close upon .£1,000,000. A French chemist has discovered that wood can be preserved by means of sulphate of copper and cresote oil. Tons of postal cards without addresses have been destroyed in the American Dead Letter Office because people write their messages first and then forget to address them. In 1860 Russia had 1,000 miles of railroad ; now she haß 10,000 miles. She can put an army on either the Prussian or Austrian frontier by half a dozen routes. The combined armies of the partially independent native rulers in India number 315,000 and 5,130 guns, a formidable power if united in opposition to British rule. A Berlin editor has been sentenced to ten months' imprisonment for asserting that Kullmann's attempt on Bismarck was a sham plot concocted by the police. Eighteen priests were ordained the week preceding Christmas at the Cathedral, Baltimore, U.S. There are now in America 1,800,000 Grangers, one-fourth of whom are voters. There are . but four Catholic schoolmasters in the National Schools of England, Scotland, and Wales. A gold medal, struck off in France in honor of John Brown (of peripatetic notoriety), has been forwarded to tie family of the famous abolitionist. Between 80,000 and 100,000 children of trader years, who ought to be at school, are employed in the factories of New York. A community called Anglican Sisters, six in number, in the north of London, were recently received into the Catholic Church. A daughter of O'Kelly, the author of " The Curse of Doneraile," and other Irish poems, is in very poor circumstances iv Chicago. Mr .^ Sharon, who is accredited with being the owner of the present Nevada. Legislature, has an income of £1,000,000 per year. Offenbach, the celebrated composer, received .£BO,OOO for "authors rights " of three of his pieces last year. Dr. Porter, an Irishman, has carried off the Ize offered by the Empress of Germany for the best essay on the . oatment of the wounded. Only 17 veterans of the campaign of 1812 cc' .'.rated the evacuation of the city of New York. Twenty year* «.„ c they mustered 500.

The Book of Kells, written by St. Colunib Kille, and estimated to be worth £12,000 has been lost from Trinity College, Dublin. ! It is reported that twenty barrels, entered as " salt meat " and " Australian, beef " were seized in Portsmouth in October, and in each barrel waß found the corpse of a full-grown negro. They reached London from the United States, and were intended for dissection in London. A very old man, known as Father Tipps, who was probably the oldest tailor in the world, died recently in Paris, aged 109 years. He began to learn the trade when nine years old, and is said to have worked at it up to his hundredth year. He saw Napoleon as a boy, as a soldier, and as an Emperor. ,The dethronement of King Coffee, of Ashantee, has been reported. There are still still living in France 25,000 men who served under the First Napoleon — sixty years since. A precocious young Belgian, named Frederic Vaude Kerphove, has just died. Although only ten years old, he had executed not less than 350 pictures. The house formerly occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, at Youghal, Cork, has become the property of Sir John Pope Hennessy. Father Francisis, of Rome, has compiled for publication all the Pope's discourses delivered since the Italian occupation. The paper used in the manufacture of Japanese fans, now so common, is obtained from the root-bark of the mulberry tree. The figuros upon the flat fans are printed by a lithographic process, whilst those upon the folding ones are printed by hand. The " Catholic "Onion of England" intends starting a weekly s"ouvnal to represent its interests, It is to be called the ' Catholic r ournal.' The clever articles, " Men and Manners in Parliament, "by the Member for Chiltern Hundreds." which have been appearing in the * Gentleman's Magazine, are from the pen of Mr. Thomas Lucy, of the * Daily News,' and are to be republished in a volume by Messrs. Tinsley. ____________