ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 848, 19 July 1878, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

—o— A Chinese play is to bo performed at one of the Berlin theatres under the.dircotion 0 f the Celestial embassy to Germany. The interpreter belonging to tho Embassy has translated the piece into German, and tho drama will be brought out with tho correct costumes and native scenery.

Children in Board Schools arc to be instructed as to the means of restoring the apparently drowned, ami placards containing instructions on the subject Lave been circulated among them. A curious Bathing Fair was held at Ajudhia, in Oude, last February. When a peculiar conjunction of the planets takes place, and which occurs only once in eighty years, the natives rush in crowds to the river, as they believe that if they manage to bathe and go through certain ceremonies in four minutes and a half, they will obtain the remission of their own sins and those of millions of their ancestors. On this occasion the rush to the liver was so great, that numbers were trodden under foot, and sixty-five persons lost their lives. Clerical smokers are strictly condemned in New England, U.S., and ministers who use tobacco will in future not bo admitted to office.

The Brighton Aquarium has lately lost a large Conger oel weighing some 281bs. • The eel was opened, and in its inside was found a large fish-hook which had evidently caused iullammatioa and death, and which must have been swallowed long ago, as the eel had been in the Aquarium four years. The other day a thief, who was being taken to gaol in a prison-van, found the flooring of his compartment so loose and thin that ho pulled it up, dropped through tho hole, and would have escaped, had he not been unlucky enough to run into the arras of a constable.

An extraordinary scene occurred lately at a Methodist chapel at Hanley. An old man aged seventy, who has several grown-up children and grandchildren, had arranged to be married to a girl eighteen years old. On the party arriving at the chapel they were attacked by a large mob and their clothes much torn. Ten policemen were present, but were overpowered by the mob, who rushed into the chapel, making a continued noise while the ceremony proceeded. A window was broken, and there was almost a riot. The married pair escaped by different doors, and eight constables finally conducted them home.

The flags in Paris displayed in the streets on the opening of the Exhibition are estimated to have cost LSO,OOO. It is stated that between April 30 and May 8, 5,757 foreigners arrived at the various Parisian hotels.

Oils of a dangerously inflammable character are now not allowed to be discharged at any point nearer London than Thames Haven.

The news-boys in London made a rich harvest with the evening papers one night recently,- every one being anxious to read about the “Resignation of Lord Salisbury." It turned out, however, that his lordship had only given up his post as chairman of the Middlesex Magistracy. Mr W. Quarterrnaino East, ex-oheriff of London, has been fined for using abusive language to the police. At Hammersmith a man has been fined LIO for personating a policeman. His defence was that he had got so muddled with drink that he did not know whether ho was a constable or not.