MISCELLANEOUS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 584, 27 June 1873, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Christian World reports that a short time ago a gentleman loft with the secretary of St. Peter’s Hospital, Bern ;rs-stieet, an anonymous donation of 10,000.1. in 1,000/. notes. A pig hunter writes to the i!/.t rlhorough Express complaining that after the troubtef of catching bis victims ho limbs many o them without tails, and is thusjVlep-ivod of his proper reward, as ticks paid sixpence for each tail. lie states that in fourteen days'he killed 750 pigs, but docs not stale the number of tails he secured. The shearers in Victoria are organising a strike for next shearing season. They intend insisting on Ids per 100, with rations. Their programme also lays down that no two prices shall be given in any shed ; that the word “ sheep ” shall include all sheep of any sox or age ; and that no shearing shall ho allowed except during shearing hours. Among the papers of the late Lord Ly I ton there was f»«nd a note, in which he expressed a wish that whenever his death occurred his body should not lie touched by the surgeons, but tiiat it should remain on the bed whore he might die for th:eo days. There was a further proviso that at the expiration of three days he should bo examined by medical men, who were to ascertain that ho was really dead. An Auckland paper remarks:—“As might have been expected, all sorts of sousat icnal rumors are circulating concerning the re ported forthcoming action against Lady Ferguson for breach of promise of marriage The last story that has reached us is to the effect that the rejected suitor is dead, and that it his executors who arc about to bring the action. According to this account, the lady was influenced by bor brother and uncle to send a telegram to her lover, who received it at Gallc, intimating her resolve to break off the engagement. The shock was so unexpected as to unsettle the mind of the recipient of the news. A fever then attacked him, from which ho died. The story then goes on to say that, before leaving for England, the lady and her brother made a present of 20,000/. to some charitable institutions at Melbourne, by way of atonement.” Now that our Provincial and Colonial Parliaments arc on the eve of sitting the following extract from the Melbourne Telegraph may not he out of place :—“ In Japan a law exists that whoever cuts down a tree is obliged to plant another. In Biscay every proprietor plants two for every one which he cuts down. And the system is rapidly spreading in our own day. In America an important law on the same subject passed Congress, 11th of March, 187.1. It is enacted that any one who plants forty acres of timber, the trees S foot apart, and keeps them in a healthy growing condition for five years, shall receive the fee-simple for the quarter section of ICO acres, but only one quarter in each section is to he so appropriated ; and every settlor under the Homestead Act who has planted with trees and “ kept in good and thrifty condition, one acre in sixteen of the holding isTo have his grant at the “end of the third year instead of waiting for five.”