ENGLISH ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 681, 7 May 1875, Page 3

ENGLISH ITEMS.

—o A French fanner has recently discovered the singular fact that by .heating glass and then cooling it in oil, its fragility is lessened in an extraordinary degree. A French Merchant, at present staying at a City hotel, does not believe in tho alleged scarcity of servants. His reason is that everybody who writes to him subscribes himself “ your humble servant.” A well-known chapel at Bath—Margaret’s —belonging to the Episcopalians, has just been sold by auction, and is likely to he turned into a skating rink, for which it is admirably adapted. Tho sermon at the opening of this chapel was preached he the celebrated Dr Dodd, subsequently hanged for forgery. Welsh English.—The following is, says the North "Wales Chronicle, a copy of a notice put over a hooking office at a station on a Welsh railway :—“ List of hooking.— You passengers must careful. For have them level money for ticket and to apply at once for asking tickets when will hooking window open. No ticket? to have after departure of the train.”

A man named Thomas Newton, residing at Denvent-Cote Cottage, near Sliotley Bridge Durham, has had a donkey worried by rats in a most extraordinary manner. The donkey, it seems, was kept in an outbuilding infested by rats. Hearing an unusual noise during the night, Mr Newton procured a lantern and entered the stable, when he was surprised to sec- a large number of rats clinging to the poor animal, which was then almost dead, the flesh on its back from the neck to the tail having been completely lacerated, and portions devoured. It is now definitely settled hy the fixture of the Grand-Master-nominate that the installation of His Hoyal Highness tho Prince of Wales shall take place on 28th April, The ceremony will take place at the Albert Hall, London, hy favor of the Council, and as in all probability upwards of 7000 Masons will be present, the scene will be one of extraordinary splendour and significance.

A remarkable instance of lapse of memory has been related at Dartmouth. A bedridden old woman, who had long been in receipt of out-door relief, and lived in an extremely indigent and miserable condition paying only sixpence a week for the attendance of a woman to wait on her. This woman had the curosity to unlock and search a box in tho old woman’s room, and there found a hag containing a hundred sovereigns, A gentleman who had befriended the invalid was called and she declared her utter forgetfulness that any money was in her room. The relieving officer, however, has laid claim to the hoard of gold with a view to tho repayment to the guardians of the sum expended on the old woman’s maintenance. She formerly kepi a cider shop.