ODDS AND ENDS.

Evening Star, Issue 4126, 18 May 1876, Page 3

ODDS AND ENDS.

During a gale at Newcastle, Wilson’s mammoth circus was blown down, causing great alarm. The postal card system came into operation in Melbourne on April 11, and though there has been but little public reference to the matter, sales were effected to a considerable extent, some 10,000 cards being sold. The New York ‘ Graphic ’ and the Philadelphia ‘ Times ’ published an accurate representation of the position of every shot in the targets at the recent rifle match in Ireland. They weie enabled to do it by means of a carefully devised cipher, the target being divided by imaginary lines into small squares, each represented by a cipher word, so that the exact spot struck by each shot was instantly reported by cable and a corresponding mark made upon the engraving here. The ingenious device is a fresh illustration of the enterprise of the modern pi ess. The Ranee of Shivanunga gave the Prince of Wales a sword of steel so beautifully tempered that it can be worn round the waist as a belt. A crime of a fearful character has been committed at the village of Lewknor, a few miles from Oxford, the alleged perpetrators being two women. It is stated that one of them, Matilda Saunders, who has been separated from her husband for some years, was con fined, and her sister, Charlotte Hill, soon after the birth, took the child away from the mother, and after cutting it up burnt the body, a portion of the scalp being the only discoverable remains. The woman Hill is deaf and dumb. Both have been brought before the Watlington Bench of Magistrates, and committed for trial.

A new religious vagary in California is a sect of “ Child Christians,” who interpret literally the passage, “ Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” They endeavor to feel and act like children, playing childish games, and adopting an infantile manner of speech. While you people are comfortably snoozing in the early morning, Anthony Trollope writes, from 5 to 9 a.m., at the rate of 1,600 words an hour.