General News.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 453, 16 December 1881, Page 20

General News.

The fortune tellers and others of that class who grow rich on human credulity in Paris are to be driven out. The Prefect of Police has so decided, but the task will be very difficult, as they have influence. General Prendergast, the newly appointed Governor-General of Cuba, is, as his name implies, of Irish, and not, as the cablegram says of Scottish descendants. There are in the Spanish army upwards of a hundred field and general officers bearing Irish names including seven O'Donnells, Beven O'Reillys, five Prendergasts, five Blakes and two Sarsfields. The British, to believe their organs, are far more anxious about the poor natives in the Transvaal than about their own prestige. This can be easily proved very soon, for it appears that John Dunn, a land-grabber and chief under their protection, has needlessly slaughtered four hundred men, women and children of the unfortunate Zulu tribe. If they punish John — say hang him — we shall all believe in their professions of sincerity as regards their desire for protecting the Kaffres of the Transvaal from the tyranny of the Boers. On Tuesday Sept, 27th. the City coroner held an inquest on Eliza Evans, aged 14. Deceased, the daughter of a box-keeper at Drury Lane Theatre, followed the profession of an actress, and had been playing in " Youth." Last Tuesday morning she was taken ill and vomited. She was seen by Dr. F. Goodsall, bat was then in a comatose condition. After her death Dr. Goodsall made a post mortem examination, and, on the left side of the brain, he found two bladders, one of which had burst and had caused death. It was difficult to say what had caused these cystic bladders, but no doubt it was through eating bad meat or fish, which had been absorbed in the blood, and thence by the brain. The bladders had been growing some time, and the deceased would have lived had they not broken. He would register the death as " Cystic disease of the brain. " The coroner said this was a very remarkable and interesting case, and it was as well that the public should know what danger they ran iv eating improper food. Verdict accordingly. According to the new memoirs of Count Kisselef, who acted as Russian Ambassador at Parifl after the Crimean war, it was the Empress Eugenic who decided Napoleon 111 to make war against Russia. The story. a 9 told by Count Kisselef, is given on the authority of the Empress herself. Count Kisselef observed, '• Then it is your Majesty who has been the cause of the death of 200,000 men and of the loss of seven or eight milliards of francs ? " " Yes, " she answered, " indirectly ; and Ido not repent of it. Such perturbations are sometimes necessary in the existence of peoples. It was necessary for B'rance to take her rightful place in Europe. She has done this by means of the alliance with England, and by that alliance she will maintain her influence at home and abroad. " When it comes to the proof, what beggarly fellows the Italian revolutionists are seen to be. Here is the Commune of Orsogna, with 700i> inhabitants, nearly destroye d by the late earthquake. About 6000 of these people are deprived of home, most of them of the means to support life. And the magnificent Government of •' Young Italy " has actually forwarded 1000 lire to relieve the distress — almost a penny for each of the sufferers. Why, Prince Humbert would win, or lose more than that in half an hour at lotto. After all, we should not in the least wonder if (when they come to their senses) Italians should confess that they prefer Christianity, order and enough to eat to infidelity, tumult and starvation, even though the latter calamities should be accompanied for a time with the disastrous privilege of Rome for a capital and a Piedmontese for a task-master. A novel prosecution, says the Philadelphia Press, was initiated yesterday in the arrest of Mrs Rachel Hyman, widow, who keeps two stores on South street below Tenth. In one she sells boots and shoes, and in the other a number of parrots and other birds were kept for sale. The invitations given by one of the first named species of the feathered race in uttering the words, "Say, come over here and buy some shoes," has occasioned the trouble in which Mrs. Hyman finds herself involved. On the opposite side of the street are two rival shoe establishments, the proprietors of which are firmly convinced that the parrot is taking away their trade by his oft-repeated entreaties to their patrons. Magistrate Collins evidently agreed with them, and held Mrs Hyman in 500dols. bail for maintaining a nuisance.