MAIL ITEMS.

Evening Star, Issue 4039, 5 February 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAIL ITEMS.

The latest engineering project is a tunnel through Mount Blanc to unite France and Italy via Geneva. M. Core is engaged upon a large painting representing “Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem,” on a canvas measuring 30ft. by 20ft. Two bequests, one of L 12,000 and the other of LB,OOO, have been made to the Liverpool charities by wealthy citizens who died lately. There has been rolled at the Edgar Thomson Steel Works a 601b steel rail, 60ft long. It is perfect, and is believed to be the first of this length ever rolled. Hippophagy in Paris continues to flourish. During the last three months 1,446 horses, 67 donkeys, and 5 mules were slain in the French capital for public consumption, M. Sebille, a French architect, has obtained a patent for damp-proof bricks. He injects bricks, tiles, &c., with tarry products of cal distillation, and finds them per fectly impermeable to humidity. The drawer of the great prize in the last drawing of the Paris loan of 1869 is a Parisian working woman,-who had entrusted her ticket to a small pastrycook. The lucky woman gets LB,OOO. A Cincinnati scientist has allowed himself to be stung once a day for three weeks by bees to ascertain the effect of the bites. He says that after about the tenth time the pain and swelling were slight, the body seeming to become inoculated with the poison. The Centennial Committee on Opening Ceremonies have elected Wm. M. Evarts for orator, H. W. Longfellow for poet, and a grandson of Richard H. Lee, of Virginia, for reader of the Declaration of Independence. It is stated that during the lesseeship of Henry Powell at the Pavilion Theatre in 1868, Henry Wainwright, recently convicted of the Whitechapel murder, played, for the lessee’s benefit, the part of Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice.”

The Stockport magistrates have imposed the full penalty of £5 on a woman who had sold some of the clothing of a son who was suffering from small-pox. The result of the defendant s indiscretion was that several other persons were attacked by the disease. Adder Hanson, captain of a Norwegian barque, alone and unaided, brought her into the Humber. The ship was so much damaged in a gale that the crew went on board a smack which came in sight, but the captain refused to leave his vessel, and, after incredible exertions, brought her into port.

Recent exchanges give particulars of a curious charge of rioting in Dublin, between the owners of property in certain parts of the city and the residents in houses of illrepute, The owners of adjacent houses have apparently organised an attack upon those who annoy them, and bottles of tar have been flung at the inmates and persons entering. The ‘ Politik’ of Prague states that of his enormous fortune the late Emperor Ferdinand has left a legacy of six millions of florins (£600,000) to Archduke John of Tuscany, the author of the recent anti-German pamphlet. The Grand Duke is reported to have at once placed the legacy at the Emperor’s disposal, for the purpose of manufacturing new cannon, of which he says the Austrian army stands in urgent need. The Cape papers complain of the great prevalence of diamond stealing. They say it seems almost impossible to stop it, for with so small and valuable an article as a diamond the chances of discovery are not great, and the profits of illicit dealing are immense. Men make fortunes over stolen diamonds, in a few months build fine houses to live in, and smile complacently on their more scrupulous neighbors. It is not always so easy to account for popularity. There having been exaggerated reports published concerning the sale of Messrs Moody and Sankey’s Hymn Book in this country, a religious organ has thought it its duty to inform the public that the circulation of this work has been only 3,551,000 from January to June last. And yet there are some people who say that the world is fond neither of poetry nor of religion. Among some very foolish fashions that ladies have of late got into their heads, is that of wearing small birds on tbe top of them. Larks and linnets are being slaughtered by hundreds, is order that bonnets may be made ridiculous. In the case of the firstnamed, it is simply abominable that the sweetest singers in our skies should be sacrificed to this wicked caprice; and as to other small birds, • their usefulness in the agricultural economy should protect them from such ravish.

