THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Evening Star, Issue 3853, 30 June 1875, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

There are now 1,247 newspapers in England, of which 308 are publi bed in London, Wales has 58 papers, Scotland 149, Ireland 137, and the British Isles 18. This makes in all 1,609 registered newspapers for the Home country. The magazines now in course of publication, inclusive of tha Quarterly Reviews, number 643, of which no fewer than 240 are decidedly of a religions character. The Church of England has its special organs; and the Wesleyan?, Methodists, Baptists, Independents, and other communities are fully represented in this branch of literature. The Parliaments of the world are thus defined by a New York journal published in French Versailles Assembly-an assemblage of honest men, so anxious for the good of their country that they are not afraid of injuring her in their zeal the old Napoleonic axiom, trop de zele. The German Reichstag—a class of students who often quarrel with their professor, but always obey him. The English Parliament—excellent manufacturers, who have long since given up working for exportation. Hungarian Cham-ber-hussars turned shepherds. American Congress- rare fellows with the pistol. Italian Chamber—Garibaldians in session. Spanish Cortes frequently absent. Honolulu Parliament—not more uncivilised than •the others. Qaiok transit is tha problem that vexes the city of New York ; all means proposed fail in practice. The last one is the most astounding of all. It is for a moving sidewalk, to be propelled like an endless chain, by stationary engines, placed at the distance of a mile oj half a mile apart. As the sidewalk on one side of the street moves in one direction that on the other side moves in the opposite direction. The rate of speed suggested varies from eight to ten, and as high as fifteen miles an hour. And this plan is now being seriously discussed in the Albany Legislature on a motion to grant a charter to a Moveable Sidewalk Company, to operate on certain thoroughfares in New York city. The working model is said to be most convincing as to the practicability of the scheme. Speer is the inventor, and the invention is named “Speer’s Travelling Sidewalk.”

A Quaker ia Guernsey has just been released from a short term of imprisonment for refusing to serve in the local militia, 1 The _ amount of toll-money which the Marquis of Bute was said to be losing through the South Wales strike was estimated at L 3.000 a-week. The Chinese occasionally betray a fiendish ingenuity in their mode of committing capital crimes. Lately one of the native newspapers in Shanghai reported that the Body of a woman had been found, crucified on a shutter or doorway, floating ia the river outside Woosung. The head of a man was attached to the waist of the woman’s body, and both were taken to the district city of Paoshan. The circumstance*! >f this crime have not been discovered, but it is conjectured that the poor crucified wretch had been faithless, and that this revolting revenge had'been taken by the injured husband and his friends. An account is given in the ‘Turf, Field, and Farm’ of a horse which was confined m a stable for ten years by its oner, who swore to imprison it for life, on account of its inflicting some slight injury on him when a yearling. During its confinement its hoofs grew enormously, arid. flattened out like a man’s foot, until they were from eighteen to, twenty-four inches in length. After it had been eight years a prisoner, its owner was offered l.OOOdola for it to show as a curiosity, but refused it, preferring to gratify his revenge. Two years afterwards the unfortunate and cruelly-treaed animal died. One of the neatest replies, says an English paper, ever given by a Parliamentary candidate whet | worried by one of the crotcheteers, ■ re< V^ e pther day. The advocates ox the repeal of the Compulsory Vaccination Acts having waited upon him and asked if he would vote for their pet idea, he said, “If you will only vote for me to-morrow you get the small-pox the next day if you ,i f^ 10 * Timea’s ’.Paris correspondent says : “There is now living in Paris a centenarian whose ago ia said to be well authenticated. Yesterday, Baron de Waldeck, a painter of

considerable reputation, celebrated his 109 th birthday. Baron de Waldeck works eight hours every day, is in perfect health, and what is more remarkable, has a sou ohly twenty-four years of age.” • Professor Blackie having already raised L 4,200 to endow a Chair of Gaelic in the University of Edinburgh, was recently preseated with the diploma of an honorary member of the Celtic Society. The Professor. in the course of a humorous speech, related an anecdote which he beard from M r John Macdonald, oybe ‘ Times,’ regarding the Queen and Dr .Norman Macleod’s father. Having been invited to meet the Queen at dinner at Lord Aberdeen’s residence, Dr Macleod was asked by. his Lordship—“ Well Doctor, how is the Gaelic getting on?” Dr Macleod replied—“ It is dying away very fast,” and added “perhaps the sooner the better. Her Majesty remarked that she was much astonished to hear Dr Macleod make tuoh observations, and added that the Gaelic language was rooted in the E highland character, and she did not wish to sue it die out. These, Professor Blackie com tinned, were the Queen’s sentiments - (cheeni) —and surely there was some blunder in her book of “H 0 m the Highland” not being published in the Gaelic language.. Professor Blackie then brought his spe>'9ch to a conclusion by reading a translation of a Gaelic poem. A frightful catastrophe happened th 3 other day to three French aeronauts, M. 'Pissand!er, M ( 'roce-Spinelli, and M. Siva'l, who ascended ir the baloon called the Zenith from, the gasworks , of La Villette. It appears that these three baloonista wei bent on making Icareful experiments as to the point at which the rarefaction, of th » lfl ir ,inlb f 6 - ll i n ?- S aDd tbc bloctl > ar i on the ° Xyg £? to ward eounteraotiug that danger. The

