MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3177, 3 September 1881, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

A telegram has been received from Mr. Walter Reynolds, who is now in Sydney, Btating that he has engaged the Opera Bouffe Company recently brought to Australia by Mr George Musgrove, whose production of " La Eille de Tambour Major," has created such a furore in Melbourne and Sydney. The company, which includes Mis 3 Pattie Laverne and a number of artistes of European reputation, is expected to arrive here in November next.

The Scientific American says that there was lately on exhibition in Boston a fish caught about twelve miles from the Isles of Shoals by Wallace Wright, of the fishing schooner Jennie P. Phillips, from Swampscott. At the time of its capture it was 15ft long, and weighed 2,4301b. In its stomach were found a codfish weighing 501b.-, two smaller coda, and two coots. It had a large moutb, containing seven rows of sharp teeth, and in general appearance was somewhat like a shark, but what is most singular is the fact of its being uncommonly well supplied with respiratory organs. It had not only a month, but gills, nostrils, and blow holes. While on exhibition at Lynn the fish was examined by several scientific gentlemen, but no one has been able to classify it.

A3 an indication of the rapid strides witli which sugar growing progresses in the northern districts of Queensland, the Brisbane Courier mentions that 'a gentleman representing the Courier Sugar Refining Company of Sydney recently started from Brisbane for the Herbert River for the purpose of forming a large plantation and factory in that district. The gentlemen referred to. has been long a resident on the Herbert, and it is expected that under his direction the company will invest about £200,000 in that district within the next two years. The company are also contemplating another inTestment of a similar character in the Mackay district, as we learn that Mr Forrest, of Messrs Parbury, Laijib and Co., is notfon a vieit to that place with the view to secure 10,000 acres of land there for sugar growing purposes. There is quite a rush of capitalists into the sugar industry.' A correspondent at Marlborough sends us (Rockhainpton Bulletin) all the particulars he can obtain in reference to the death of Mr Burnett's children. Ib appears that Miss Sissy Wormald, a girl of sixteen or seven teen years' was out walking with the two children and a half-caste girl about seven or eight years of age, when the yo' igest child fell into the creek accidentl and was drowned. Fearing she would be >1 mcd for the accident, Miss Wormald took clothes off the eldest and threw her in also, and when she endeavored to paddle out to the side she threw her back again and said, " You stop there." Some twenty minutes or so afterwards she said to the half caste, "come on and we will have a bogie," and then she tried to drown her also, and the two had a struggle in the water together. The girl Wormnld being the strongest 1 apt the half-caste under until she thought she had drowned her, an . ' lo n left her on the bank for dead, and went to the house t-u give the alarm. The half-caste regained consciousness and lived to unfold what might have been a mystery. The prisoner has confessed, as far as our correspondent can hear, to the whole affair, and apparently does not realise the dreadful position she now stands in. She arrived from Marlborough yesterday, and was lodged in the gaol. Pome curious deductions, having relation to the effect upon American physical characteristics of the last twenty years' immigration from Europe into the United States, may be derived from the trade experiences of a Swiss traveller in glass eyes, recently published in a leading Chicago journal. It would appear that over a thousand of th-.f-city'f inhabitants are customers of the celpbrated manufactory in Uri, represented by the agent in question; and that whereas two decudes ago the demand for dark ey>«s was predominant, at present twenty blue or grey eyes are disposed of to one hazel or so-called black eye. In Boston the proportion is even more strikingly in favor of light eyes as against dark, being thirty-five to one. These apparently perplexing phenomena are accounted for by the fact that the vast majority of immigrants imported into North America since the year 1860 have been composed of Germans, Scandinavians, and fair-complexioned Anglo-Saxons. It is only in the Southern States that the dark eye still maintains its numerical superiority over the blue and grey varieties of that organ. In New Orleans, for instance, blue eyes are at a decided discount, only one imitation orbit of that color to fifty brown ones being in requisition. These data, the authenticity of which we have no reason to doubt, seem to indicate a probability that, at no very distant date, the typical American oitizen will be a blue-eyed man, and that the Celtic element, in comparison with the Teutonic, will play but an insignificant part in " shaping the ends" .of future Transatlantic history.

On the Saturday before Easter the German Crown Pruice and his second son, Prince Henry of -were out snipeshooting in the so-called town-woods near Bpandan, when, through an accident, some short cover caught fire in their immediate vicinity. Srenuous efforts were made by the foresters to suppress the conflagration by throwing sand upon the burning brushwood, and the Crown Prince, spade in hand, took his share of the labor with his accustomed energy and cheerfulness. When the fire broke out, Prince Henry was at some dis l lines from his father, working through cover on his own account, and had but juat passed by a group of laborers, excavating sand, who, seeing a young sportsman in the plainest of shooting suits all by himself in the wood, asked him " Who he was ?" " I belong to the Crown Prince," answered his Royal Highness, and walked on. A minute or two later, the Crown Prince, missing his son, begnn to shout at the top of his voice, "Henry! Henry!" and the laborers, jumping to the conclusion that the youth who had just passed them was a royal servant who had strayed away from hia august master, dutifully echoed the cry of " Henry I" with all their might and main. Heartily laughing at their unceremonious summons. Prince Ifenry joined his fiithei', and turned to at the sand shovelling with a will. By the time the fire had been extinguished both Princes were as blrick ns (inkers, md so parched with thirst that a timely draught of country small beer, supplied by Chief Forester Kranzler, was by them pronounced to bo " altogether sectarian."

The Sydney correspondent of tlie Age furnishes the following particulars concerning the extraordinary accident which happened recently at the Crown Kidge Hotel, on the JVTiidgee road, through an explosion of dynamite. Among the persons who slept in the hotel tho previous night was a commercial traveller named K. C. Gault, who was transacting business for a dynamite firm in Melbourne. This gentleman had three small tin boxes with him containing samples of dynamite. On Monday morning he was expecting a visit from Mr Mooney, a probable customer. He took samples of dynamite out of two tin boxes and placed them along the fender in front of the parlor fire, with a view of softening the'powder for Mooney's inspection. Shortly before eight o'clock a servant girl in the room preparing breakfast noticed the packages and handled them, unsuspicious of danger. A little while afterwards Mrs Paddison, the hostess, and a family of nine in all, sat down to breakfast. Hardly had they taken their seats when a tremendons explosion, which threw them to the ground, nearly blew the house down. The parlor and bedroom adjoining, the whole side of the building, and also the greater portion of the roof were blown away, making the house a complete wreck. When they regained their feet search was made for Gault. After some time it was discovered that he had been literally blown to atoms. Some portions of his entrails were found thirty yards away adhering to pieces of the roof, and parts of

■ 1": : Imrcr litnbs were scattered about the hotel yard with fragments of the building. The other nine persons all escaped with a I few bruises, but they were greatly terrified by the explosion.