EUROPEAN ITEMS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3053, 8 April 1881, Page 3

EUROPEAN ITEMS.

How steam has annihilated distance is shown by the system of excursions which the Great Eastern Railway Company has organised to Holland to enable enthusiastic Londoners and others to enjoy a little skating on the Dutch canals. Recently a train has left London on Sunday afternoon which enabled a passenger to skate all day on the Sunday in Holland, and to be at work again in London on Monday at midday—and all for fifteen shillings—including Sabbath-breaking.

Victor Hugho's favourite companion, Senat, is dead. The announcement has created some stir amongst the author's friends. Senat, an Italian greyhound, reached the venerable age of sixteen years.

A correspondent who is well acquainted with the country sends the following description of the scene of the action in the Transvaal :—" Laing's Nek," he writes, " is what we should call a saddle, or col, joining two mountain passes, and is crossed at right angles by tho road from Newcastle to the Transvaal. In its rear is a very bad defile extending for several miles as far as Coldstream, where the rocky Drakensberg being on the left, say, of our forces, and the deep, precipitous, almost infernal bed of the Buffalo River on the right. It is a scene for a Dante's genius to describe. I cannot conceive a more formidable position ; the only thing in our favor being the fact that tho country on either side of the road is too rough for horses. This boing the case, I do not think the Boer 3 would care to separate themselves from their horses, i.e., their means of retreating in case of repulse." A correspondent of ono of the French papers suggests that the Irish difficulty might be met without inconvenience by the simple method of transferring the seat of government from London to Dublin. This would satisfy Ireland ancl, as the whole time of the House is taken up in discussing Irish affairs, England would in no way be a loser by the change. The Queen would, of course, take up her residence in Ireland, and England would be placed under the charge of a lord-lieutenant. The English people would, it is urged, be the gainers by this arrangement, "for they would be treated with consideration now extended only to their Irish fellow-subjects. Their smallest grievances, real or imaginary, would receive " respectful attention," and" they would be allowed privileges as to non-payment of rent and taxes which would place them in a far more comfortable position, landlords only excepted, than they at present enjoy. The scheme has, at all events, the merit of novelty, and on this ground alone _ Mr Gladstone may be inclined to entertain it. _ Barristers make so many feeble jokes in courts of justice that a good and really impromptu' mot from one of them is deserving of record. On Monday last a large piece of ceiling fell suddenly in the Old Court at the Old Bailey, while the court

was sitting. Tho Recorder, Sir Thomas Chambers, thereupon suggested an adjournment, when a member of the Bar present, we are told, ventured the remonstrance; "Surely, my lord! Fiat ju3titia, ruat ceiling!" The penalty of death, which was abolished by the Constitution of 1874 throughout tho territory of the Swiss Confederation i 3 being gradually reintroduced by the several Cantons. On the 28th of January a motion for reintroducing the punishment was laid before the Crosse Rath—a body chosen by iiniversal suffrage to exercise the functions of the Landcsgcmeindo—of the Canton of Lucerne was carried by a majority of 70 to 28 votes ; and on the 29th the subject was also discussed in the Q-rosse Rath of the Canton of Berne. Petitions in favour of the reintroduction of the penalty of death signed by 12,983 voters had been rjrosented to the Rath, and twenty-one members of the latter requested information as to when and how these petitions would be considered. In reply, the Chief of the Department of Justice stated that is was his intention next session to bring forward for consideration the questions whether the punishment of deatli is really necessary, ancl if so_, what other measures should accompany its reintroduction. That the first question will be answered in the affirmative is, it appears, considered to be beyond a doubt. According to letters received from the flying squadron, with which are the Princes Albert Victor and George of Wales, in the Bacchante, the usual ceremonies were observed on crossing the line on Nov. 29, when such of the officers and men as had not previously crossed were subjected to the time-honoured ordeal. On board the Inconstant, the first one called for by Neptune's secretary was Prince Louis of Battenberg. Having been blindfolded below, the Prince was presented in due form to Neptune, who directed his doctor to ascertain the State of His Serene Highness' health. The official accordingly administered the scent bottle and gave him a pill, after which he was transferred to Neptune's barber, who placed him in a chair on the edge of the platform, with his back towards the bath, in which position he was well lathered, every device being at the same time tried to induce him to open his mouth for the entrance of the brush. After being roughly shaved, the Prince was then oapsized into the bath, where he was thoroughly drenched by the bears and assistants. He was next turned over to Neptune's servants, who dried him with wet swabs. The proceedings on board the Bacchante were very the royal midshipmen, Princes Albert and George, taking their turn in the shaving and ducking with the rest_ of the gunroom officers, and entered into the fun. It may displease teetotallers to hear that two French savants have, for the last twelvemonth, been keeping nine pigs in a state of habitual drunkenness. This has been done with a view to testing the effects of different kinds of alcohol on these unfortunate animals; and tbe Prefect of the Seine last year kindly put some styes and a yard in the municipal slaughterhouses of La Villette at the disposal of the savants, in order that they might conduct their interesting experiment at the smallest cost to themselves. The experiment is interesting, because we are told that the pig is the animal whose digestive apparatus most closely resembles that of man; but then drunkenness does not act on a man's digestion only, and the behaviour of a tipsy pig furnishes but a slight indication £of what a tipsy man's would be who had drunk of the same liquors. However, we learn that the pig who takes absinthe is first gay, then excitable, irritable, combative, and finally drowsy; the pig who has brandy mixed with his food is cheerful all through till he falls to sleep; the rumswilling pig becomes sad and somnolent almost at once; while the pig who takes gin conducts himself in eccentric ways: grunting, squealing, tilting his head against the sty-door, and rising on his hind legs as if to sniff the wind. _ Dr. Decaisne, writing on these intoxicated Bwine in the France, remarks thatthey are none of them the worse for their year's tippling, which may he regarded as satisfactory or the reverse, according to one's point of view.