DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 175, 30 December 1874, Page 4

DE OMNIBUS REBUS.

"What's the plural of pillow?" asked an Irish teacher the other day. "A bolster, sir," replied his rawest pupil, amid the suppressed tittering of the whole class. On being invited to attend a wedding, a young man, "illiterate but polite," sent a note in response, saying, "I regret that circumstances repugnant to the acquiesce will prevent my acceptance of the invite." A King of France inquired of one of his Ministers, what was the real difference between a Whig and a Tory. " Please your Majesty," replied the Minister, "I conceive the difference to be merely nominal ; the Tories are Whigs when they want places, and the Whigs are Tories when they have got them. A colonel, who had i*aised a regiment of feneible cavalry, was complaining in a company, that he had the whole labour of the corps on himself. " I am," said he, " obliged to be my own major, my own captain, my own adjutant," &e. "And," said a person present, " I presume your own trumpeter." A fashionable lady, being in urgent want of a pair of gloves, and finding that her maid was out, rang for her new footman, and told him to go and buy her a pair immediately. "You "will ask for flesh-colour," Avere her last words. In live minutes he was back with a pair of dark brown gloves. "But I told you ilesh-color !" cried the mistress, indignantly. "Well, ma'am!" was John Thomas's only reply, as he held out his hands. It is stated in the reports of different prisons of Paris that live or six thieves die annually in gaol from the effects of swallowing the "escape box." It is of polished steel, about three inches long, and contains turnscrews, hammers, silk thread, and every implement necessary for eseai e. The box is easily swallowed, but' sometimes refuses to glide along the intestinal canal as expected, and often causes death. When, however, it does reappear, the thief is in possession of implements with which he can saw through the thickest bars. The Wellington Gazette, N.S.W., reports that a child under twelve months old died from the effects of what is believed to have been the bite of a spider, or some small insect, on the collar-bone, near tl e throat. The appearance of a bite could 1e plainly discerned. The throat swelled outside and inside, and after a few days the little fellow died at last suddenly, very probably choked. The St Petersburg correspondent of the Allgevicine Zeltimg mentions a trial now going on at Moscow which has made a great sensation throughout Russia. The Abbess Mitrofania is charged with forgeries to the amount of £BO,OOO. Before taking the veil she mixed in the first society in the capital, and, placed among nuns with little education, she soon rose to a leading position. By means partly of Imperial munificence and contributions from all quarters and partly of forged bills she established large factories, dairies, &c, several of which are in full activity. The Panama Star of the 21st September says :—" Her Britanuic Majesty's sloop of war Teredos arrived on the 12th inst from San Jose, the seaport of Guatemala, where part of the British fleet, um'er Admiral Cochrane, was ordered to assemble in reference to the affair of Mr Magee. It is satisfactory to be informed by the captain of the Tenedos that everything connected with the ceremony of saluting the English flag, as had been agreed by the Guatemala authorities, took place with demonstrations of unaltered friendship on both sides. Two flag poles were erected on shore, and on the airival of 300 Guatemala troops and saluting artillery from the capital, accompanied by the Secretary of State, who represented President Barrios .Admiral Cochrane landed on October 4th, with an equal number of marines, bluejackets, and some forty officers of the fleet. On all being ready the English flag was slowly hoisted up, and saluted with twentyone guns, the saluting party being on one side of the square, and the almiral and English forces and their band on the other. The salute was returned from the ships, and a disagreeable inhrnaMonal question amicably settled. The officers of the Tenedos speak very highly of the courteous manners of the Minister and the commander of the Guatemala forces." The same paper also state? that the indemnity agreed on of £IO,OOO was paid to Mr Magee. The London Post liscovers, says an exchange, that public opinion throughout Europe is becoming uneasy at the attitude of Germany. Widespread sjspicion exists that the peace which followed the late war between France and Germany will, erelong, be again broken. The German Ohanctllor is a "spook" to all Europe. The Pest thinks this an unhealthy sentiment. It says that even if the chiefs of the new Empire were athirst for aggrandisement, the forty millions of people are not so likely to rush into enterprises of conquest and slaughter heallong. It says that the Franc "German war cost the lives of one hundred and thirty thousand Germans, as proved by the official records. The Post does not believe that a nation, in which so many gaps were made by the last war, cau desire to renew, so soon, its experience, an 1 that Bismarck must still count with thesoaid, earnest millions of Germany. It is not simply the defiant attitude which Germany has lately assum* d towards France that creates distrust, but its apparent design to interfere in Spanish affairs, and the plan to receive the island of Porto Rico as compensation for such interference only strengthens the belief. Add to this the reports about Schleswig and its attitude towards Denmark, and the demands made by its war vessels at the Navigator Islands, and it must be admitted that affairs look rather equally in Germany, A telegram of the 22nd of October, dated at Berlin, denies that the Government have any intention of annexing the Navigator Islands. But semi-official telegrams issuing from Berlin are not received with any confidence. It appears that in June last the German man-of-war Ancona, Captain Von Reibnitz, visited the island of Apia, and under threat of burning the native villages, extorted from the natives, in fulfilment of a demand made by the German man-of-war Nymph in 1871-72, 6,000 dols in coin, and security for a like amount, on the ground of damage to property of German subjects resident there —tie real extent of such damage being trivial (nothing more than the appropriating of a little fruit from the German plantations, the injury being so trifling as not to be ncticed by others who suffered equally with the Germans). Thi3 step or act of ex tort''on from a simple, inoffensive people, fo liMle able to meet such an exaction, is of ibilf a sufficient comment on the justice of si.ch oppression";