A curious lawsuit is pending at Milan. At the state performance given in the La Scala Theatre to the German Emperor, two of the subscribers, Duke Scotti and tbe Advocate Antonio Traversi, who detest the Gennans, resolved to protest, by leaving their own boxes unoccupied, against their presence. Seeing this, the municipality had the doors by a locksmith, and installed some Prussian officers in the vacant places. The two lessees of the boxes have commenced an action for trespass against the authorities, and demand damages. In the official publication the Birmingham ‘ Republican Association ’ say that tbe income of England’s landed aristocracy has risen in sixty years from 36 millions to 153 millions; that the income of those who depend on profits has risen during the same period from L 97,000,000 to 1482,000,000; and while the total wealth produced in 1870 was oyer L 934,000,000, the income of the whole working fil%ss was only L 325,000,000, leaving L600,0Q0,000 to he qnjoyed by those who neither toil nor spin. They gq on to say, by calculating the returns of the Clearing-house for 1840, that the three firms of Barclay and Co., Glyu and Co., and Jones, Lloyd, and Co., must have made profits during that year of “L 47,400,000, equal to the wages of 948,000 men at LI per week, during the same period.” A former resident of Neufchatel, in Switzerland, describes what he declares to be an equitable system of taxation, peculiar to that part of the world. The chief tax imposed is an income tax, but there is a broad line of distinction drawn between the income derived from a man’s property and his earnings, the former being taxed at about ten times the rate of the latter. By this means capitalists in receipt of large incomes are

made to contribute largely for the protection and assistance they enjoy, while such as depend on their wages or salary, and are consequently not in the same position to contribute, are only taxed to a very moderate extent. The system is said to work in a way that is extremely satisfactory to all classes.

The last new thing in coffins is thus described by the ‘World:’—“You are placed in a glass box, to the top of which is affixed a metal rod. As soon as the earth is filled in a battery is connected with the rod, and an electric shock shatters the coffin into a thousand pieces, thus allowing the earth to press on the dear departed, and causing him to return to dust even quicker than if in one of Mr Seymour Haden’s wicker baskets.”

M. Onimus has had the opportunity of examining the muscles of a decapitated criminal shortly after death. He found that two hours after execution the right auricle beat spontaneously. The ventricle was quiescent, but the slightest stimulus applied to it caused it to contract. After the lapse of five hours constant currents applied to the skin caused contraction of the subjacent muscles, though the same stimulus applied directly to the nerves Ho longer induced contraction.

A London jury has just given compensation to the amount of L4OO to a commission agent who had done nothing more for it, absolutely nothing, than mention the name of a rich man and a patron of art to a picture dealer. He did not even introduce the parties. Again, a country jury gave a verdict (for the complainant in the following case : —A nurseryman brought an action for L 3.000 for plants supplied to a gentleman in one year. It was shown that the limit he had placed upon such expenditure, which was in his head gardener’s hands, was L6OO, and that this worthy for the sake of getting his commission for his orders exceeded this limit by five-fold.. As the judge very properly observed, it was the nurseryman’s duty to have inquired of the gentleman whether so large an order was made of his own knowledge, but the jury, who had evidently an admiration for this middleman system, decided otherwise.

A writer in ‘Chambers’s Journal gives a curious instance of how scarlet fever was propagated in Morayshire. A servant girl fell ill of the disease and died. Her clothing was put into her chest, and despatched to her relatives. The ‘ ‘ kist ” lay for some time at a railway station, where a number of children played about it, and they were struck down with the fever. Afterwards, the clothing was distributed among the girl’s relatives, and worn without being disinfected, and wherever the clothes of the deceased girl were taken in, scarlet fever found its victims. For several months the fever raged, until the wave of its infection was expended. Now ensued a remarkable event. The outbreak proved to be an opposing barrier to the spread of a more virulent type of scarlatina advancing from another quarter at a later period of the year. On reaching the former scene of the disease, it was arrested for want of material to feed upon; a second attack being very unusual. An ingenious Swedish woodcarver has hit on a way of applying the game of chess to political and religious controversy. This artist, whose name is Oestergren, and who is a native of the obscure town of Westeras, in Sweden, is making ready for the forthcoming Philadelphia Exhibition a set of chessmen intended to typify the struggle of opinion now going on in Germany. On the one side the Emperor is the king, the Empress Augusta the Queen, Prince Bismarck and the Minister of Public Instruction, Herr Falk, the bishops, the knights are uhlans, and the pawns recruits of the landwehr. The adversaries are the Pope of course as king, while an abbess figures as queen ; tbe bishops are cardinals ; monks mounted on asses represent the knights, and the pawns are monks on foot. This is not the first happy hit of the artist. Last winter in the Upsula Exhibition he exhibited a chess game, in which the pieces represented the chief actors in the Franco-Prussian war.

