General News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 227, 22 January 1876, Page 8

General News.

INTERCOLONIAL CLIPPINGS. Rosa Scanlan, 14 years old, was drowned at Relair, South Australia, while watering her horse at a pond. A large number of Chinese have been arrested and fined for gambling at Ballarat. A systematised gang of burglar's have been committing extensive depredations at Moonta, South Australia. Five shocks of earthquake were felt at different places in the south of Victoria on the 2nd instant. The French Floods Relief Committee in Melbourne have transmitted a total of £loo6 to France. Sir F. W. Stawell is considered “ the pillar of the English Church in Victoria. Trout are numerous and prosperous in the Fish Acclimatising Society’s ponds at Geelong. The Rev. G. J. Russell, of Buninyong, has been suspended for non-compliance with Bishop Thorntons instructions. The Premier of South Australia was capsized out of a boat in Glenelg Bay, but managed to wade ashore. A number of exhibits at the disposal of the commissioners from Tasmania, after the Victorian Exhibition, are to be distributed amongst public institutions in Melbourne and Philadelphia, as lasting representations of the resources of Tasmania. Mr. P. T>. Prankard has given £SOO to the Adelaide University. At Ballarat, a horse called Lord Clyde seriously injured Dunnett, a veterinary surgeon, by carrying him a hundred yards in his mouth. At Lake Wendouree, an angler had his artificial minnow seized by a comorant, which he had great trouble in disengaging. The study of physiology has been introduced into tbe Victorian State schools.

On an average seven thousand people attend Blondin’s performance at Sydney. The proceeds of a hospital fete at Clunes amounted to £250.

A society for the prevention of cruelty to animals is being initiated in Adelaide. The breadstuffs exported from Adelaide this year amount to 162,000 tons. Two thousand five hundred Martini-Henry rifles have been served out to the Victorian Volunteers.

Mrs. Falconer died at Swan Hill, Victoria, from the bite of a tiger snake. Since Weechurch’s condemnation, two other violent assaults have been committed on "Warders at Pentridge Stockade. The South Wales Daily Neivs prints a letter from Mrs. Crawshay upon “ The Drama v. the Dram.” Mrs. Crawshay says that some time ago the South Wales Daily News opened its columns to the discussion of the drama as a means of counteracting the pernicious influence of the dram. There were plenty who disputed the power of the drama to do this, but she feels more than ever convinced that this is its true and noble mission. After describing in elegant sentences -the play of “ All for Her, IVlrs. Crawshay says :—“ To-night I hope to enjoy this grand play for the third time. I am thankful to say we do not see the execution. Surely such a play as this, if it were possible to put it before the masses of our people, who are drinking their hearts out because they have no innocent amusements, would deter many an incipient drunkard.”

YANKEE NOTIONS. (From papers by the mail.) Missouri has 108,000 Sunday school children. Arkansas boasts of a hamlet called Toperville. There is a town in Indiana named Possumglory. “John Poll” was registered at the late election in Philadelphia. He turned out to be a parrot in a beer shop. An Indianapolis man advertises : “ See our 2dol. shirt.” It doesn't take much to make an Indianapolis man proud. At a Georgia hanging, the other day, a chap in the crowd took offence at some remarks by the doomed man on the scaffold, and tried to get at him with a bowie knife. Probably one of the most trying times in a man’s life is when he is introducing his second wife, seventeen years old, to his daughter, who is past twenty.— Detroit Press . “Oh ! I’ve loved before,” said a Deti’oit woman to her fourth husband, as she took a handful of hair from his head because he objected to hang out the week’s washing. “He was bom in Maine, but was a native of this country for the last thirty years,” is the way a Texas paper winds up the biography of a deceased subscriber. There is a bullfrog farm in Southeastern "Wisconsin, thirty acres of swamp fenced in, and the proprietor sends thousands of these featherless birds to New York. If there is anything in the world which will make a woman mad, is to have a man hang over the fence and survey the week’s washing on the line, and grin and grin. “Was the crowd tumultuous :” inquired one man of another who had just come from a mass meeting. “ Too multuous, replied the other. “ Oh, no, just multuous enough to comfortably fill the hall.” A Duluth girl married a young man because lie lifted his hat so beautifully as he passed her. She got a divorce because he lifted the table so beautifully when the dinner didn’t suit him.— Detroit Free Press. They have found a petrified Norman in Utah, and from the number of dents in the liead, evidently made with the poker and flat iron, it is judged that he had at least thirtythree wives.— Norristown Herald.

Those whisky ring frauds have greatly unsettled our confidence in mankind. The next thing we shall hear is that the men of draw, poker, and faro are straying from the paths of virtue. —New Ilaven Register.

