GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4609, 29 December 1875, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

Mr. Thomas Jessop, steel manufacturer, Sheffield, has offered to defray the entire cost of a hospital for women in the town, amounting.to £22,000. Mr. Robert Crawford, a working man, has been elected " Senior Magistrate" by the Commissioners of the newly-constituted borough of Milngavie, in Stirlingshire. In 1842-43, the first year of the income-tax, the profits on trades and professions were estimated at £52,787,343, and in 1873-74 at £148,853,731, and this year £2,112,563. At Newbury last week the revising barrister held that " parsonage " was an incorrect description of the residence of a Dissenting clergyman, and disallowed the claim for a vote. A bunch of grapea weighing 26Jlb. was shown during the recent great fruit show at Edinburgh by Mr. Carror, gardener at Esk Bank. Another, over 251 b. was shown by Mr. Jardine, gardener at Arkleton, Dumfries. A married woman, who lived with her husband at Keighley, has eloped with a local preacher, taking with her £4OO belonging to her husband. She is the mother of ten children. Both have passed the meridian of life. The fifteenth Congress of the Church of England has opened at Stoke-upon-Trent, under the presidency of the Bishop of Lichfield. Much interest was taken in the discussion of "Woman's Work in Relation to the English Church," at the sectional meeting in the Town Hall, which was crowded. The ratepayers of Birkenhead, a town of about 65,000 inhabitants, recently voted on the question of the establishment of a school board in the town. The number of votes recorded in favor of a board was 345 ; against, 2075. About 500 delegates and ministers of the Baptist Union assembled at Plymouth to commence the session of 1875. A peculiar interest attaches to the selection of the town for the holding of the present conference, from the fact that exactly 250 years ago the Mayflower sailed out of Plymouth Harbor for the New World. A sad fatality, resulting in the death of a little girl, and severe injuries to several other persons, has taken place in Dublin, owing to the sudden fall of two houses in George-street whilst the occupants were in their beds. A serious charge has Jbeen brought against Thomas Hughes, a clerk in the Bank of England, who has been formally remanded previously to being committed for trial for embezzlement. The professors of Queen's College, Birmingham, recently resolved, by nine to three, that they could not undertake the medical instruc-

tion of women students in Queen's College, and the College Council has consequently unanimously'declined jto admit women students to the institution. An outrageous assault upon a lady has, by her death, compelled the police to seek for a man who will be charged with murder. _ Miss Soper, housekeeper to a wine merchant in the Borough, London, was.struck on the head one Sunday morning lately .by a scoundrel to whom she 'had opened the door, and who evidently • intended to rob the premises. Ab she was able, to give an alarm he made off. Miss Soper gradually sank and. died subsequently. Mrs. Maria ■Demnan, who holds a cabdriver's license, and drives her own cab, at Surbiton, in Surrey, paused another cab-driver named Kemp to be fined £1 7s. 6d., with the alternative of fourteen days' imprisonment, for preventing her .from taking up a fare. Mrs. Deuman appeared before the magistrates at Kingston-on-Thames wearing her badge., A Genoese school-teacher proposes an ingenious method for the practical teaching of geography. He assists his pupils in making a model of Italy out of clay; upon this model are then gradually shown the roads, lakes, rivers, &c, by means of colored worsted or cotton, while the townships and villages are indicated by beads. ■ '