In addition to the genuine telegrams from India have been published some other ones, which, although undoubtedly a little impudent, are very funny. Generally speaking such squibs against Royalty are vulgar and exaggerated, but the accompanying despatch from Cam (Lord Carrington, I suppose) to Nellie, from “on board the Serapis,” has really a certain local coloring and vraisemblance:—“Carri to Nellie. —All serene. Safe at Athens. Awful bungle with Serapis. Lost two cables and might have come to grief. Illustrious personage very pale. Called for soda and brandy. Complained of spasms. Ordered another. Did him good. Ship safe. Illustrious personage all right. Lubberly seamanship. Saw Yankee skipper grin and Russian chuckle. Serapis captain great swell. Brother of lord, ami honorable himself. Mustn’t haul him over the coals—only do that with poor devils like Dawkins. Grand dinner at Court. Sat next to Greek general; great warrior. Field Marshal in full fig. Great warrior asked in what battles Field Marshal gained rank and honors ? Rather posed ; equal to occasion. Replied ‘Chillingham.’ Great warrior looked puzzled. Asked number of enemy ? Didn’t like to say, ‘ Old cow,’ so shut up. Awful pretty girl—maid of honor—at bottom of tableopposite illustrious personage. Field Marshal’s eyes never off bottom of table. Very- silent. Asked him what thinking about. Replied, ‘ Kids at Sandringham.’ Wheugh ! Learned man heard Field Marshal great don of Oxford, doctor, and all that. Learned man addressed Field Marshal in strange lingo. Field Marshal bowed. Learned man continued. Field Marshal bowed again. Learned man looked dumbfounded, and sloped. Field Marshal asked canon what gibberish learned man talked. Canon said Latin. Field Marshal lit cigar. Just got English papers. See Stanley preached sermon, and hoped we hoist standard of morality in India. Asked illustrious personage what that was. Illustrious person said he knew nothing about it. Got same answers from Paget, Aylesford, &c. Couldn’t be Royal Standard. That would be too good a joke even for dean.” BURIED ALIVE. A remarkable escape from burial alive happened in the town of Bradford, New Hampshire. A lady in the above town had been sick for some time, and to all appearance had died, and arrangements were accordingly made for the funeral to take place on the third day after her supposed decease. The preparations for burial had progressed so far that on the day of the funeral ■ the lady was placed in a coffin, when it was observed that one of her eyes was partially opened. Nothing, however, was thought of it, as it was supposed to be the result of muscular contrition, and the arrangements for burial were all completed, when the supposed corpse astonished the attendants by asking to be placed on her side. At last accounts the lady was doing well, with every prospect of a complete recovery.

UN ADULTER ATE U KEN BABYISM. Dr Kenealy held a meeting at Devonport on November 17, and a few minutes after be got on bis legs he succeeded in exasperating a large portion of his hearers by making coarse attacks upon everybody and every newspaper that was not favorable to tbe cause of “ lichborne.” One gentleman claimed to be heard in reply, and was making his way to the platform, when he was pushed off his legs, dragged along the hall, hit over the head with sticks and umbrellas, and otherwise maltreated. It was fully htdf-au-liour before quietness was

restored, and then Dr Kenealy commenced a furious attack on the Press, the representatives of whom he denounced as half lunatics, half fools, common public liars, Ortonites, “bullockies,” noodles, and men with as mnch conscience as there was in the hide of a rhinoceros. The meeting broke up in the greatest disorder. lord sx. Leonard’s will. The case of Lord St. Leonard’s lost will, coming so quickly upon the disputed testament of his brother ex-Chancellor, Lord Westbury, i s attracting great attention. All the codicils have been found but not the main document, and the heir-at-law is now applying for his rights. The rumor that it was in the pocket of the dressing-gown in which, by his own desire, his lordship was buried, seems too ridiculous; and there seems to be no evidence of fraud. An old domestic, however, witnesses that one of the peculiarities of her old master—who died at 94, and was in his dotage—was that he was fond of humming a song which described “how an old lady had hid her will in a secret drawer of her cabinet,” and an impression is that the poor old Lord hid his own will somewhere so cleverly that it will take many years—and an accident—to discover it.

