SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3988, 3 May 1884, Page 4

SCISSORS.

Hermit's fco at the stud is 200 guineas,

Mario's remains were taken to Sardinia. Three "Warmambool cabbages turned the scale at 100 lbs. Quakers only number IS,OOO in the United Kingdom. An American has remained four minutes and a quarter under water. During- the last week in February 13,000 emigrants arrived at New York. The value of the Canadian fisheries last year was three and a half millions. A statue of George Sand, by M. Millet, is to be unveiled at La Chatre on July 15.

Sir A. Mathieson, of Ardross, and Sir T. Brassoy Avill shortly bo raised to the

peerage. In a half-hour beei drinking go as you please at Pittsburg (U.S.) the winner drank 37 glasses. A silver mine at Silvorton, N.S.W., has given as its lowest yield 6000 ounces of silver per ton. The Victorian Government is about to take over the telephonic exchange from a private company. In ISS3 the N.S.W railways returned a net profit of £20,000 to the State over and above working expenses, interest, Sec. The largest school in the world is probably the Jews' Free School in Spitalficlds, London. It has a daily attendance of over 2,500 pupils. The King of the Belgians has expended £400,000 ou the International Congo mission, and has made arrangements by which it will be continued after his death.

A life of Chinese Gordon has just been published in England, to be sold at a penny for the benefit of the poor. He is at present, and deserves to remain so, the most popular hero since the Duke of Wellington. A writer in Hygiene Pratique states that boots and shoes may bo rendered waterproof by soaking them for some hours in thick soap water. The compound forms fatty acid within the leather, and makes it impervious to water. A new museum has been formed at Rome, in the Baths of Diocletian, to contain the mural paintings that have been found pretty frequently of late years in the course of the excavations. It will be under the charge of Signer Florelli. M. do Lessops has been elected an Academician ; out of 33 votes he received 22. The shadow over the success was ten white balls, or protests, against his claims. There are, and there Lave been, less meritorious men elected " immortals."

This is Mr Dwan's definition of the difference between a reporter and an editor :

—" The reporters, gentlemen," said he, " are all right. Their work will be done all right. Those papers must have a staff of reporters. They are men of ability. But an editor—ho is only a man of soap, gentlemen." A village called Zychydorf, near Temesvar, Hungary, which is inhabited almost exclusively by Germans, is in danger of being overwhelmed by an extraordinary outflow of water from tho artesian wells. A largo mill has already fallen in and many of the houses are flooded.

In round numbers, tho duties collected by the revenue officers in the Uuitcd Kingdom on spirits amounts in one year to £20,000,000, on beer to £8,000,000 or £9,000,000, on tobacco £8,000,000; but little more than £1,000,000 is paid as duty on wines of all kinds from all countries.

In Madrid, Father Mou, a Jesuit preacher, having denounced, in the presence of two of tho King's sisters, the fashionable practice of going to see French plays at the theatres during Lent, the fact was reported to the Council of Ministers : and, consequent upon the representations to tho Primate, Father Mon was ordered to retire at once to Seville.

A curious coincidence in connection with tho fatal railway accident at Little "River and Sunbury (says the M.A. Mail) is the fact that the driver Kitchen, who was killed at the former place, and fireman Huchinson, who met his death at Sunbury, both on tho same night, were the driver and fireman respectively of the Boxhill special at the time of the collision on tho Hawthorn line.

On the completion of his twenty-first year of office as Provincial Grand Master for Kent, Viscount Holmesdale was presented by his brother Freemasons with a handsome service of plate. Within the last few days each subscriver has received a portrait of his lordship. The engraving is a very fine one. The likeness is excellent, and his lordship is represented as wearing tho insignia of office as Provincial Grand Superintendent of the Royal Arch Masons A copy of the engraving has been forwarded to every lodge in the province. A few days ago, a very well-known Victorian bookmaker was hitched in double harness to his "first, and only love," (bar one, it appears) and the cheers of his brother " sports " had hardly died away when solicitor Daly, of Collins street, presented him with a graceful present in the shape of a writ for £1000, at the suit of a lady who had for some time held herself to rank as Mrs and expected to have had her promotion confirmed. Verily, you can never tell till the number's up. Naughty disclosures are expected. Nyuin-nyum !

