NEWS IN BRIEF.

Kumara Times, Issue 1021, 9 January 1880, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

In Paris building wa3 never more active than at present, even under the empire. Two bnndred and eighty vhousand masons are in constant work.

A Scotch papers says that two gentlemen had a narrow escape from being killed one night lately by the fall of the hour hand of the town clock of Ayr. Shavings from a planing mill in Chicago are, by an air blast, blown 700 ft, through a 15 inch sheet iron pipe, to a distillery, where they are burned for feul. Dr Oarlyle, younger brother of Mr Thomas Carlyle, is dead. Dr Oarlyle was known as a translator of Dante, and he rendered laborious assistance to his brother in collecting materials for Mr Oarlyle's " History of Frederick the Great."

A Chicago paper says that a Michigan railroad man has lately built cars for a prairie road with an arrangement for disconnecting the gearing and running by wind when it is favorable. In an ordinary wind they can run fifteen miles an hour under sail.

Mr Thomas Cook, of London, is organising an " Educational Tour" to the Bible land, to consist of a select party of not uot more than twenty-five young gentlemen, under the chaplainship of the Rev. Arthur Hall, the younger brother of the Rev. Newman Hall.

The Chicago Tribune publishes a despatch from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in which it is stated that on September 27 Miss Mamie Minier, daughter of Mr and Mrs H. S. Minier, and granddaughter of Judge Ayer, of Harvard, Illionis, a bright-eyed brunette of sixteen, swam from Harvard Park across the lake to Camp Collie, a distance of two miles, in less than half an hour, winning a wager from her father, the ladies natatorial championship of the United States, and numerous souvenirs presented by admiring friends. This naiad queen was accompanied by a gentleman swimmer and by boats containing the judges and spectators. The Rev. Dr Pearson, vicar of Newark, has accepted the offer of the bishopric of Newcastle, N.S W. The work of Biblical revision is not confined to England and America. In Germany the Lutheran version of the Scriptures is in course of revision, the New Testament having been completed and published a few ye«rs ago. The Moniteur Universal states as a fact that a carefully-prepared plan for the invasion of Russia by the German army has been stolen from Colonel Von Leignitz, the German military attache to the Court of St Petersburgh. A commercial traveller at Marseilles having recently refused leave to his maid servant to take his daughter to the skating-rink, they did not appear next morning, and on the bedroom being burst open, both were found suffocated. A note in the maid's writing said "You shall no longer have your daughter; I take her to a better world. Their ages were twenty-six and fourteen. One of the heroes of the Franco-German war of 1870 has been attracting attention in Paris in the person of Sergeant Hoff, who refused the epaulets and commission of an officer because he said he was neither born nor bred a gentleman. He refused also 20,000 fr for conveying despatches to Metz through the enemy's lines, and slew twenty-seven Prussians with his own hand. The Government gave him the Legion of Honor and has just appointed him guardian of the Barriere de l'Etoile. The admirers of Sarah Bernhardtshould, says Truth, if they chance to find themselves in Paris, go to see a piece that is now being acted there. The illusion is so complete that there is no difference between the real'Sarah and the sham one. The voice, the intonation, and the languishing air, the gestures, the dress, and the very face are those of Sarah. Then there is a parody of M. Satcy giving a "conference," as a lecture is termed in Trance, upon the Cotnedie Francaise in London, in which the absurd adulation of the troupe by the Londoners is very cleverly and pointedly ridiculed. A terrible story of life in the streets of London was told at an inquest held before Mr Langham, at Charing Cross Hospital, on the body of a child four months old. The mother, a flower seller, stated that her husband had gone into the country, owing to his being unable to pay for a hawker's license, and during his absence she had earned a few pence a-day by Belling flowers. On the previous Wednesday she had no money to pay either for a lodging or for food and sat down on a door-step al night and went to sleep. Her child died in her arms. The women bore an excellent character. The jury returnod a verdict of " Death from starvation."

In an article on Prince Bismark's policy in the Sleswick-Holstein question the Neues Wiener Tagblatt says that the object of this interview with the Emperor of Austria at Schonbrunn in 1864 was to propose to him a division of Germany into two parts, Prussia having the direction of the military and diplomatic affairs of the northern half down to the Main (including Frankfort), and Austria of the southern half; in return for which Prussia would enter into an offensive and defensive alliance, . guaranteeing to Austria the possession of Venetia, Trieste and the Italian Tyrol, and pay a large sum as compensation for the occasion of Austria's rights over Sleswick-Holsteio. The Emperor, says the Tagblat, objected to the proposal on the ground that the rulers of the smaller States would be opposed to it; and Count Bechberg finally rejected it.