ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4519, 14 September 1875, Page 3

ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

A large number of horses are being sent :rom Bussia to France.

Two garotters have been flogged in Newgate. Both howled with great vehemence when the lash was applied to their persons. From an official document just printed, it appears that last year as many as 821 orders were registered by county courts to protect the property of “deserted wives.” The impostor who gave himself out some time ago as Nana Sahib has been sentenced by the Maharajah Scindiah to four years’ imprisonment. Elizabeth Pannell is in custody at Petersfield, near Portsmouth, for pouring furniture polish into the mouth of an infant as it lay asleep. At Carlisle the magistrates have fined two inkeepers £SO each for allowing their houses to be used for betting purposes. A man was fined £lO for so using the houses. At the Leicester Assizes a hosiery manufacturer, named Seampton, was found guilty of burning the warehouse belonging to the firm of Hands and Seampton, which was insured for £13,298. He was sentenced to twelve yearn’ penal servitude. The accounts issued shows the receipts for English Government telegraphs last year to be £1,110,000 ; expenditure, £1,056,000; balance, available for interest cm stock, £109,000; deficiency, £473,000; capital stock, £1,798,000. The Peterborough Advertiser says that a centenarian, named Allen Barsby, is now living at Deeping, St. James, and that his age is proved by the parish register. He is hearty, can see to read, and can walk in the garden. At the Bath Police Court, three local porkbutchers were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, with hard labor, without the option of a fine, for having a diseased cow in their possession intended for sausage-making. A number of ancient documents relating to the monastery of Worcester have lately been restored to the custody of the dean and chapter. Among them are a charter of Wol-tan, Bishop of Worcester, dated A.D., 1089, and the will of King John. Having had its share of the misfortunes which have recently overtaken -many London financial concerns, the National Discount Company (Limited) has found it necessary to set aside £128,000 “to meet the losses arising from the failures and frauds of the past halfyear.” Dr. Peters, of the Lichfield Observatory, has, according to the New York papers, discovered two planets, one of the tenth magnitude and one of between the eleventh and twelfth ; one in 17 hours 16 minutes of right ascension, and in 23° 3’ of south declination, and both not far from one another.

Numbers of people have lately been repairing to a hill near Genoa, where it is alleged the Virgin had appeared. A local paper announces that an innkeeper and his daughter have been arrested on the charge of simulating the miracle for the purpose of attracting customers to their house.

The New York papers state that a remarkable similarity has been discovered between the Sweedish language and the dialect of the Cheyenne Indians. A Swede, who had enlisted at Fort Leavenworth, overheard some of the conversation amongst the Cheyennes, was struck with the resemblance of their language with his own, and on talking to them in his mother tongue, he found that he could make them understand.

Mr. Robert Crossland, one of the oldest lawyers in Bury, was ordered into custody at the Bury County Court on the 9th iust., for persisting in speaking after the Judge. Mr. Crompton Hutton had given judgment against him in a case in which he was defendant. Ho was sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment. The buildings for the now aquarium in Westminster are rapidly progressing. The dimensions of the aquarium will be about COO feet long by 210 feet in depth at the widest part. The building will be two storeys in height, and will contain in the basement a central tank of salt and fresh water, holding 600,000 gallons ; this will be kept in constant motion, and made to pass continually through a series of smaller tanks, by the action of a steam-engine destined to work both day and night. The chairman of the London City Bank, at the last half-yearly meeting with his shareholders, spoke very bitterly against the traders whose failures had involved the bank to the extent of LIO.OII. The securities which they held for this amount the directors had resolved to write off at once. In the opinion of the chairman some of those bills showed “ a refined and deliberate intention to deceive, and he believed those responsible for them had exposed themselves to the grasp of the criminal law.”

The researches made by Lord Lytton’s literary editors tend to show that “ The Coming Race,” of which the authorship was discovered in his Lordship’s lifetime, was by no means a solitary instance of anonymous writing on his part. Stray notes show that throughout his life Lord Lytton was a constant contributor to various magazines, newspapers, and reviews. Besides this he left a large number of unpublished writtings in the shape of essays, plays, and poems, all of which will now see the light of day for the first time.

The Financier states that the coin and bullion in the Bank of England now stand at the highest point ever known. Mr. Disraeli has been ordered by his medical advisers to go for a time to one of the German watering-places. A man is under arrest at Edinburgh for breaking into Sir Noel Baton’s house and stealing 150 sketches and paintings. The sugar season in Austria in 1871-5 has been one of the worst known. Erom the month of August, 1871, to the end of February, 1875, only 928,458 tons of beet-root were cultivated ; while in 1872-3 the quantity was 1,668,000 tons. The population of Hungary is divided as follows ;—Catholics, 9,205,000 ; Protestants, 3,145,090 ; and Jews, 554,000. Between 1866 and 1875 the births among the Catholics were 16 per cent., among the Protestants 22 per cent., and among the Jews 50 per cent. Word and ITori reports that a young Norwegian, converted at one. of the earlier meetings of Messrs. Moody and Saukey, has returned to Norway, and started a Sundayschool, the first ever opened in the north of that country, which bids fair to be the seed of much permanent blessing. The Zoological Society have just suffered a loss by the death of the female Indian elephant, which occurred suddenly on a recent date. Six men were afterwards employed in removing the flesh and preparing the skeleton. The brain is to be placed entire in spirit in the museum of the Koyal College of Surgeons. General Yinoy, the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, announces the following as the number of deaths among the members of the Order during the first half of 1875 :■—One grand cross, 12 grand officers, 69 commanders, 185 officers, 1135 knights, and 810 possessors of the military medal. The increase of Mr. Beecher’s salary from £4OOO to £20,000 was not, it appears, a permanent advance, but for one year only. It was, in fact, a present of £16,000 to Mr. Beecher to defray the expenses of the trial ; but as there would have been legal difficulties in the way of the congregation voting money for the purpose, the expedient of increasing their pastor’s salary was adopted. At the Worcester assizes lately, Sarah Pullen, aged fifty-five, sub-postmistress at North Malvern, pleaded guilty to embezzling various sums, ranging from £1 to £2O, received from depositors in the Post Office Savings’ Bank. The Vicar of the parish gave an excellent character for benevolence, hut Mr. Staveley Hill, for. the prosecution, pointed out that she had embezzled £ll4 in the two years and endeavored to conceal the fraud by forgery. She was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.

It is estimated that 10,000,900 acres of land in Algeria are covered with a spontaneous growth of the alpha plant. The exportation of this fibre for paper-making has increased very rapidly during the past five or six years. In 1869 it amounted to 4,000 tons, in 1870 it rose to 32,000 tons, and in 1873 to 45,000 tons, while the past year’s produce was expected to reach 60,000 tons. The average price at Oran is about 140 f. per ton.