MISCELLANEA.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 217, 6 January 1874, Page 7

MISCELLANEA.

L;ifco cablegrams annonnce'the death of the Queen Dowager of Prussia, and of Professor Agassiz, the great naturalist. At a piectiug held in Melbourne the other day, one of the speakers stated that the Frederick the Great claim, Dondigo, was giving profits from £50,000 to £IOO,OOO a year. At the Vienna Exhibition may he seen specimens of bonnets and hats made of glass. The hat is made of loose pieces of glass, fastened closely together by a guttapercha band, which allows it to conform to the head. Inside there is a lining of silk, and the trim mines are various, being for the most part birds and flowers, A bonnet made of glass weighs but a few ounces, is , very durable, because rain cannot spot it, and the cost therefore is small.

Some of the quartz at New Zealand Gully (central Queensland) is said to possess peculiar chemical properties. For instance, when left in a tin or iron dish it speedily corrodes the metal and eats its way through, A Sydney assayist, to whom samples were sent, described the ore as chlorine of silver containing gold in large quantities. He states that the only way to treat it will be by subjecting the whole mass to hydrogen gas, so as liberate the chlorine, as it cannot otherwise bo amalgamated. # A fatal accident is reported from Golden Bay, Nelson, as having occurred on December 29. Charles Lewis, the son of a surveyor, was on a haystack, and Michael Campion was forking hay up to him. Campion joked and irritated Lewis, who r said ho would come down and make him stop. . Preparatory to getting down, Lewis threw down his fork, which pierced Campion’s stomach, and ho died four hours later, exonerating Lewis from blame. At the Coroner’s inquest, the jury returned a verdict of “manslaughter” against

Lewis. The Dally Times learns that Bishop Moran has purchased the freehold'of Mr M. Murphy's property in the Halfway Bush district, consisting of between GO and 70 acres, on which stands an excellent house surrounded by well laid out and planted grounds. With the property, there also go the stock and farm appliances. It is Bishop Moran’s intention to make the place a conventual establishment, and to remove the boarding-school from the convent at Dunedin, to the former place, while the female day-school taught by the nuns will still be kept up by them in its present place. The property purchased from Mr Murphy consists of the house and land formerly belonging to Mr Morse, and two adjoining freeholds. It is one of the few remaining large properties within '3O minutes’ walk of the centre of the city, and is a very choice selection. Extensive additions are to be made at once to the buildings. A correspondent of the New York Graphic lately suggested that in order to have a light to read the instruments in the proposed ocean balloon, ,a supply of fireflies should be obtained. They-have .two’bright spots on their thorax, and also'brilliant rings on the abdomen. They'give light sufficient to enable one to read at a little distance. Two or three placed in the centre of the room will shed a soft light all over it. They are very common in Havannah, Brazil, Guiana, and Mexico, In these countries, as neonle travel mnsflv w

night to escape the heat of the clay, they affix these little creatures to their shoes, which gives them light to see their road and frighten away the snakes. Mexican ladies use them as jewels ; they tie them in little gauze bags and put them in their hair and on their clothing. They keep them in very fine wire cages, and feed them on scraps of sugar cane. ’ The Melbourne Telegraph makes some j original observations upon the question of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. In a novel and original manner it asks the question whether widowers instead of being prevented from marrying their deceased spouse’s sisters should not be debarred from marrying anyone, and it gives similar reasons to those urged by Dr Wines, the American Penal Commissioner, in his report on Juvenile delinquency, who, speaking of second marriages, says, “ In how largo a number of cases second marriage is the immediate cause of crime and vagrancy among children. Wives,” ho goes on to say, “ will shelter an orphan for years, hut the bearing with the faults of a step-child belongs to a range of virtues to which they seldom attain. Hitter quarrels spring up between the step-sous and stepdaughters and the mother ; and whether the father sides with the children or the wife the result is just the same. The house becomes a kind of Pandemonium, and the girls rush desperately forward to the wild life of the streets, and the hoys prefer the roaming existence of the city arabs to a stepmother’s home. Tims it happens,” says Dr Wines, “ that step-children among poor are so often ci'rninal and outcast.” There is probably o- ’y too much truth in all this, and what is" ti 3of largo American cities is also, true of Auckland, Canterbury, or .Otago.

jfolliiwcij/ ft Pills. This itmdiciue has triiun’>herl over every ohstaclo'with which time, prejudice, ami vested interest have opposed it, and it at length stands forth victorious as the moat reliable remedy for those derangements of the system so common at the change, of seasons, "'hen the air grows cooler, and the functions of the shin arc retarded, an occasional dose of Holloway s Pills will induce the liver and kidneys to greater activity, and compensate the,;system .for diminished cutaneous action. As alteratives anerients, and tonics these Pills have no equal. To every aged and delicate person, whose, appetite is defective,’discstion infirm; nird torte’of health low, this medicine wdl he fy.precious boon, conferring both ease and strength.