FACTS AND SCRAPS.

Evening Star, Issue 3080, 2 January 1873, Page 3

FACTS AND SCRAPS.

The Irish emigration returns show that 5840 more persons left Ireland in the first seven months of 1872 than iu 1871. The total emigration within this period was 54.995.

A remarkable engineering feat is in progress, viz., the crossing of the Andes by the Lima and Oroya Railway. The moMitains will be tunnelled at 1-V 00ft height, the twnnell being 3000 ft long. The workmen are Cholos Indians, no other men being capable of enduring the ran tied atmosphere. The other day, in the District Court at Sydney, a female debtor admitted thd claim made against her, but added, “ I don’t intend to pay it. His Honor : “Why so V” Answer. —“Because I have a family.” The reason was not accepted as a valid one. A country paper says :— “We arc sorry to learn that the Rev, David Parry, Wesleyan minister in the Ballarat East Circuit, has had a very narrow escape of his life.” Perhaps the rev, gentleman himself was by no means sorry over the circmstancc. Japan has already 17 newspapers. The sewers of Glasgow discharge a volume of'water on’y one-third less than the Clyde itself. Gold coinage to the amount of 13 millions sterling was minted at the Loudon mint during the past year.

The Wellington races take place on the Hutt course on March 6th and 7th.

A curb-us answer was given by a fonale witi.css Ire o he;’ day in the Majorca Police Court. Mie w;is being a.-ked about her son, who had given some evidence. She said, “'I lie boy is of weak intellect. He speaks the tilth, i would sooner bedeve him than any other of my children.” The Perl in K/adtleradufsc/i sr.ya that the servants of the Bishop of Knneland, who is threatened by thePru-sian Co /eminent with the suspension of his clerical income, have seen their master run his head despairingly against the wall, crying, “0, temporalia ! D, mores!”

The I lobar I TuH'o. M< rrunj, in alluding to the tendency of dm Hon. Charles Meredith to employ the illustrations of fable and apologue in Lis speeches, tells the following story : —On one occasion, Air Aleredith, desirous of extinguishing a not very obtrusive member who bud dared to differ from the then Treasurer, resorted to a fable which he Lad evidently intended applying to the obnox ous member. He said that once upon a time a lady favored of the gods was about to lie the mother of a boy. A good goni «p----ppeared to the expectant modmr, and offered to endow the child with any three gifts the mother should desire. 18he named first ‘‘impudence.” Tim second endowment was al.-o “impudence.” “ Impudence,” too, was the third qualification asked. “What became of the child?’’ a ked Mr Meredith, raising his linger as he thought to turn his opponent into ridicule, when there was heard proceeding from the corner of the Opposition benches the words, “lie became oar Colonial Treasurer.” The effect was electric, and Mr Meredith was for a time cured of his style of illustration.

A very interesting application of the musical dames has been made by Dr. A. K. Irvine, and communicated to the Iron and Steel Institute at Glasgow, This application takes the form of a minor's safety lamp, indicating by sound the presence of exp'osivo mixtures of gas and air, based on a new form of the singing flames. When a mixture of inflammable gas and air passes into the lamp, it is ignited on the surface of a disc of wire gauze, above which is placed a suitable chimney, in which is pro.! need the musical sound, vary ing in pitch with the size of the flame and the dimensions of the chimney.

They 7 arc a primitive and old fashioned people in the rural districts of Tasmania. I noticed a report of a pi ughing match the other day. There was considerable excitement, as might be naturally expected, over so stirring an event. One man won, of course, but the splendour of his victory is slightly dimmed by the local journal, which records that the other competi'ors bad only wooden ploughs. The conqueror boasts the only iron implement of that kind in the district. But even that does not cirry us back so nearly to the dark ages as what is rep -rted to have been seen on a German farm in .South Australia the wife yoked to the plough and the husband between the stilts.

