ODDS AND ENDS.

Evening Star, Issue 4125, 17 May 1876, Page 3

ODDS AND ENDS.

A block Newfoundland dog, having attended the Pride ot the Tyne Lodge of Good Templars, at Haltwhiatle, England, along with his master, for some time, appears to have found out their mysterious rap for entering the lodge-room during the meetings. One lodge night he set off to the lodge customary, and his master having gone in before him closed the door. A short time after, the Inner Guard and part of the members heard the well-known knocks at the inside door, when the Gttard arose and opened it, and the black brute walked majestically in, greatly to the surprise of the vigilant Guard, and causing no small amusement to the company assembled. An extraordinary foot-ball match was witnessed by some ; 15,000 persons near Sheffield on 12 th January. The goals were four miles apart and the ball was kicked off midway between them. After three hours play the match was pronounced drawn, neither side having gained the advantage, and the ball being nearly five miles from the place whence it was kicked off. Some of the players -were a good deal scratched by bursting through hedges. The general report by Captain Tyler on railway companies in the United Kingdom has just been issued, from which it appears that a total sum of LG09,895,931 had been expended to the end of last year on 16,449 miles of railway, of which 8,749 were laid with two or more lines of rails, and 7,700 were single lines, at a cost of about L 37,000 a mile. By the "running of trains over 200,484,263 miles, L 56,899,498 were received during the year, of which L 31,647,517 were expended in working and maintenance, and L 25,251,981 remained as net profit, so that 56 per cent, of the gross receipts was expended in earning them.

A High Church curate of London, whilst staying at a certain fashionable watering place, having a horse that did not like the water, tried to cure him. He stripped to the skin, and then mounted his steed, which he thought to force into the sea. But the brute did not “see it,” and wheeling round, started full pace for the town, through the main street of which he dashed, greatly to the surprise and horror of his rider, the male Godiva. It is said the curate did not officiate the next Sunday. Notwithstanding all that has been said in favor of the Martini-Henry rifle as a military weapon, it appears that there are serious defects in it which may possibly lead to its being replaced by some other arm. In a despatch from Lieutenant Hinxman, commanding a detachment ot the Ist Battalion 10th Regiment, engaged in storming a native fort in the Straits Settlement, the following suggestive paragraph occurs :—“ I was much disappointed with the new rifles (MartiniHenry). When they get hot the extractor becomes jammed, and eight or ten of my men told me their rifles were useless, so I told them to take the wounded men’s rifles.’' The ‘Army and Navy Gazette/ of February 12, referring to this despatch, says “We trust our authorities may not disregard this timely warning, and wait for the defects of the rifle to show themselves on a still more important occasion. We have a chance just now of obtaining a very superior weapon in the Pieri—a rifle which, at all events, should be thoroughly tested without loss pf time.”

A phase of social life as it exists in Gympie is illustrated by a paragraph in the ‘ Gympie Times’ announcing that, for the future, the police magistrate had prohibited smoking in his Court. A few years ago the present Guicowar of Barodia, the richest Indian Prince, was a poor village boy who earned a living by tilling the soil.

It is told of the marvellous performing fleas that da one occasion, when a lady of high rank was inspecting them, one of them, prdjbably dazed by such close proximity to aristocracy, lost his presence of mind, leaped upon the august visitor, and disappeared. The lady retired for private search, the proprietor of the insects imploring her in agonised accents to be tender and gentle. In a few minutes she returned with the fugitive re-captured. She handed him to his delighted master, but judge of her feelings when, after a very short scrutiny, the master exclaimed, “My lady, this is not he; this is a stranger!” The sittings of the Kew Asylum Board of Inquiry at Melbourne seldom terminate, says the * Telegraph,’ without one or more ludicrous episodes coming to the surface. Mrs Scott furnished four closely-written pages of foolscap, containing a long history of her life in the asylum, while another patient named Donovan, evidently afflicted with the same mania, favored the board with a long dissertation on the New Testament, ancient and modern poetry, pleasantly mixed up with a spice of “ stonewall ” politics.

At a spiritual seance in Liverpool the accredited medium—a young man —entered a cabinet, was tied up, and shortly afterwards was seen floating about as a beautiful female covered with a gauze veil. A sceptic, however, seized hold of the apparition and called for a light; whereupon it was found that the materialised spirit face was a beautifully-modelled gutta-percha mask, covered with a long cloth, which the medium waved about over his head, and “ the spirit light” which surrounded the form was caused by phosphoric matches.