MISCELLANEOUS.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume V, Issue 231, 18 July 1885, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

The greater part of the Russian public debt is held in Germany. On the authority of an English paper, it is stated that Mr Parnell will shortly lead to the altar a young and wealthy American lady, an intimate friend of the Irish leader's mother. President Cleveland says that polygamy in the Territories is destructive to the family religion, and offensive to the moral sense of the civilised world, and shall be suppressed. "\V hen bluff old Sir Charles Hotliam (quarter-deck Charley as they used to call him) ruled in Victoria, he mortally offended the fashionable world of Melbourne, by giving them colonial beer at the Government House festivities! They never forgave the indignity, and hunted him out of the Colony shortly afterwards u Colonial beer! the stingy old fellow" exclaimed Mrs Stringybark, who made her husband's money by retailing it and bad whisky without a license on Forest Creek not a year before " Oh! the horrid old brute!" 1 hough all the papers have asserted that J. W. Maekay gave his daughter no dowry, an eye-witness to the marriage ceremony comes with the story that the generous father slipped a cheque for a round million on the Bank of Naples into the hand ot the Prince di Colonna when he shook it at the altar. A letter from the Governor of Kassala, dated April 13th, and received at Suakim, says Having heard of the advance of the British troops we are still holding out with the hope that we shall he relieved. We have eaten all the donkeys, and are now living on sesame. Although I have orders to cut my way out I will not leave my people." It is impossible, a correspondent says, to express the feeling at Cairo of the forlorn hope of this brave garrison, which has held out for over a year. It might hare been saved, but it is now evidently destined to share the fate cf Khartoum, Tokai, and Smkat. The Governor of Kassala is a Circassian, and is called a second Gordon. The inhabitants are estimated at from 25,000 to 30,000. The standard of height and chest measurements for boys entering the Royal Naval training ships has been reduced, and are nowßoys 15 to 15± years of age, sft in height and 30in chest; 15 , to 16 years, sft lin in height and 30£ia chest.