Au immense deposit of brown hematite (iron ore), caleulattrl to yield seventy-live per cent, of pure iron, lias been discovered within the Launceston (Tasmania) town boundary. Carafa the composer, who died recently, was far from rich. His principal income, was derived from a snuff-box Tin's snuff-box was given to the author of “La Prison d’i dimbourg” about .SO years ago by Baron James de Bolhschibl, as a token of esteem. Carafa sold it 24 hours later for 75 napoleons to the same jeweller from whom it ha I been bought. This became known to Rothschild, who gave it again to the musician on the following year. The next day it returned to the jeweller’s. This traffic continued til the death of the banker, and longer still, for his sons kept np the tradition to the great satisfaction of Cara r a. —Swiss Times.

Show ns the family where good music is cultivated, where the parents and children are accustomed often to mingle their voices together in song and we will show you one, n almost every instance, where peace, harmony, and love prevail, and where the great vices have no abiding-place. Wo leain from the ZnjUsh Independent that the Rev. Thomas Binncy has set himself to attack the modern practice of clergymen wearing beards and moustaches. He puts his principal objection thus :—“ While beard and xnous ache interfere with distinct utt<r* anee, impeding clear and effective speech, both together, or even one or the other separately, obstructs the play and expression of the mouth, and thus hides and hinders the manifestation of feeling.” 7'hc Independent defends the new custom. It says : “’i heatregoers will tell this essayist that many of the leading characters on the stage assume the moustacheyct theexpression is not destroyed, but the rather increased and assisted. Some of our most popular lecturers, like Mr Henry Vincent, and our popular preachers, like Mr Spurgeon and Mr Gale, cultivate this obnoxious appendage, and wo have not heard of their failure, either in manifesting feeling or in clearness of utterance. Then there was that matchless and most inimitable of all readers, Charles Dickens, whose power over his audience through tlic facile j lay of his features has become historical, yet he had an exuberant beard. The fact is, expression and effective speech do not depend so much on shaven lips as on articulate utterance, modulation of voice, appropriate gesture, and the play of the eyes—these latter, as Cicero says, bear sovereign sway in oratory. Wc take the following amusing paragraph from the W>■■■<<purt Time* ; “ The Uesignation of the Westport Post-office should be altered to that of the Ceueral Postal and Piggery Department. Swine of all sizes, colors, and conditions, have taken up their nightly habitation in the delivery lobby—without let or hindrance, leaving there throughout the day unmi.-takeable visible and olfactory symptoms of their presence. On a recent moonlight evening we counted a full score of pigs, large and small, snugly coiled up underneath the letter boxes, and it was impossible to cither post a letter or open a private box, without first routing the enemy, who resisted the intrusion with proverbial obstinacy. The Postmaster should make a raid, and confiscate a few of the little ones. Roast pig on the dish should have a more agreeable perfume than live pig in the lobby.” In proposing Mr Frank Backhand's health at the inauguration bam|iiet of the Brighton Aquarium, the vice-chairman told how, among other offers of help to the undertaking, he had promised to send the company an alligator, stipulating that they should provide the proper appliances for its removal from the station to their own p cmises. A waggon and six horses were got in readiness, with a large staff of laborers, crowbars, pubics, policemen and idle boys. The alligator arrived —in a cigar-box—and he measured a good deal less than a toot from snout to tail. “He is here,” said Mr Huckland in replying to the toast, and he produced the tiny reptile from his pocket before the eyes of the astonished company, who gathered round it inspector of salmon fisheries with his unswaddled deformity of infant life. He called it, and it crawled towards its benefactor. He invited it to speak, and it hid i's hideous little head in shyness at the sight of the throng, until, in response to a pathetic remonstrance of “Come, come, Ally, speak up, my lad !” it emitted a sound that might have been interpreted with equal plausibility as a demonstration in mathematics, or the chorus of a comic song. More charitably construed, however, it might be taken as the animal’s > ontr bution towards the oratory of the banquet. In an article founded upon Mr Brassey’s posthumous book on “Work and Wages,'’ Mr Frederick Harrison brings out the fact founded apparently up n ample and authentic data—that increased wages and reduced boms of labor are actually conducive to increased production, by calling into play an even larger proportion of machinery, manual appliance, and scientific organization.