MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 699, 12 July 1870, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS

Ohio has twenty-five women suffrage associations. Savannali has an Anti-Swearing Society. New York swells have begun to wear bracelets. Amatoricide is the lateat word coined in Boston. " Cousin John" is the name of a town in Georgia. A Carthusian Devil is the attraction at an Indianapolis museum. Chicago aspires to control the tea trade of the United States. I Despatches received from Philadelphia on April 16th, by the American Government, from Consuls and other representatives in Cuba, agree in stating that the insurrection ha 3 ceased to be formidable, bnt that considerable numbers of insurgents are still scattered in gueralla parties over the island, whom it will take a long time to subdue. The French Adventurer, who calls himself King of Pategonta and Aricaunia (South America), has addressed an ultimatum to the Chilian Government, calling upon them to evacuate Southern Chili, the alternative being war. The details are given in the Chinese and, Japanese papers of the great fire at Yeddo. The area laid desolate may, it is said, be computed at four or five miles in circumference, and every wooden building from the Japanese Foreign Office (which escaped) to" the outer moat, has been totally destroyed. The telegraphs were burnt, hundreds of houses destroyed, and the damages altogether estimated at millions of rios. In one day during the week ending April 2, Lord Penzance granted decrees nisi for the dissolution of fifteen marriages. In thirteen cases out of the fifteen the husbands were the guilty parties. Lord Hatherley will shortly cease to be Lord Chancellor, and be succeeded by Sir Roundell Palmer, Q.C., who will be raised to the Peerage by the title of Lord of Selborne, in the County of Hampshire." It has been notified that the Secretary of State for War has decided not to allow lodging allowance to regimental officers during the time they may have been on leave of absence, no matter how short the period may be. James Joy, of Haddington Terrace. Acton, a pensioner of the Ist Life Guards, died on March 31. Besides being in the battle of Waterloo, where he fought at the right hand of the celebrated Shaw, he was engaged at Toulouse, and also in the Peninsnlar war, for which medals were awarded him. He was in the Life Guards twenty-eight years, and afterwards was twenty-six years park-keeper at Regent's Park. The annual sale at Burghley Park has been held, under direction of Mr Stafford. Fifteen cows and heifers and twelve bulls were disposed off, at a general average of L 26 18s 6d, aud a total of L 727 2s 6d. Another London theatre is in progress. It will almost adjoin the Globe Theatre, being built on the site originally intended for the Strand Hotel. On April 4, Cook, the then billiard champion, played a match with Stanley afc the Mackworth Arms Hotel, Swansea, on a Burronghes and Watts table, when Cook made the unprecedented break of 531. Two youths connected with the tailoring department of the Roman Catholic Reformatory, at Whitwick, quarrelled with each other on March 26, when one of them, Patrick Lawley, picked up a pair of scissors and stabbed his antagonist in the abdomen. The poor fellow died the same night. Lawley was arrested on a charge of manslaughter. It has been demonstrated that the islands of Guernsey and Jersey have sunk more than fifteen yards during the last five centuries. Victoria Sardou, Alexander Dumas, jun., and Edmond About, neither of whom fifteen years ago had anything but his pen, are now together worth four million francs. Family clubs, where 'gentlemen go with their wives and daughters, are getting popular in Paris. People of Wyoming don't know whether to call their female Judge a Justicess-of-the-Peace or a Justice-of-the-Peacess. Miss Lewis, the" American sculptress, has received orders for the works from the Marquis of Bute. London is to have a theatre and winter garden to accommodate 6000 persons. An artesian well at Morrison, Illionis, has been drilled to the depth of 1110 ft, without finding pure water. It is a well-known fact that the Emperor of Russia has repeatedly had terrible attacks of deterium tremens. During these attacks he is always tortured by the belief that he- murdered his father, Nicholas, and poisoned his eldest son. A lady in Indiana, with hair ten feet long, receives ten dollars per week for merely sitting in a hair-dresser's shop as a show. The clergy at the Ecumenical Council are said to be getting anxious about safe quarters during the summer heats and the malarious season. New "Xork has an opium eater, aged 104, who is in excellent health, goes to church regularly, and "can drink laudanum without feeling any ill effects." A young woman in Montreal, who was accused of having caused the death of her brother-in-law, by sitting on him when very ill, has been acquitted. A country journal, speaking of a popular woman lecturer, remarks that her burning sentences of denunciation were as rapid and fiery as sparks from a revolving emery-wheel. A German statistican reckons that the engines and cars of the European railways would stretch from Paris to St. Petersburg. A Wisconsin grog vender offers a gold headed cane to the man who will drink and pay for the most liquor in a year. Eighty-six charities for the relief of poor debtors in prison now exist in (London, some of them dating back to the fifteenth century. Wolker's painting of the Battle of Gettysburg, at Boston, has been visited by 11,453 persons. They say in Paris that the Princess Clotilde constantly wears a belt of consecrated amulets around her waist. ' ■ An affected singer at a Dublin theatre was told by a wag in the gallery to " come out from behind his nose and sing his song like another man." Madame Rattazzi is engaged in writing a history on the ladies of the Second'Empire. It will, of course, be brimful of I malicious 1 gossip*' ' ' There are fourteen murderers in the.

