SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3690, 6 May 1884, Page 4

SCISSORS.

The Montagu-Turners arc going , home._ Oscar Wilde oui'ls his hair now, and still the world goes on. Calcutta has ono of the finest zoological gardens in the world. In five years fifteen of the English glin clubs expended £807,000 in birds. The Federal Australian says the Groat Autumn Handicap was run at Wellington ! lltilcs was afraid to ride Martini-Henri in the Sydney Cup because of the horse's temper. In America the ratio of railway to travellers lolled per mile is 1 to 2,800 ; in Europe it is 1 to 900. London Truth states that during the past few years SO churches have been built in the diocese of York at a cost of £285,000 Tylecote, the wicket keeper of Ivo Bligh's team, is going to marry the eldest daughter of Sir "W. J. Clarke and settle in Victoria. During the Redomptorist Mission at St. Mary's, Sydney, over GOOO persons confessed and communicated At the close a cross was erected in the Cathedral as a memento. Since ISOI the Wcslcyans have erected in London, sixty-four chapels to accommodato not less tlian 1000 persons each ; and 97 smaller places of worship, at an aggregate cost of £600,000. At tho Tauti races on Monday a funny finale was provided in tho shape of a race for woodcarters' horses. Tho conditions were:—Ono mile, not less than 12st up, and to pull one ton up tho Tanti-hill. The ship Alexander Duthie, which was posted at Lloyd's as missing, and supposed lost with all hands, arrived at Liverpool on Maroh 24, after a voyage from Sydney of 100 days. The cause of tho delay was a long series of calms. Tho editors of three newspapers in Spain have been condemned to eight years' imprisonment for their comments on public affairs, and two other journals- have been denounced by the press censor for article < "criticising" the King. Dr. O'Brien, late incumbent of Ft. Patrick's, Hove, Brighton, has, by his will, bequeathed the church in which he officiated to the parishioners of Hove. Tho church was tho private property of Dr. O'Brien, and its erection cost £20,000.

I was told by Mr Archibald Forbee that lie had lost in America all the money, and it was not a small sum, which he made by lecturing in Australia. I now learu thit it was in one of the Pacific railway schemes that his capital was thus untimely and irreparably submerged. A man in tho south of England has succeeded iii pulling off a novel treble event. Ho took £300 to £1 that he named tho winner of the Waterloo Cup, that ho walked six miles in an hour, and that ho named tho winner of the Croydon International Hurdle Race. What a " treble !"

Colonel Hunt, a millionaire lumberman, of Roscommon county (Midi.), has bequeathed oOOOdol. to Caroline Brown, mother of Artemus Ward, and similar amounts to Eli Perkins and Josh Billings. Mr Hunt was a lover of humor, and owned an extensive library made up mainly of humorous literature.

It is stated that a Sydney barrister, who stands high in his profession, is about to institute proceedings for divorce on tho ground of his wife's adultery with a wellknown and popular clergyman. The case is likely to cause a sensation, more especially as-tho lady's sister is threatened with a. similar suit by her husband.

Unlike the Chinese, tho Japanese never Bmoke opium. A dread of it prevails in Japan over since the war between England and China, which arose about opium. If Chinamen are found smoking opium in the ports of Japan they are apprehended and punished. The Dutch were the first to introduce opium into Japan, but it is only used medicinally.

There are about 320 parishes in Scotland with glebes and stipends amounting to less than £200 a year. Tho association for the augmentation of smaller livings is endeavouring to raise a capital fund of £120,000 to aid these ministers. The Edinburgh Presbytery in endorsing the scheme, resolved to put forth a strenuous effort to make £200 the minimum stipend.

At a church in South London recently the morning and evening sermons were preached by different clergymen. Both preachers took the same text, and tho amused and amazed congregation recognised a great similarity between the two discourses. Inquiries wore made, and it was found that the morning preacher haJ recited a sermon of Dr Muclareu's word for word, and that the evening sermon was the same in text, divisions, and illustrations.

The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is by no means favourably spoken of just now. The House, it is said, is getting , talked out hi more senses than one. Two good men have tendered their resignations within a week—one, it may very certainly be said, wearied with the waste of time. One man who has not yet resigned is reported to have said, '' The only places I know worse than our Parliament upon certain occasions arc a nigger revival meeting or a shearer's hut on a wet day."

