PARISIAN NEWS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1559, 22 July 1885, Page 2

PARISIAN NEWS.

(Br Ocrs Own Correspondent). Paris, May 30, 1886. * Miss Laura Lancaster, after astonishing society in Brussels by her remarkable experiments in thought-reading, gave a private siance at the Continental Hotel in Paris the other niphr, before a distinguished company. Miss Lancaster is a prepossessing young brunette, of graceful figure and modest deportment, and was dressed in perfect good taste. -In whatrher method differs from those of Messrs Cumberland, Capper, Irving, Bishop, andother predecessors in thought-reading, we are not competent to say, unless It be that her experiments were throughout successful: When there was any hesitation or difficulty, it arose from obatrue tiveness or want of sympathy on the part of the medium, as in the case of a gentleman, whose hand Miss Lancaster took in hers, with the view of placing it on a part of his body where he had received a hurt, and on her failing at first to discover it, he was forced to admit, in reply to a question from the gentleman who conducted the experiment, that his band could not reach the place. When, however, a link was formed by another spectator, and the lady was able to stoop to the ground, she at once discovered the spot near hie foot. Perhaps .the most remarkable experiment of the day was that in which the subject divined and executed the wishes of the two mediums absolutely without contact with them. Two spectators agreed together in the absence of the lady—who, by the way, performed all these experiments blindfolded —that she should take a certain object from one stranger in the room and place it in the hands of another. The re mainder of the audience were ignorant of the parties designed. The two medi- | urns then joined their four hands around her, and with no other guide than the circle in the midst of which she was placed, without touching, she passed along the line of chairs around the room, stopped before one spectator, took his umbrella and carried it to another person at a distance. The experiment terminated with a little dramatic scene, acted in the absence of the lady between three of the spectators, who represented a murderer, his accomplice, ana bis victim. The first named was supposed to bill a young man ; bis accomplice rifled the pockets of the victim and hid the plunder. The lady was then re admitted and taking the hand of the murderer, repeated exactly by the impression he involuntarily transmitted from his mind to her’s the entire performance,, selecting the knife from among several, and inflicting the same kind of wound and discovering the body and the booty. Several gentle men among the notable guests exercised a surveillance over the proceedings to satisfy the audience that there was no fraud or collusion. Miss Lancaster will probably give some public performances before leavimr Paris. In reference to the red flag so dearly venerated by the Anarchists, the XlXrne Sikle remarks that it does not always bear a seditious significance. Signallers and guards on railways make large usage of the scarlet banting. A red flag is also used by starters at the racecourses. Only ©none field la the whole world probably does *he starter open a flag of this color, and this is at Chantilly, where the Duke d’Anmale, who is the exclusive proprietor of the course, enacts that no other ensign, save the national tricolor, shall be displayed on his grounds Ihe portrait of Victor Hugo on his death bed, by Bonnat, which is placed in the exhibition of Portraits of the Century, is set on an easel in the middle of the room which contains Gambetta’s, also on bis death bed, and M. de Leasep’s. It is surrounded with palm leaves and tricolor flags draped in crape. A meeting of Communists took place at the Oemetery of Perk Sachaise on the 27th May, all the revolutionary bodies in. Paris being represented by deputations Sixty police officers and fifty Republican Guards were stationed inside the gates. The demagogues displayed a red flag and refnnnd t.n crivn it nn This led tn a ntrnaaln.

in the c mrse of which the police. drew their swords and compelled the Communists to withdraw. The rioters, on reaching a heap of stones, tbrew these missiles at the police, several of whom were grieviously wounded. The Republican Guards then advanced in order to support the police, and charged the mob, one of the rioters being fatally injured. Several others were also wounded, though not seriously. Recently some thieves, who yet remain unknown, effected an entrance during the night into the stables of the Tramways Nord Company, in the Route de Pantln, at Auberilliers, and out the hair off the tails of one hundred horses. It was only early the next morning that the mutilations were discovered by the ostlers. As each full tail weighs at least lib, and horsehair in trade is said to be worth Ififr the kilogramme, it will be perceived the thieves did not lose their time. Grave suspicions attach to two individuals who have disappeared from their ordinary lodgings, and who, it is expected, will be shortly arrested. A shocking case of premature interment is reported from Paulhagues to the Express de Lyon. A woman who had merely fallen into a lethargic sleep, was believed to be defunct, and buried in the Cemetery of the Oommune. Some children shortly afterwards p’aying amongst the graves heard cries proceeding from the ground and gave the alarm. All haste to take up and break open the coffin, when the woman was found to be still living, but she died in a few minutes after being released. . According to report the capture of the Pescadores by Admiral Courbet, entailed the following losses on either side during the operations from the 29th to the 31st March The Chinese forces loss between three tc four hundred killed and wounded, amongst whom It js stated, were several mandarins. The French corps only lost two killed and three bounded. The figures speak for themselves.

A, ontlous celebration of a golden wedding has just taken place in Paris. The couple to which this honor was done were an old man known familiarly as Le Perh Beuzeveut, who has trained most of the blind beggars who frequent the streets of the French'capital, and hi% wife, who is well known on the outer' boulevards as a rag-picker. A number of his former pupils assembled conducted by their poodles in the courtyard to treat their patron to a concert, in which clarionets predominated, and which was followed by a banquet, Beugevept had great experience in teaching his adepts to walk gaging in vacancy and feeling their way with a stick in the peculiar manner by which blind beggars can be recognised as far off as they can be seen, A quadruple birth is announced to have recently taken place in Paris. A female conaidrge, living in the Bne Mongo has been confined of four well proportioned male infanta. Only two instances of similar fecundity are upon record. One related by Pliny in his notes on natural history, and the ether case in the Maternity Hospital of Paiis nine yeaTo “ on : the and the four babes are said to be doing wbll vompierf, or firemen of Nantreref whose' glories w*M every music hall throughout France a to? years back, to an air which was whistled by street h‘ys and chanted in chorus by noisy revellers, have been disbanded The fame they acquired probably turned their beads; disobedience and indiscipline pene- , trated into their ranks, end cn repreten* i tattoos by the Mayor of tb« town a 1

of the Minister of the Interior has dis* ; solved this once popular corps; ■ f It is reported from Madrid that about . 4,700 persons have beeu Inoculated as i' protection against.cholera in die province of Valencia, •)f these on if fivjghave been taken ill. None have vapidetaio in Aloiva hj« almost entirely '(Rigappeared. Dr Ferrar intends to visit the other provinces for the purpose of Inoculating, and wiUjhen perhaps visit France and England in order to explain his views and make fresh experiments. _ * A. case. of .' mistaken identity' caused a sensation at the Morgue 'the other day. A young woman recognised a body exposed there as that of bar father, not only by his features but also by bis clothes. She informed a. sister and; tiro' brothers of hers who lived in Paris, and who also attended the morgue and signed a declaration by which they identified the body as that of their father. The old man was a weaver at Oreteil, and after per* forming that melancholy act, his children started to that locality to lettrn how and in what manner he had met with his death, for the body had been fonnd in the Seine at Mendon; but they were surprised on arriving to find him seated at his loom at work, quite unconscious of the fright his children had caused themselves by their mistake. v (To be continued.)