“ I say, Sambo, where did you get de shirt studs from 1” “In de shop, to be sure. “ Y ah, you just told me you hadn’t no “ Dat’s right.” “ How did you get ’em den ? “ Well, I saw on a card in de window, ‘ collar studs,’ so I went in and collared ’em.” — Ohio Valley News. In one block in the western part of Detroit, says the Free Press, there are eight ladies who won’t go to church on Sunday because, a ninth lady has an India shawl and they liai en t. And the lady who has it won t go because there is no chance for her to show off the shawl before the eight, whose feelings she well understands. “I know that my little boy is bad, said a loving mother, “ I know that he may be breaking somebody’s -windows or something right now ; but isn’t it far better for him to be oirb in the fresh air than to be stuck here in the house, where he might be falling into a tub of hot water or permanently injuring himself some way ? Seems to me it is. ’ A delinquent arrested for drunkenness was asked in the police court what he had, done with his money. “ Invested it in lots, was the reply. “What lots?” was the next question. “ Lots of whisky,” he replied with a serious face. There was a laugh, and the justice told him to go and come no more.— Rochester Democrat. A man who was looking at a house some time ago said he could not afford to pay so much rent. “Well, consider the neighbors,” replied the woman in charge. “You can borrow flat-irons next door, coffee and tea across the street, sugar and flour on the corner, and there’s a large pile of wood belonging to the school-house across the alley.” “Ma, ma ! the preacher's coming here !” “ Great Lands !” he heard her shout, “ and my hair down, and I’ve got this old dress on ! Run to the door, Bill, and tell him I went to Goose Island on a church excursion !” “ Oh, no, I hate to,” replied the boy. “ Go, go quick hurry up, or I’ll tan you till you can’t raise a foot !” she urged, and the lad went to the door and discouraged the preacher from making his call. The invention of making paper barrels has been patented in America, and two factories are working, one at Winona, Wisconsin, and another at Decotah, lowa, the latter turning out 1600 barrels daily. Their strength is said to be greater by four times than wooden barrels, only half the weight, and costing 20 per cent. less. Paper is becoming of great importance for manufacturing purposes. It makes car wheels and water pails, and has been used as shoe soles for many years. According to the Hearth and Home, longevity is the rule among literary women. Says that journal : “ Miss Martineau, Miss Bremer, Mrs. Howitt, Mrs. Strickland, and Mrs. Browning- —all either living or not very long deceased —were born almost at the beginning of the century. Mdme. de Stael lived to be fiftyone, Mrs. Bradstreet fifty-nine, Ida Pfeifer sixty-one, Miss Mitford sixty-nine, Lady Wortley Montague seventy-two, Miss Edgeworth eighty-two, Mrs. Opie eighty-four, Mdme. D’Arblay eighty-five, Mrs. Somerville ninety-one, and Mdme. de Genlis ninety-six.” An elixir of life was the dream of the Alchemists, and the pretence of many of the adventurers who preyed on society in the eighteenth century. A modern chemist is said to have discovered it in buttermilk ! M. Robing, an eminent French chemist, announces to the French Academy of Medicine his belief that life exists only in combustion, but the combustion which occurs in our bodies—like that which takes place in chimneys—leaves a detritus which is fatal to life. To remove this he would administer lactid acid with ordinary food. This acid is known to possess the power of removing or destroying the incrustations which form on the arteries, cartilages, and valves of the heart ; and, as buttermilk abounds in such acid, and is, moreover, _ an acceptable kind of food, its habitual use, it is urged by M. Robing, will free the system from these causes which inevitably cause death between the 75th and 100th year. Our readers are not aware (says the Etheridge Courier) that our first number was printed with a moleskin roller ; that is to say, a roller which is used in laying the ink on the type is composed of certain proportions of glue and treacle, boiled together for sc\ eral hours, and then cast into a mould ; and when ready for use shows a fine smooth surface, perfectly elastic. In this particular instance, however, our endeavors to cast a roller pro\ ed a failure after four different attempts. Owng to the heat of the weather and the difficulty of procuring a sufficient quantity of good glue, the proprietor was obliged to resort to a substitute, which he found to answer some years ago in Tenterfield, New England, when placed in a similar fix. A half a yard of moleskin was procured from the nearest store, and wrapped tightly round the roller-stock, and the en stitched right across ; and being well saturated with ink, brought out the first number successfully. Moleskin will be found to answer as a substitute for the glue and for a short time, but it soon wears out. It is well to let this fact be known for the benefit of some of our contemporaries, who may some time be placed in the unpleasant position in which we found ourselves.