MISCELLANEA.

Kumara Times, Issue 2817, 1 October 1885, Page 2

MISCELLANEA.

According to an, English exchange the Claimant's wife, who for several weeks past has been living at Hatcham Park road, New Crosse, has applied to Mr Patte, the relieving officer for the district, for an order for the admission of herself and two illegitimate children, aged respectively eight and three years, to Greenwich Union Workhouse, and they are now inmates of that institution. A writer in the London Times says : "Mr Charles Stewart Parnell descends from hold Norfolk's Earl de Brotherton, son of Edward I. and Marshall of England, as well as from that Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, whom Bolingbroke challenged to mortal combat, and whom Richard 11. banished for life. Another of Mr Parnell's ancestors is John Howard, the Jockey of the Norfolk, first of the actnal line of the Dukes of Norfolk, who was slain at Bosworth, and daily attainted by the victorious party." A curious incident happened in the lobby of the Honse of Commons recently. The Governor of Kilmainham Gaol visited the House and was in the lobby, where he was recognised by Mr Healey. who warmly shook hands with him. Other members of the Irish party who have at one time or other been under his care went up to greet him, and finally he was taken into the Mouse and provided with a seat under the gallery by his formpr charges. A correspondent of the Liverpool Mercury declares that one ounce of cream of tartar dissolved in one pint of boiling water, drank cold afc short intervals, is a sure prophylactis and cure of small-pox.

A curious physiological fact is noticed by a writer on the late Fnmco-Chniese W ar if war it may be called—in Tonquin—namely, that the bodies of the slain Chinese, unlike those of the French, "did not decompose, but merely became discolored and like mummies," while, with the exception of the eyes, carrion birds left them untouched. It is suggested that opium smoking might have been the cause of the phenomenon.