Contrary to what has been published on the subject, hardly a day has passed at Madagascar without tho French fleet having been nngaged in shelling some part or other of the coast. On Jan. 14 tho French troops attempted to take possession of the Farafat citadel, which was believed to have been abandoned by the enemy. The 200 men sent to take possession of the fort were repulsed by the enemy's cannon. Tho garrison at Tamatave is decimated by fever. A perilous experience was that revealed lately before the Steam Navigation Board as having been passed through by the captain and crew of tho ship Yarra, wrecked on the north-west coast of West Australia. Far from any fit place of refuge, the vessel went broadside on to a reef and commenced to break up. Two boats were washed away, the third dashed to pieces. Tho wind was blowing hard, the sea high. The crew put together a raft, and started on a voyage of one hundred and eighty miles to the nearest island, the captain having , his wife with him on tho frail craft. Five days' tedious work brought them after many perils to the island, where hard work and hard bargaining were required to induce the master of another vessel to bring them back to some Australian port.

A largo portion of the Bompa run, in the Maryborough district, Queensland, was recently rendered temporarily useless for pasturage owing to an immense plague of caterpillars. They had come suddenly, and committed their devastation for several days, when they received a check from quite an unlooked for quarter. A few emus struck this patch of what to them is a delicate edible, and ere long quite a rush of emus set in, as many as forty collecting on the field. The rich find was, however, soon spread abroad amongst others of the feathered tribes, and at last so great was the tush, especially of hawks and crows, that before long the whole field was worked clean out. For several days the air and ground was thick with tho birds, who, like every creature with life, were able to congratulate themselves that the drought had broken up. M. Auguste Bonheur, Rosa Bonhcur's brother was undoubtedly a less talented depictor of animal life than his famous sister, and yet he was by no means deficient of ability. The great fault about his paintin «■ was that it was " heavy," arid that ho carried "finishing" to an excess. The manner of his death ought to serve as a warning to all who suffer from symptoms of heart disease. Determined to catch a train, he hurried in all speed to the Gare St. Lazarc, bounded up the stops and managed to .spring into a carriage just aw the locomotive was whistling, and sank breathless on to one of tho ;-eats. The train had just started when his fellowsaw him press both hands to his heart and fall back. Ho was dead. In private life he was an excellent, worthy man, highly popular, and greatly liked in the artist Avorld of France.

The London Lancet combats the folly of some would-bo improvers on Galen, who decry the use of salt as a food condiment because it is a mineral. The Lancet says that common salt (chloride of sodium) is the most -widely distributed substance in the body; it exists in every fluid and every solid ! and not only everywhere present, but in almost every part it constitutes the largest portion of the ash when any tissue is burnt. In particular it is a constant oon-

stituent of the blood, and it maintains in it a proportion that is almost wholly independent of the quantity that is consumed with the food. The blood will take up so much and no more, however much we may take with our food, and, on the other hand, if none be given, the blood parts with its natural quantity slowly and unwillingly. Nothing can demonstrate its value better than the fact that if albumen without salt j is introduced into the intestines of an animal no portion of it is absorbed, while it all quickly disappears if salt be added. The conclusion, therefore, is obvious that salt being wholesome, and indeed necessary, should be taken in moderate quantities, and that abstention from it is likely to be injurious. A few nights ago a cleverly-executed scheme, deceiving a large number of gentlemen, was carried out at the Haymarket Theatre. About ten days back, it appears, each of them received a missive, in a lady's handwriting, which ran as follows: '' The writer of this is anxious to have the pleasure of meeting you. She will be at the Haymarket Theatre on Tuesday, 11th March next. If you will be in the stalls you will not fail to recognise her; but to show that this meeting is agreeable, will you wear a button-hole of violets and lilies of the valley, and she will wear scarlet geraniums ?" So successful was this letter that two advertisements in the '' agony column of the Times requested the lady to send her address in confidence, About eight o'clock in the evening the first victim appeared on tho scene. " Gallantly, yet cautiously, he looked rouud for the fair unknown, when to his dismay he noticed several other gentlemen dropping in, one by one, all bearing the identical floral sign. Men came from Aldershot, from Brighton, and from the country, many of them wearing scarlet geraniums in place of the Parma violets, which made them the more conspicious. It was not long before the Bancroft exchequer was enriched by the appearance of at least sixty victims, many of whom were cute enough to hide their flowers in their ..hats, to be assumed if the fair wearer of the scarlet geraniums should bo discerned. Before the end of the first act it was very patent that a "sell" of the first water had been perpetrated; two noble lords, tho chief character in an Irish breach of promise case, and others equally well known, being among the gay Lotharios. The dress circle was full of g-entlcmen who having- received letters themselves, had compared notes, and, detecting the joke, secured their position to enjoy the scene. It was not necessary to look very far for those by whom the scheme was originated, A prominent stage box was graced by the presence of a well-known form, who took the keenest interest in the successive entries of the lady-killers, as each one made his appearance with the identical " button hole."