ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5324, 20 April 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

ITEMS BY THE MAIL.

Richard Wilson, bird and dog fancier, was charged by the Royal Society for the Prevention- of Cruelty to Animals . with ■ starving animals in his house. Dale-street, Liverpool, where they had been confined for four; or five days without food during his absence, on a drunken spree. The society’s officer having heard that the premises in question contained a great number of animals, and that the defendant had deserted them, went to the place mid found the doors add windows- locked. Subsequently Major Greig, the chief constable, authorised the officer to break into the premises, wheu he found upwards of 200 animals, a great many of which were dead, and many others in a dying condition. These consisted of dogs, rabbits, squirrels, canaries, pigeons, foreign birds, domestic fowls, and a Persian cat. The magistrate fined the defendant £ls aud costs, or in default six months’, imprisonment. . -■ ~ ,

Opium-eating is the live issue in the Shenandoah .valley of Virginia. - A local, paper has been investigating, and reports that the habit is frightfully prevalent, insomuch that the drug stores of Staunton, a place of 10,000 inhabitants,- retail about 100 pounds a week, many of their best customers being , young ladies of “the first families,” while storekeepers in the country find ;their trade in the drug so increased of late. that they are now,purchasing of wholesale houses at the North., The excitement aroused by the exposure has been fanned by the rather tragic death of a Harrisonburg woman, who had sent two horses to be sold, in order to raise money to buy morphine, aud was,', so overcome when she saw the man returning without having made the trade, that she fell to the floor aud died in a few hours. A public meeting was held at .Staunton to . organise public .sentiment against the vice; and a petition to the Legislature is being numerously signed asking for a heavy taxon opium. The introduction of the bell-punch, which has raised the price of “drinks,” is held to be partly responsible for the spread of the evil.— Springfield Republican - Wo hear from Washington that the committee on naval affairs of the Congress have adopted a , report from Mr. B. A. Willis recommending the authorisation and fitting out of an expedition to reach the North Pole, in accordance .with-the scheme proposed by Captain,;Howgate,;of the United States’ Signal Service,-and to which we have referred on several, occasions. Captain Howgate’s proposal. is to establish : a : 1 colony of hardy, resolute, and intelligent men at some favorable point on or! near the boarders of the Polar Sea, providing it with all modern - appliances for overcoming the physical obstacles in the pathway to the Pole, and for resisting the effects of hunger, cold, and sickness, and to deprive it of the means of retreat except at‘stated periods of time; -The, object of the colony would be to watolf the condition of the ice and the weather, in order to take advantage of whatever favorable opportunities might be presented to push parties on' by boat or sledge or l both, the quest being continued 'until the Pole he found. Every .possible -comfort would be provided, and- the colony would be visited at stated intervals by !ships sent out 'from- the States. Lady Franklin' Bay, well- known in connection with our own recent expedition, is the locality selected by Captain Howgate, though ultimately some other station'may be chosen.— American paper. " ■ - A lady, to whom the French owe the discovery of the most 'prolific coalfield in France, dieda few weeks ago at the age of sixty-six. Madame de Olercq, the lady in question, 1 dwelt in a' magnificent chateau situated in- the department of the Pas 'de Calais; and surrounded by a vast 1 park ; hut the park was entirely destitute of water, there being neither lake, rivulet, nor waterfall in it. Water she was determined to have;’and’aa she was a millionaire, it. was, not. expense that could baulk her. She sent to Paris for M. Maloti the engineer who created the famous artesian well in that city, and gave him carte. blanche for the cost of raising water. That gentleman, after his preliminary experiments, said he.would guarantee that water should be found, but he would not pledge himself to make it rise to the surface! “Find the water," said Madame de Clercq,, “ and, if it will not. rise of its own accord we will force it up by machinery." M; tMalot found not only large sheets of water, but also a coalfield of which the yield at present,’ -that is,;after twenty years’working, is superior to that: of all the other coalfields of France combined. Its value is now estimated at several millions of francs. Thus, at one stroke, she ornamented her park with an' abundance of-water,- and added many millions to her already immense fortune. A few years ago, she lost an action-in which she was engaged against the Duo - D’Aumale, and by which twenty millions of francs were ' to be won'or-lost! Though she was cast in that suit,- still she has left her son, the deputy, a millionaire. "

In the bad old times when the.slave bazaar existed as a public institution at Constantinople, when- Circassia belonged to Turkey, and when the fair maidens of that land were so common as to he; comparatively cheap, there was a sort of Turkish Degree- I —Hadji, Abdallah, of'Morocco—-a' venerable ruffian, near a century old, whose latter days - seem to have been spent' in compelling recalcitrant ladies in the various harems of Stamboul. tp be better: behaved. Slight cases of this kind he treated on the spot with stick and'whip ; more obstinate offenders he took in hand at his own, house by starvation, and dungeons, and torture; and it was generally remarked that when those ladies returned they were singularly obedient. One visit to the old .Hadji’s house was enough, for, os one of -them confessed, she was afraid; lest she should have been buried alive, a little accident which-had often happened in the Hadji's dealings with obstinate ladies. That was what-he (lid, towards the end, of his days. -His; earlier,-life- had been spent in carrying off slaves iu every possible way, begging, borrowing, and stealing, them, and then’ selling them in the slave bazaar, in whio.U business he had acquired an ample for'tunc.—37m Times.