Maine u State prison under sentence of death. A fatal shot in the abdomen rewarded a man at the Whiie Sulphur Spring, Va., the other day, for insulting ladies. They circulate in Berlin another rumor about the disgraceful conduct of old Prince Charles. He is said in hate recently seduced a liUe girl of fourteen, the daughter of a faithful old servant cf his, who fell during the war of ISG6. The Emperor of Austria, who has a decided predileofiion for all sorts of mechanical works, has had a small carriage constructed, which, it is said, is more convenient and less likely to get out of repair than any similar vehicle now in use. The Democrat papers in Copenhagen contain allusions to the maltreatment which the Princess of Wales is said to undergo constantly at the hands of her dissipated husband. Norway oafcs are being introduced in Utah. Tennyson's Princess is to be turned into an opera by a New York lady. There is a fine of twenty-five dollars imposed in Chicago upon bar-keepers who sell liquor to young ladies under sixteen years of age. The Baptist Churchea in Paris are not allowed to immerse their converts in the Seine, or in public anywhere. As their place of worship will not admit of a baptistry, they are obliged, in baptisiug a convert, to use a large box for the purpose. A Sacramento hen has taken charge of a nest of kittens, and won't allow the mother to come around. State Centre, lowa, has 1000 inhabitants, no saloons, and the drug stores sell no liquor. A Minnesota couple who have been married eleven years, have twenty-two children— nine pairs of twins and one quartette. A beautiful specimen of petrified oats, four feet in length • and weighing eightytwo pounds, has been taken out of the ground, sixty feet below the surface, at Chalk Bluff, Nevada county. Queen Victoria is now charged with being a Ritualist. The neighborhood of Middleborough, England, is found to contain immense deposits of rock salt, underlying the lower parts of th 9 Tees valley. The lunatics of the asylum of Ybbs (Austria) recently gave a ball, and at the close gallantly toasted "All the Ladies in the Universe." Paper carrying at Salt Lake is becoming a dangerous occupation from the fact that all the Saints keep bull dogs about the premises. The new opera house in Paris cost the snug little sum of L 1,600,000. Charles Green, the well-known English seronaut, died on the 26th March, in London, aged eighty five. A clergyman in Springfield, Mass., has satirically characterised Herodias's daughter as " the bloude of the time of Herod." The New York milk dealers very appropriately held their recent Convention on the banks of the Crotou. The returns from the Departments of Eure de Loire and l'Yonne, France, point to a dreadful prevalence of infanticide. About sixty per cent, of the illegitimate children are murdered. The Emperor Napoleon received a present of 20,000 cigars, with gilt ends, from Marshall Prim. When the new Bishop of St. Aaaph is duly installed, all the Prelates in Wales will be able to speak to the people in the native tongue. A wedding cf a novel description recently took place at St. Nicholas Church, Newbury. The bridegroom, whose name is James Farr, living in Back street, had seen sixty-two summers, andwasinsuchan infirm state of health that he had to be conveyed to church in a bath chair, drawn by his intended wife,a buxom woman about 40 years of age, named Bailey. The bath chair was drawn into the church, as far as the front, when the bridegroom was assisted out of the chair, and with the help of the bride and the sexton he roanaged to reach the chancel. The Rev. Charles Boyd performed the ceremony. It appears that in former years the parties had cohabited together. At the conclusion of the service the bridegroom was again placed in the bath chair, and drawn home by his wife, another woman pushing behind. Neither of the pair were able to sign the parish register. " Rome was not built in a day," but in these modern times of railways, telegraphs, and gold fields cities spring up in a few* months where there had previously been a desert. The latest instance of this is Port Said, the City of the Desert, which already possesses a newspaper. With marvellous rapidity there has sprung up in a few months a town built with great regularity, with large streets, enormous squares, a spacious harbor with two piers, a lighthouse with a powerful electrical light seen at a distance of twentyfive miles, spacious quays, public fountains, vast -warehouses, a number of churches, a hospital, workshops, and a large number of commercial establishments, of which, the number is ever on the increase.

