SCISSORS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4059, 25 July 1884, Page 4

SCISSORS.

Deafness is unknown in Tahiti. The population of Quebec is steadily declining.

. Yellow fever is committing great ravages in Havanna.

It is proposed to introduce local government into N.S.W.

Tho study of German is compulsory in the Japan University. - The editress of Princess Alice's letters received £1000 for her labors.

It is estimated that 15,000,000 acres still remain in the hands of the Maoris.

Over 30,000 girls are tanght needle-work in the public schools of Ncav Zealand. The United States, it is said, is now tho second copper-producing country in the

world. . Last year there were 1517 murders in the United States, 93 legal executions, and 118 men were lynched. . In Northern Sweden dancing is prohibited on Saturday evening, but it is the correct thing to indulge in it on Sunday evening. Tho Mormon families aro suing the estate of Erigham Young for the property wheedled out of them by Church influence. It is proposed to hold a World's Fair in Missouri in 1892, to commemorate the 400 th anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus. Two bed-ridden consumptive?, living in different Avards in a New York hospital, have sued for divorce, ancl the referee recommends that it. be granted. A gentleman of Glasgow has offered £10,000 towards tho making of a railwayon an African river, to avoid the Murchison Rapids, which prevent traffic to Lake Nyassi. There is an old man in Clay county, N.C., avlio has borne" through ninety-two years the burden of the name of Alexander Gumbleton Ruffleton Scuffleton Oberda Whittleton Southcnhall Benjamin Franklin Squires. An engineer recently testified at a Philadelphia inquest that'his hearing avus affected when everything was comparatively quiet, but when at his post in a noisy engine he could hear without any effort. Dr. Barry's (the iioav Bishop of Sydney) writing is said to be able to give a start to Horace Greeley's scrawl, on wliich a man once travelled for two years, though it Avas simply a discharge of incompetency. The native printers at Bishopstowc are noAV engaged in completing the setting up of tho Zulu translation of " The Pilgrim's Progress," which Bishop Colenso, at the time of his death, left in an unfinished state. Tho total earnings of. the West Pacific Mail Co. last year for passengers amounted to 1,319,367db1., and for freight 3,083,G82 dollars. Of this the Australian branch contributed the following:—Passengers, 234,509 dollars ; freight, '134,778 dollars. When David Cox exhibited the "Funeral at Bettws-y-Coed". at the rooms of the Water-Color-Society, one of the critics intimated that if the Society could not exhibit hotter Avork than that it ought to close its doors. The "Funeral" is now Avorth three thousand pounds. The total number of persons avlio arrived in the colony during the quarter ended June 30, 1884, was 4080, tho number of departures being 28S0. Of the arrivals 2110 were from the United Kingdom, .and of the departures 286 were for tho United Kingdom. The axrivals at the port of Wellington for that period were 904 and the departures 536. ■Pho churches of Berlin are neither numerous nor handsome, Ten years ago. there were only sixty-four places of Avorship for nearly one million people, and there; is still the same ratio of churches; but, as only seventeen per cent, of the population attend the want is not seA-erely felt. The attendance at religious services -on au average Sunday is only two per cent, of the population. .' ■ . .',■■_ The State owns three papers, out of which it makes a handsome income—the London Gazette, the. Edinburgh Gazette, and the Dublin Gazette. According to the last statement of accounts the London Gazette shoAVs a net profit of £25,714 19s 4d. . The Edinburgh Gazette is a trifle over £3000, while the Dublin Gazette is a paltry £429.- The editorship of the . London Gazette is worth £800 a year. Telegraphing is dangerous work when it becomes too personal. An Austrian Countoss Madame Pongratz do'Metternich, recently sont the following brief but expres-sive-despatch to Governor Passinger, at Ncustadt: —" You are a blackguard." The Governor, who is said to have no idea of callantry, summoned his fair enemy before a magistrate, and she was sentenced to a fortnight's imprisonment and 300 florins ' A Warrnanibool resident has hit upon a novel idea of passing .way some of the hours, of night. The rats aro rather troublesome about his house, so he cut a piece out of the loAver section of tho door and fitted a slidin" trap door, worked by a string, which° he holds when in bed. -.A piece of cheese is set for a bait, and iv the hours of darkness the rats start masquerading and feasting. Tho string is pulled, and the rats are imprisoned. Then the big tom-cat is brought in, and the proceedings are very lively. At tho Clonmel Petty Sessions recently, two Avomen, named Rourke and Cummins, Avere prosocuted for having burnt a child three years old by placing him naked on a hot shovel. The act was the result of gross superstition on their part, the two women nllb'ung that the child Avas an old man left. by the fairies as a substitute for a real child Avhom. they had taken- from its mother. The charge was proved against Rourko, nnd she was sentonced to a Aveek's imprisonment, the Mayor being of opinion that as she has been in custody since the occurrence, the addition of a week's imprisonment would satisfy the demands of justice. He strongly characterised the ignorance and superstition which she had shown. . _, It is related concerning Mr Tennyson that he had just gone to live near Blackdown, and one night he lost his way Avlule rambling about. A Avoman standing at the door of a cottage did her best to set him ri"ht and in doing so described one corner ofhis own house, saying, "YoiiAvillsce it as you turn the corner by a clump of yow trees Some ono's come to live there from Luiiuon. They say he's a queer 'un. He's a actor, or does writin' or summat o' that sort' but he's a queer 'un, 'c is. He goes about more liko a beggar nor anythm else." " Oh " said Tennyson, " have you seen him '" " No, I can't say as I've seen 'un but that's Avhat I hear. He goes about just fur all like a beggar." Eating for a Avager is one of the forms— and it is°certainly a most objectionable one m w hioh the American mania for betting manifests itself. Some time ago tho New York papers were full of the gluttonous -proAvess af an individual, Avho had engaged, under heavy penalties, to cat a brace of emails every day for a month. Later still, another idiot undertook to eat thirty eggs at a sitting every day for same period, and the sporting world of New York mustered in force daily at the appointed hour to witness the performance. But a certain Charles Pcarsall, of the same city, has iust achieved a feat of voracity which throws the efforts of his predecessors commetely in the shade. He undertook to eat 60 eggs at a sitting every clay for a week, and he did it; and, Avhat is more, did it without bringing the slightest pressure to bear on his appetite, or rather sAvallowing capacity. It was, indeed only a sense of delicacy which forbade mn from fol owiU Oliver Twist's example, ancl "asking io?more" on each occassion, We have; W (say St. James' Gazette of persons hivin-"awolf in the stomach," but Mr Pcai'sall's anatomy would seem to be a perfect menagerie of these inconvenient and expensive quadrupeds. , . Apropos of telegraphy, the mistakes occasionally maclc by the "wires' are often ludicrous enough to make a tombstono angel smile, and by tho Avay of compensating, as it were, for this'unduo levity, the eccentric fluid just as of ten makes blunders calculated to drive respectable citizens into a drunkard's grave. Not long ago, a Darling DoAvns squatter and his better half trotted off to Brisbane to make a season'spurchase, and on returning the avool king left his good lady with hor friends behind him Amongst his purchases was a quantity of wire for fencing purposes • and he was no doubt highly delighted a few days back oh receiving a telegram which ran as follows . __« Your wife, weighing seven tons,