had previously tried the effect of artificial rarefaction on their lungs in the iron laboratory of the Sorbonne, and had then found that inhalation of oxygen removed all the unpleasant symptoms. But the baloon on this occasion was so rapidly lightened that all three aeronauts became insensible in the act of inhalation, and so dropped out of their hands the only counteracting and two of them were dead before the descent of the baloon restored the third, M. Gaston Thsandier, to consciousness. All three would have been saved by the rapid descent of the baloon, after the first interval of insensibility, had not one of them, in the delirium of half-consciousness, thrown but the aspirateur, and also too much ballast, so that the baloon again ascended rapidly, and the swooning returned. When next the baloon began to descend, two of the aeronauts were quite dead. The baloon seemed to have reached the height of 8,000 metres, or, say, 26,000 feet, at the very least, probably much higher. Mr Glaisher, however, seems to think that the suffocation arose, not from the rarefaction, but from the escape of the baUoon-gas in too close a proximity to the os r. On the other hand, it seems that one of the aeronauts had exhibited just the same symptoms in the ratified air of the iron laboratory, when the rarefaction had reached only the point doe to a height of 6,000 metres, or less than 20,000 feet. It seems likely that different constitutions show very different degrees of susceptibility to the effect of atmospheric rarefaction. The melancholy death of a wandering colonist is thus briefly recorded in a San Francisco paper by the last mail“ Yesterday morning an Englishman named G. A. Fisher was found dead in his room* in the Coso Lodging House. A bottle of sulphate of morphia was found on a table near the bed. He came to the house on the Ist of this month, and stated that he intended going to Australia, but had missed the boat, fie had asked the clerk to get him some morphine, but the clerk refused. An envelope was found on the table with the following words written on it in lead pencil: “ Beware of the saloon on Pine street, near Kearney. W. White (two words are here illegible) take my effects. Write to (illegible) West Market, N.S.W. (New South Wales) He will pay Bryan and Harrison.” On the other side of the envelope was written, “ God have mercy on me and pity me. Get my watch from Uncle Harris, on Kearny street, and send my wife.” “An American, balloonist, by name Mr Donaldsen, has informed the Socidtb d’Aerostation of Paris, that within three or four months he intends crossing the. Atlantic, from the United States to Europe, in a balloon measuring 70,000 cubic metres. Mr Donaldson is convinced that there exists a constant current of air in the upper strata of tho terrestrial atmosphere setting at that season from west to east. He is undeterred by previous failures, and has provided himself with cans of Leibeg’s meat extract, lifebelts, blue lights rockets, carrier pigeons, bottles to contain floating messages, astronomical instruments,, and flags, by means of which ho can signal to vessels near which he may pass. He will probably travel alone, for the sake of lightness; and-the ballast in the balloon-car will principally consist of ‘fire-pots’ of Mr Donaldson’s own invention, which are said to be tin cylinders containing a chemical substance which becomes inflammable instanteously upon contact with water, and emits a brilliant and long-lasting flame. As Mr Donaldson is borne rapidly along eastward he will drop these flre-pots into the sea every ten minutes, so at night the whole horison, he expects, will be illuminated, and he will leave a fiery track behind him on the Atlantic. The scheme sounds all the more a * big ’ one, as the recent voyage of the Zenith balloon from Paris to the neighborhood of Bordeaux is the longest on record, and only occupied some sixteen hours. The balloonist Green, in all his fourteen voyages, was never longer in the air than three or four hours at a time. Sixteen years ago the Gdant balloon went up from the Champ de Mars, and descended in Hanover, after six hours’ sailing.' Subsequently MM. Plammarion and Goddard travelled from Paris to Prussia in eleven hours. Several similar trips have since been made. However, Mr Donaldson hopes to be in the air ‘not longer than a week.’ He is said to anticipate that his course may ‘ occasionally be somewhat circuitous,’ and that even ‘ there may be occasional stoppages,’ but ‘ the goal will indubitably be reached, and Europe will receive with open arms the aerial messenger from the far west,’ It is to be hoped so.”