Englishmen often experience difficulty in pronouncing Maori names, bnt in the Kandian language there are names which are absolutely bewilderingto spell through. The Duke of Edinburgh lately held a levee at the Pavilion in Kandy, when a number of the belles of the place were presented to him. We have not space to give a list of the euphonious appellations of these fair creatures, but we have selected a few of the most interesting : — Mesdames Combawattie Ratamahatmeya ; Augammane Tikiri Cumarihamy ; Ekneligoda Kumarihami, of Saparagamuwa ; Kiribatkumbure Menika, of Yatinuwara ; Kiribatkuinbura .Kumarihami, of Yatinuwara; Kobbekaduwe, Koku Kumarihami; Kobbekadu, Tikeri Kumarihami; Kirinde Walawe, Tikiri Cumarihamy ; Merahawatte, Kumarihami, of Badulla; Weragoda Kumarihamy, of Saparagamuwa. The Melbourne Argus notices a useful invention from Paris. The maker calls it a " pendule lampe," but it may be more exactly described as a clock nightlight, or, in other words, a combined clock and lamp for night use. It will act as clock alone, or as clock and lamp together.. The clock differs from others in having only one hand instead of two, which, without moving, answers the purpose of both minute and hour hand, and tells the correct time of day and night. The globe which represents the dial round which the figures are written revolves so as to show the time always in front. The lamp which illuminates the dial may be fed with any common oil, though colza oil is preferable, less than one halfpenny worth of which is sufficient to last for a

whole night. The clock when wound v will go for thirty hours. Complicated as the invention may appear when described, it is very simple in its construction. The clock can be wound up and the lamp lighted by any domestic servant or attendant upon the invalid or sickj to whom it will prove exceedingly valuable. The lamps are manufactured of different substances, including marble, alabaster, bronze, and brass gilt, the price varying according to the material. Altogether the invention is one of the neatest and prettiest which have emanated from the Parisian manufacturer?.

A despatch from Panama corroborates a previous announcement of the great amount of damage done in the vicinity of Quito, in the Province of Imbabura, and many other places, by earthquakes. On the 2nd December several shocks were felt, continuing from noon till morning of the next day, when a shock of extraordinary violence occurred. " The inhabitants," says the Panama Mail, " were terrified, and rushed from their dwellings, fell on the knees and implored for mercy. During the latter part of the day thirteen distinct shocks were felt in Jipijapa, each one being accompanied by a violent wind storm. On the 13th another terrific shock was experienced. Several times since many shocks have taken place, but none created great alarm until the 2nd of March, when there was one of unusual severity about midday; but the most terrifying one of all took place on the 3rd, when, between Pedervals and Cabo Pasado, the earth was seen to open and emit a hillock of stones from thirty to forty feet in height. Behind or near the spot where this occurred stood an earth-hill about sixty feet high, which suddenly and entirely disappeared. Around the base of the hillock is a circular pond of saltwater, and for a long distance surrounding that the earth, which before was hard and solid, has become soft and spongy. The inhabitants of the locality have become positively terror-stricken, and no inducement will take them within a very long distance of the spot."