AMERICAN ELECTIONS. The State elections are now over in America, and the Republicans appear to have made good again the ground they lost last year, with the single exception of the State of New York, where their success has been but partial. Still, even there they have managed to pull down Governor Tilsden’s majority of the previous year by two-thirds. The New York correspondent of the‘Sydney Herald’ gives a graphic and interesting account of the political compaign. The victory appears to have arisen mainly from tli6 Republicans adopting a 4 * bard money platform, or a return to specie payment at the earliest possible date—the Democrats advocating a “soft money” platform, which means unlimited inflation of the paper currency, and possible repudiation. The electioneering campaign witnesssed another fatal blow to Tammany Hall. Such was its admirable organisation that it survived the loss and exposure of many of its leaders—the notorious “Boss” Tweed, Connelly, and “ Bismarck” Sweeney. Its latest chief, John Kelly, brought on the present disaster by ip the height of his power and while intoxicated with success, on dictating all the nominations, without regard to the wishes of the general public. The upshot was that the whole of the New York Press with the exception of the ‘ World’ and the ‘Tribune’ (controlled by the Wall street “operator,” Jay Gould), went dead against him. This was succeeded by a “coalition ticket,” run by the republicans and the anti-Tammany Democrats. Tammany counterchecked this electioneering move, by appointing twenty “workers” in each of the 600 electoral districts into which New York City is sub-divided, who were paid 10 dollars a day “to watch the republican canvass.” This at once gave a vote of 12,000 men, holding a “retaining fee” from Tammany. Notwithstanding all these precautions, the “ coalition ticket ” carried the city by 25,000 majority, and the twentyone Assembly districts, with the exception of four. TAMMANY. The above-mentioned correspondent thus refers to the history, principles, and organisation of the “ Tammany Ring ” : In spite of the odimn which Tweed and his fallows brought upon it. this notorious society was s . perfect in its organisati n that it survived the shock. The black sheep were thrust into the b ck ground, new leaders with clean anteced-nm were called to the front, and fra time it 86' imd as though it would s ion be more powerful than ever. Toe fundamental principle on which it is based, however, has again crushed it—the same principle that has been at once the strength and weakness of the Jesuit or I. r—unwavering ob-dience to the will of a single chief. Anything more diam-trically opposed to the traditions «>f free i stitutions cannot well be cone-ived. It has all manners of passw rds, and grips, and occu t mumm ries, whose only purpose seems to be to make the uutiated b heve that it is a great thing even to be in the rank and file of so tremendous a mystery, and byfostering hisvanityto reconcile him to the despotism of its discipline. The Tammany “private” is a “brave,” and his superior officers have strange designations, su hj as sagamore, winskinkie, and sachem. The hall of meeting is called a “ wigwam,” and the records of the society are written according to the Indian fashion of reckoning time. The autocrat of the whole is the “ grand sachem,” an office filled for some eventful years by the fallen Tweed. The latest grand sachem is an ex-sheriff, named Kelly, who, for three years, has endeovored to re-build the edifice so sadly shattered by his predecessor.

The enemies of Tammany propose to “ make an end ” this time, and legislate it out of existence by abolishing its charter. Nearly a century ago it was accorded one as a benevolent corporation, but, under the guiding hand of the notorious Aaron Burr, it speedily degenerated into a secret political society, which has for nearly the whole of that time ruled New York, and been intimately connected with most of its financial and municipal scandals.

CURIOSITIES OF THE LONDON POST OFFICE. ( The annual report of the PostmasterGeneral invariably contains some items of general interest, illustrating not only our social progess but some of the eccentricities to which the human race, and especially the English species, is liable. The oversights and mistakes of last year were as striking as usual. “ A registered letter from Switzerland was found open in the chief office, London. The contents, which had become exposed owing to the flimsiness of the envelope, consisted of cheques for upwards of £2OO and of banknotes to the value of more than £SOO. On another occasion a registered letter containing Turkish bonds, with coupons payable to bearer, worth more than £4OOO, intended for a firm in the city of London, was misdirected to a street in the West-end, where it was delivered. On inquiry being made for the packet it was found that the bonds had been mistaken for ‘ foreign lottery tickets’ of no value, and had been put aside for the children of the family to play with. These were cases of inadvertence or carelessness, which is more than can be said of the case next to be mentioned. In the chief office in London two gold watches were found, each enclosed in an unregistered book-packet addressed to New Zealand, the leaves of the books having been cut so as to admit of the watches being enclosed. The two packets were sent to the Returned Letter office, whence information was forwarded to the addresses, there being nothing to show who were the senders. The work of the Returned Letter office is still very heavy, as many as 4,4oo,ooo—being one in every 220 of the total number of letters—having been sent there, of which about three-fourths were either re-issued or returned to their writers. Upwards of 20,000 letters were posted without any address, one of them containing L 2.000 in bank notes. The regulations of the office as to the classes of articles which may be posted are very liberal, there are nevertheless those Avho think them too narrow. Thus, during the year there were committed to the Post-office, contrary to the rules, a horned frog, a stag beetle, white mice, and snails—all alive. These unfortunate creatures were sent to the Returned Letter Office, together with an owl, a kingfisher, a rat, carving knives and forks, guncotton, and cartridges, which somebody had considered proper articles of conveyance by post.”