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Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1003, 24 July 1883, Page 3

Some experiments have lately been tried in Paris, before a number of people assembled at the back of a theatre, which was arranged to represent a miniature stage, flies, etc., in order tojwitness the effect of an automatic fire extinguisher, invented by M. Oriolle. The woodwork and scenery having been set on fire, soon blazed up ; but in a few minutes the flames were extinguished by a sudden rush of water which was automatically discharged, and which continued to flow until a tap was turned to shut off the stream. This extinctor is made in the following simple way:—A pine is connected with a high-service cistern, and is firmly plugged at the open end. This plug is kept in its place by a double cap of an alloy which easily fuses at a moderately warm temperature ; and soon after the outbreak of the fire the metal caps melt off, the plug is forced off by the pressure of the water, and, when it begins to pour out, an alarm is sounded at the nearest station, which lets those in charge know the extinctor is at work. The simple contrivance—which, if we mistake not, is somewhat similar in principle to the one which has already been adopted—could be easily arranged in theatres or any buildings especially liable to catch fire, and which possess a sufficiently high and large storage .of water to give the necessary pressure

A duel of an interesting character may shortly be expected in Italy. The difficulty is between two fencing-masters— Massanielo Parise, the champion Neapolitan fencer, and the Baron di San Malato, who, it may be remembered, went to Paris last year to measure swords with the best French escrimeurs, and it arises out of this same French trip. The Naples School of Fence issued a protest against the Baron’s representation of himself as a typical Italian swordsman. The result was a challenge to Signor Casella, who had drawn up the protest and chanced to be in Paris, to a match with buttons, rubbed with chalk, so as to make sure of the hits being seen. This, as implying a suspicion of intended foul play, was not accepted, nor was a similar challenge to another subscriber to the protest. On his return to Italy San Malato gave an assault-of-arms at Bologna, and sent to Parise to come there and meet him with chalked buttons. Parise replied “If you want to fight come to Naples, and you will find me ready.” This seemed reasonable enough, but the Baron did not think so, and in a letter to a paper at Nice attributed the answer to fear. Parise then, in a letter to a Neapolitan journal, replied that he was only too willing and anxious to meet his antagonist if he would come to Naples, but that now it should be without any buttons at all on the foils ; so there the matter rests for the present. The following extract from a recent number of the London Times seems to express very aptly the objections which appear to have weighed with the Government in their decision to abstain from annexing New Guinea:—“ Queensland has furnished no vestige of evidence that it possesses the means of ruling the country, or has any thought of providing them. No testimony has been produced that Australians generally have arrived at any conclusion on the matter, except that it is undesirable a neighboring land abounding in natural treasures should be left free to tempt French or German or Italian cupidity. Yet nobody doubts that a British annexation of New Guinea in one form or another is an accomplished fact. If New Gninea is to be annexed, as annexed sooner or later it surely will be, it should

e annexed neither in the old fashion to bhe Colonial Office, nor in the new to iQueensland, but to Australia at large. New Guinea is ripe neither for any large scheme of colonisation nor for any regular form of colonial administration. Austra-

lia may be sure that any English Government, tenderly as it might couch its refusal, would certainly find some mode of excusing itself from taking into its personal charge half an island nearly 1,500 miles long, and inhabited by several millions of most reluctant subjects. Australians may be equally assured that, if they will show themselves willing and competent to perform the duties of a sovereign to the greatest island in the world after their own, they need apprehend the employment of no English Ministry, Liberal or Conservative, of the Imperial perogative of veto.”