NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2773, 6 January 1872, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

MISCELLANEOUS. Blqpdin is about to ‘‘dp 1 * the Falls of Niagara once more. Steam omnibuses have been introduced into Paris. There were 567 new cases of small-pox and 95 deaths therefrom in Philadelphia in the week ending November 4. The Midland Bail way Company have conceded the nine hours demand to the men engaged in their locomotive and carriage department at Derby, over 2,000 in puipber, in Jappat-y, Details are to hand of the floods at Tientsin. The Chinese regard them as the punishment for the massacre. Some 3,000 people have been drowned, and the misery certain to be caused will be fearful. Sir Henry Storks has officially expressed his satisfaction at the manner in which the Control department bore its part in the Hampshire manoeuvre. “Satisfactory results” were attained by the new system, “ under conditions in some respects more trying than those of actual warfare,.’’ The movements of the International Society are' attracting attention. Graphic letters have appeared in the Times and Standard, describing its origin, history and mutations. It is displaying immense activity now. The Central Committee sits in London, and is making efforts to introduce its organisation into Ireland. Revolutionary principles are avowed. A brooch, composed of four crooked brass pins, set richly in the centre of a cluster of twenty diamonds upon a lapislazuli ground, and protected by a glass point, is worn by a Hungarian countess, The count, her husband, found these pins on hie coat after having been taken to bis solitary cell, under condemnation for some political misdemeanour and to prevent loss of reason he scattered the pins on the ground of the cell and then hunted for them in the rayless darkness till they were found, only to scatter them again and resume the search, thus preserving from the dangerous torture of thought/ In memory of this the lady wears the bent pins in her choicest jewels.

The French papers publish a curious statement, said to have been prepared from authentic statistics, showing that during a year’s occupation of Champagne the Herman army of occupation consumed no less than 2,550,000 bottles of the famous vintage of that country. Of that quantity Rheims supplied 1,881,000 bottles ; Epernay, 433,000 ; Ai, 272,200.