The San Francisco Argonaut complains of tho tendency which i 3 being displayed towards what it calls "padding" in the daily papers. The New York Herald, our contemporary states, "is responsible for this bed-quilt journalism. If the Herald has a five-Avord idea to sa}". it t§kes 2.5 to say it in, and then indulges, in vain-gloriouß flapdoodle over its ' enterprise.' Its cable letter is simply maddening, the padding pudding is so rich find so redundant that it :is almost impossible to find the new plums. The Chicago papers haA-o faithfully followed .in the footsteps of the Herald ; if a barn blows down they devote a page to it. There will be a diagram of the premises ; vioAv of the barn before being blown down ; view of the barn while being blown down; vieAV of the ruins ; interview with the hired man, Avho said he always knowed it Avas a going to bIoAV down ; interview Avith the owner, with his and other theories on barns blown doAvn ; interview Avith Professor Mugwump, the distinguished Chicago savant, Avith his views as to the reasons why barns blow down rather than up; comparative table of barn mortality in this and other States for the last 40 years, showing percentage of barns blown down A\-ith the illiterate vote; history of barns, from the earliest times to the present; statement of loss—five hundred dollars. And does a suffering Chicago public read this ? Great Scott, no ! Nobody reads it but the proofreader; not even the men avlio write it— they haven't time. It serves, however, as a peg to hang a boast upon concerning enterprise."