GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4577, 20 November 1875, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

It is asserted on medical authority that the madness of a large proportion of ■ the patients received into the Bethlehem Hospital is traced directly or indirectly to overwork. Several porpoises have lately been seen below and above London Bridge. One was shotnearthe Cherry Tree Garden landing-stage, Eotherhithe, and another was captured near Waterloo Bridge. A serious disturbance is reported from Clinton, Mississippi. At a Republican meeting the whites and blacks came to blows, and a general melee ensued, which resulted in the negroes being put to flight with a loss of forty killed and many wounded. It is announced that Sir John Arnott has executed a deed of gift vesting in the hands of five trustees the sum of £20,000 for the benefit of the Protestant and Catholic charities of the city of Cork. It is a notable fact that while not one exPresident of the United States is living, the wives of five of them survive—Mrs. Polk, Mrs. Pillmore, Mrs. Tyler, Mrs. Lincoln, and Mrs. Johnson.

The Daily Telegraph publishes returns from correspondents in all parts of the country relating to the coal trade, and says:—“lt does not seem on the whole probable that coal will be extremely dear in tbe winter months.” At the Salford ■ licensing sessions, it was stated that out of 8066 -persons who had been convicted of drunkenness during the year, 861 were women. This state of things was attributed to the increased facilities for obtaining drink offered by provision dealers and others, who had licenses for selling off the premises. Mr. Caird, in an elaborate review of the harvest prospects, estimates tbe total gain to the British : consumer from the fine harvest of 1871 at twenty millions. The total consumption of wheat in the United Kingdom he estimates at 100 million cwt., of which a fraction over one-half is home growth. An Elizabethan cottage at Southleigh is attracting the attention of archaeologists. According to local papers, among the carving is the emblem of St. Luke, and the shields have the crosses of St. George and St. Patrick, or St. Andrew, painted on them. This is supposed to be a portion of the reredos of the ancient altar of Southleigh Church. The date is said to be about Edward Yl.’s time, and it is probably a relic of the taste and munificence of tbe Bonvilles, tbe ancient lords of Southleigh. Sir Edward Ryan, whose death at Dover is announced, was at the time of his decease eighty-two years old. During his lifetime he filled in succession a puisne judgeship in the Supreme Court of Calcutta, the chief justiceship of the Bengal Presidency, a railway commissionership, the assistant controllership of the Exchequer, and the first civil service oommissionership. He was made a privy councillor in 1843, and for three years held the vicechancellorship of the University of London. Before the Norwich Bribery Commission it was stated 6y a witness that consciences in that city were not of the tenderest character, that bribery was not considered a very heavy offence, and that in his opinion both sides were in this matter tarred with the same brush. Another witness remarked that the regulation price of bribes had recently diminished, but that the quantity had increased. The new Bishop of St. Alban’s will, after his consecration, have transferred to him the patronage of about fifty livings in Hertfordshire, and Essex, worth in the aggregate about £16,000 a year. Of these. the best are Orsett, worth £350 a year; Laindor, £7BO ; South ■Weald, £650 ; Ashwell, £573 ; Chigwell, £SOO ; Rickmansworth, £520 ; Thorley, £540 ; Witham, £479; Great Such, £470 ; St. James’s, Halstead, £4OO ; Sawbridgeworth, £4OO ; Bishop’s Wickham, £4OO ; and Fairstead, X 420.Mr. George Harris, of London, has walked the distance from London to Edinburgh in ten and a half days, arriving there in good health and spirits, having left London in knickerbockers and a light blouse, and carrying a knapsack weighing ten pounds. He proceeded by Barnet, Nottingham, Leeds, Bishop’s Auckland, Jedburgh, and Galashiels, covering, on an average, a distance of 37J miles per day. One day he walked as much as 471 miles, and this was followed up on the succeeding day by a stage of 48 miles. The Royal Aquarium at Westminster will be opened in December next. The building is now nearly complete, and might be opened earlier but for tbe fact that it will take nearly four months to bring the sea-water from Brighton. The quantity required to fill the reservoirs is 750,000 gallons. It can only be obtained at certain times of tide, and it will be brought to town in sealed barrels, and kept fresh and pure by a system of constant circulation, and a continuous supply of air forced into and through every part of it.— Graphic.