ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 853, 23 August 1878, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

—o— Another foolhardy trip has been taken across tho Atlantic. Throe brothers have undertaken tho journey from New York to Havre in a cockle-shell of some nineteen feet long, called the Nautilus. Tho women’s hotel in Now York, which cost nearly a million sterling to build, has proved a failure, and it is to bo opened as an ordinary hotel. Tho training of carrier pigeons is still energetically pursued in Belgium, and during the latter part of May some 123,440 birds crossed tho Franoo-Bclgiau frontier, so that the pigeons might learn their way homo from French territory, A joint roasted by the heat of the sun is one of the chief .attractions of the grounds of the Paris Exhibition, where M. Mouchot, a Tours Professor, when the clouds permit, daily cooks a portion of meat by means of a strong reflector. A twenty-fivo thousand mile walk has been undertaken in the United States, the pedestrian engaging to complete the distance in two years of 313 working days, at torty miles a day, leaving himself, with the exception of Sundays, oue day for rest in the two years.

At Bridgewater the other day a boy, aged ten, ran away from bis mother, who had threatened him with chastisement. She pursued him over several fields, and at last the child jumped into a deep pond and was drowned. Is this suicide or manslaughter? Rome purposes' to hold an International Exhibition in 1881.

A novel hydraulic press is reported from Providence, in Rhode Island. Some clerks in a ground-flooroffice were recently at work one morning when they noticed the floor of the room slowly rising in the middle to a height of some eighteen inches. On investigation it was found that a small leak had opened in a six-inch water main that passed under the building, and the escaping water had found in tho four walls of the house a cylinder from which it could not escape, and in tho layer of concrete below the floor a piston-head. Mr Robert Moon, Clerk of Her Majesty’s stables at Windsor Castle, recently committed suicide by drowning himself in. the Thames. He left behind him a letter stating his idtention, and naming tho spot whore his body was to bo sought. Tho coroner’s inquest was conducted privately, the jury being chosen from amongst the Queen’s servants, and no reporter admitted. .Poetic fans arc coming into fashion in Paris, and at a ball given by tliOjPrincess de Sagan to the Prince and Princess of Wales, the hostess presented each lady in the cotillon with a fan inscribed with a few verses of poetry. The little bird, which last year built its nest on tho framework underneath a thirdclass carnage on the London and SouthWestern Railway, has returned this Spring to her old quarters, and has reared a fresh brood in her strangely chosen habitation. The bird and her young have a daily journey of forty miles.

(Tgly rumors are afloat concerning the safety of Waterloo Bridge, which according to the opinion of Mr Law, C.E., “may fall at any momentthough ho thinks that there is no danger to passengers, as suflicieut warning will be given before its collapse. Sir J. Bazalgotte suggests that it may be made safe by casing the piers with iron at a cost of L 33,000.

Mr Campbell, the Scotch giant, who recently exhibited himself in London, has died at Newcastle, and was buried there. The coffin was seven feet long by throe feet six inches in width, and being lined with lead, weighed with the body fifty-two stone. The Japanese at the Paris Exhibition have been highly successful with their display, of which they are said to have sold the greater part for some LBO,OOO.

The severity of the present .7 une weather in London may bo imagined from the fact on several days in that month the temperature in Lapland was considerably higher than that recorded in the metropolis.

The rapid advance of newspaper enter prise during the past ten years is well-illus-trated by the celebration last week by the Drily News of the tenth anniversary of its reduction from three pence to a penny. A new Walter printing press was inaugurated on the occasion, when at the extraordinary rate of 104,000 perfect copies an hour, the machining of the whole edition of 140,000 copies was accomplished by eight machines in time for the departure of the early newspaper trains. A short time since, a Methodist minister collected Ll2O at the laying of the memorial stone of a new chapel at Famham, and on his journey home to Guildford left the hag containing the money in a railway carriage, whence it was stolen. The police, however, traced the thief, and found the hag, but not the cash. He was committed for trial.

A correspondent of the City Press has forwarded a dozen strawberries which were grown on the roof of a warehouse in a thoroughfare within a hundred yards of the General Post Office. “ The strawberries,” that journal remarks, “ aro certainly of rich flavour, and possess an excellent aroma. Our correspondent thinks. the growth of the fruit in such perfection is a proof of the comparative purity of the atmosphere ; and wo quite agree with him. Ho adds that ho has a cherry tree on the same roof, with fruit on, which promises to ripen. To these interesting facts, in concoction with City pomology, we may add that some fine specimens of figs, likewise grown in the City, were sent to ns some time ago ; and that another correspondent used regularly to send ns Rome excellent grapes, grown near the London Institution in Finsbury Circus.”