Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 27 February 1892, Page 2

Notes and Events.

♦ An interesting experiment is bei. ig made on some of the engines of tie Great; Eastern Eailway Company to test the advantages of oil as fuel in the ordinary locomotives. Several of the engines have been supplied with oil tanks, and the firemen have the option of using the oil or the coal as they think fit. Experience has shown that the men prefer the oil. It requires less stoking and produces a steadier body of steam. A Sheffield juryman refused to take an oath at the quarter sessions and wished to make affirmation. When a form was put before him he repeated it till he came to the words, "Our Sovereign. Lady the Queen." " I shan't say that," he said ; and so his place was filled by another juryman. One of Dr Lauder Brunton's stories is that of a professor who was telling his students that he was able to discover this, .that, and other symptoms of internal disease from the teeth of a woman whose case was being diagnosed. She was very anxious to help in the business — rather too anxious, because, to the horror of the professor, she took her teeth out, saying, " Please, sir, I'll hand them round. Some of the gentlemen might like to look at them more closely." Mrs Evans, the new "lady ' Mayoress," as her official designation goes, of Lqndon, was at. one time a chambermaid in a country hotel in a small Kentish town, where her future husband, then a London alderman used to spend his winters. Her married life has been most "happy and she is now a woman of grace, dignity, and intelligence. The photographic rifle about which news has come to hand from Vienna will attract attention. This remarkable firearm, it seems, in the course of being fired, takes a photo of the object aimed at. The whole thing is worked by a miniature apparatus fitted to the rifle, and closes itself, immediately a shot is sent on its journey. If this invention comes to anything, there will be no need for markers at the ranges, and less need for a marksmon to pay a stipulated sum for challenging shots which he thinks have gone closer to the bull's eye than the man at the target has given him credit for, for the rifle itself will photograph the shot.