MISCELLANEOUS.

Kumara Times, Issue 173, 24 April 1877, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

Mr Angus Mackay, the Queensland Commissioner, at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, is reported to have said that General Grant, ex-president of the United States, will shortly visit Australia.

The Hon. Mr Reid informed a deputation at Dunedin, the other day, that the Government intend bringing forward a measure dealing with charitable institutions generally. The Auckland sharebrokers have I received intimation that they must! take out licenses as per " The Shareholders Act, 1871." Thirty-six thousand crowns have been ' subscribed for the erection of a statue j in Stockholm, to the great naturalist! Linnseus. The statue is to be unveiled : on January 10th, next year—the \ hundreth anniversary of his death. j The parks, gardens, heaths, and commons, under the control of the London Board of "Works, comprise" an area of 1094 acres, for which the Board has paid £313,859, and repaid £66,538. The interest upon the balance unpaid, and the cost of maintenance amount to a charge upon the ratepayers of only one farthing in the pound. The whole onion crop grown in the Bellarine district, Victoria, has been bought up by one speculator. Its total value is estimated at £20,000. A eorrespondenk of the London Mail writes:—"Your readers have, from ' time to time, followed with much in- j terest the information contained in) your columns of the excavations going on in Palestine. Has it occurred to the explorers of that country to notice the information given in the historical book of the Maccabees 11., chapter iij, verses 4-7, wherein we are told that immediately before the Babylonish captivity the Prophet Jeremieh was instructed to deposit in Mount Nebo, the most valuable treasures which the Temple contained—namely, the Taber- j nacle, the Sacred Ark, and, doubtless, the Tables of Stone, of which the Ark was merely the receptacle, on which I was written the law of the Ten Commandments, traced there originally we are told by the finger of God Himself. They were in that mountain said to he concealed, and if that historical book is to be relied on, we must credit the fact that these sacred treasures are there still. Would it not be worth the explorer's while to seek for these in the place specified ? The discovery of them would throw great light upon the Old j Testament and the language in which the Tables were written." j

The Army and Navy Gazette in the begming of January gave the total force of Turkish troops near the frontier of AsiaMinoras about 95,000, of whom 16,000 were regular soldiers. The Army consisted of 58 battalions of infantry (each 300 strong) 24 squadrons of Cavalry, and 28 batteries. The Army of the Danube at that time consisted of 30 regiments of infantry, three frontier regiments, 31 battalions of rifles, 16 regiments of regular cavalry, sue regiments of irregular cavalry [Tcherkessis 800 men Btrong), 68 batteries of six gang, and 30 regiments of irregulars, each 1,800 strong. The Army 13 divided into five corps darmee.

The Times Prussian correspondent writes under date January, 12 " The official Russian Invalide says that the Ameer of Afghanistan declined to lower his position by accepting an invitation x?u *s?i that the Khan of Khelat only came after his annual salary was increased ; and that as the new title places Queen Victoria on a level with the Grand Moguls of yore, it follows that Her Majesty's previous position has been inferior to that of the

successors of Sultan Baber. The lan« guage of the unofficial portion of the Russian press is even more sarcastic and violent. The St Petersburg Vedomosti, the journal of the provincial nobility, declares that, notwithstanding the Delhi ceremony, the Ameer of. Afghanistan is arming against England; that all the native potentates are hostile to England; and that the IndoBritish Government are perfectly acquainted with the rickety nature of their position in the country. Improving upon this, the St Petersburg Exchange Gazette, the leading commercial paper of the Empire, says that the strongest guarantee of England's hold on India is Russia's acquiescence in the continuance of British power in Asia." The Russian head quarters are at Kischenew, to which place a late cablegram says the Czar was about to go. M* Kossuth, in a letter to Mr John M' Adam of Glasgow, enters at length, into the Eastern question. In the course of his letter he thus expresses the view lie thinks the European-Powers, , especially England, should take "Ho ' should say to Russia, * Hands off. Ton are a danger to Europe, not the Turks. You stirred up the war in Servia, and you carried it on. You poked the fire of conspiracy in Bulgaria; yourprovoked the lamentable atrocities. "We won't allow you any longer to upset the tranquillity of Europe by eternally reviving to your own profit the Oriental Question. So, Hands off.'." A farmer's wife living near Ghent, Belgium, recently captured a thief while she was in child-bed. Her husband had left her during the evening to inform a relative, who was to be the godfather, of the auspicious event that had taken place, leaving her in charge of a nurse. Shortly afterwards this woman obtained permission to return to her home to fetch something that she required. She had scarcely left the house before a man, with his face blackened, entered, and, approaching the bed in the dark, threatened to murder the patient if she uttered a cry, and demanded the money for which her husband had sold a c&w a few days before. Pretending to his demand, she told him that he would find it in the cellar at the further end, in a bag concealed behind a stone. The man descended the steps, when she; at once jumped from her bed, shut down the trap door and boltedJt, and then called to hor neighbors for assistance. The man was secured, and his face being washed he proved to be, the husband of the nurse. .V

At Banbury, three men have been sent to prison for a fortnight for refusing to have their children vaccinated. At London, a man named "William Taylor aged sixty-three, was found by the police dying on a doorstep, and jbe was removed to Bethnal-green "Workhouse. The doctors say the poor fellow died from starvation.

The Abyssinian Envoy has been found drowned near Massowa. It ia believed that he was murdered by Egyptians,