Eats have at the lowest calculation four litters in the year, beginning and ending , with a litter, thus making thirteen litters in three years. They have eight young ones at a litter, half male and half female, and the young ones have a litter at six months old. At this calculation we take one pair, and at the end of three years no less v number than 0") 1,0.30 rate (whilst littering) the produce of the -first pair ; that is, including the father, mother, children, grand children, grc.it g-rand children, etc. These rats would eat and waste more food than would suffice to feed over Go,ooo human being 3. The black boy is just as quick to detect cant a-j some of his more civilised white brethren. On the evening of a blazing summer day, a gentleman in black broad cloth, weary and dusty, approached the homestead of a station a long way back. His hor.se was emaciated, jaded, and looked as though it had not had a feed for days. Just at the slip panel ho met a wellmounted black boy, and called out, "Let down the rails, Billy, my horse is knocked tip. I am a follower of the Lord," replied Billy with a smile as he jumped oft', " Mine think you been long time eatoh-im on that fellow yarraman !'' The Queenslander snys:—" That a person should be able to sit in an oflice in Brisbane, and give evidence in a court of justice sitting 420 miles distant, would almost appear too great a tax on credulity, even in these days of telegraphic and telephonic conimimication, and yet such an occurrence actually took place the other clay. In a case being hoaid at the Police Court at St. George, it was found necessary to secure the evidence of a public officer in Brisbane. By taking- advantage of the forms of the Telegraphic Messages Act of 1872, the tjvidenee was given by wire, and, so far as is known, accepted by the St. George bench." The mourning rites of the natives of New Guinea aro described as very pathetic, and some of them very disgusting. There arc no paid mourners, but the friends of the dying man throw themselves on him, wailing bitterly, the women tear their faces 'until the blood streams down, and the whole housef all of people joins in the chorus of a piteous wail. In many cases the mourners hasten death by their "demonstrative grief, for they shut out all air from the sick mim and really sulfonate him. During the night, while the corpse is in the house, the tomtom is beaten and a monotonous fuueral dirge chanted until morning. A shallow grave is Mien dug and the body placed in it. Women it would appear have eniliusiastically taken to bowling as an amusement in America.. In New York alone there arc forty-three registered bowling clubs for ladif s. and eight in Brooklyn, four of the latter having connexion with young people's .church societies, while there are any number of public places in New York where a private alley it) reserved for lady patrons. Some of the older clubs for ladies have adopted a very comfortable uniform of navy blue flannel, very much like the lawn-tennis costumes, save that the skirts are in the fihape of very roomy pantaloons, the bottoms of which reajli to the shoe tops*. . The " Evangcline" Club gives fortnightly receptions at its elegantly fitted-up alley, when gentlemen friends are admitted and invited to bowl. Th« new editor of the Times has (say.s Truth) hardly got his leader-writers well in hand yet. A paper has just lc»n started in' Paris which is professedly to

take a different line every morning, but the Times last Friday stole a march on it, for there were two articles on the new Pufform Bill in tho same number, written on the principle of the second contradicting the first. In this case, the second thoughts, according to which the bill was "at once comprehensive, cautious, and conciliatory," were de.'idedly an improvement on the first, which felt the" "very strongest objections" to this and that, and, in particular found " the manner of dealing with Ireland impolitic and unjust." It is all very well to reflect public opinion witli this perfect impartiality ; but then what arc the people who are supposed to take their opinions from tho Times to do ?"

A schoolmaster, employed under the Wellington Education Board, has submitted to the board a somewhat peculiar complaint It appears that he has on his teaching staff a young lady who is of a humorous term ot' mind. On the Ist of April, according to tho master's letter to the board, this festive damsel sent a boy to her desk to look for a spider. The youth was unable to find the venomous insect, and upon his reporting tho failure of his hunt to the lady, ho was doubtless surprised to hear himself called an " April fool." Nor was this all. Tho young ledy sent a girl out to the porch to meet her mother. Tho maternal mother was not there, and consequently the innocent little maiden fell a victim to the joking propensities of the monitor. Hence the report of the master. This letter, as may be imagined, created quite a sensation among the members of an austere body like the Education Board. Mr Bnnny, who was the first to recover his self-possession, expressed tho opinion that tho master might have kept such a complaint to himself. Finally it was decided to " lav tho letter on the table."