EXTRACTS FROM HOME PAPERS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 38, 12 January 1884, Page 3

EXTRACTS FROM HOME PAPERS.

Tne Old Union Mill, belonging to the longest established milling company in Birmingham, which has been in existence nearly 150 years, was on Monday knocked down for £18,500. The shares, which in flourishing times fetched £l3, are now worth only £2. The £18,500 will probably furnish a dividend of £2 a share. The death is announced ot the Bev. Edwin F. Hatfield, D.D., Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. After thirty-seven years of service as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Dr. Hatfield was chosen Moderator at Saratoga last May. Prince Bismarck, with his family, has now left Berlin for Friedrichsruhe, near Hamburg; The Chancellor is reported to have reassured one of his fellow-visitors at Gastein, who expressed his fear that Mr. Gladstone was making dangerous agreements at Copenhagen, as followsi—"Do not be alarmed. Mr, Gladstone is a man of cold blood and sound understanding, and I am sure he has lost neither the one nor the other, even in the highly-dangerous atmosphere of Hamlet.” Dr. Begg io dead. A great figure in modern Scotch ecclesiastical history has passed away, and ths Free Kirk of Scotland will have to put on her deepest mournings, Even in London one would have thought that the death of such a prominent man would have evoked some comment; but, without exception, the London papers dismiss the event without a single word of comment except the following The deceased was at the head of the party who opposed the introduction of organs into churches and other innovations." Such is fame I The fame of Dr. Begg has not travelled across the border.

The proposal to place a suitable monument at the grave of Robert the Bruce is not in abeyance. An attempt on the part of the minister of the church of Dunfermline to defeat the proposal by covering the monarch's burial-place with timber sittings has been stopped by the action of the Provost Wales and the heritors. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, of Pittsburg, U.S., the liberal benefactor of his native town of Dunfermline, has meanwhile remitted the sum of £2OOO to cover the cost of a painted window in the Abbey, which at his instance has been designed by Sir Noel Paton, 8.A., who also is a native of Dunfermline.

A meeting of delegates from seventeen National Temperance organizations in the United Kingdom was held in Manchester on Wednesday, Aiderman Clegg, of Sheffield,' presiding, when the following resolution was adopted;—“ That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable to tolerate the various temperance organizations of the United Kingdom in favor of measures upon which there is a general agreement, and that a committee of delegates be appointed to confer with the British Temperance League, and to draw up the basis upon which such federation should be founded."

In contemplation of the successful adoption of the cheaper rate of public telegrams m October next year, the authorities are making active preparations for additional spare instruments and instructors at their schools in Moorgate-street, to enable them to provide for a daily attendance of 100 or 120 telegraph learners. Hitherto, only about 50 boys and 80 girls have usually been in training there, while during the twelve or thirteen years the schools have been in existence over 8,000 male and female clerks have been taught the rudiments of postal telegraphy. Lord Carnarvon is at the head of a syndicate that has recently purchased an enormous tract of land in Western Australia. It is said that a portion of this land is to be placed at the disposal of future immigrants on a kind of mutual-benefit principle—the emigrant to find labour, and the company land and seeds, the latter taking a mortgage on both, and the tenant paying a certain yearly sum that is eventually to entitle him to the fee-simple of his farm. If this scheme is to be earned out on the American " chess-board ’ ’ system—that is to say, the emigrants being only permitted to take up alternate lots—it might no doubt be a very paying concern for the company, and in a few years, when the country had been populated and cultivated, the Intermediate lota would become of considerable value.

According to intelligence received from St. Petersburg an anti-Jewish riot occurred recently at Constantigrad, which was allowed to continue without any interference on the part of the authorities. The polios had taken no steps to put a stop to the movement. Anti-Jewish disorders on a large scale have also broken out at Tschaplinka, in the district of Nowomowoskowak. In this instance the rioters were joined by the townspeople and peasants of good position, The police, on endeavoring to restore order, were received with volleys of stones, and many of their number were wounded. The Jewish priests were insulted and driven out ot the town.

Several hundred workmen employed in the manufacturing establishments at Goniondz, near Bjelostok, in the Polish province of Grodno, revolted against the authorities a few days ago. Lieut.-General Obrutscheff, acting for the Minister of War, adopted rigorous measures, and ordered the military authorities of the district to send all the workmen at once under escort to their native places, without any enquiry into the cause of the disturbance. Their removal was effected at a cost of 5,000 roubles. The Russian Government have forbidden the publication by the newspapers of any news respecting the reinforcements of the Black Sea fleet.

The Mayor of Birmingham, Aiderman White, and the Mayoress, who have been teetotallers for forty-seven years, were on Thursday, at a special lodge sessions, made members of the Order of Good Templars, the principles of which are life-long personal abstinence from using or giving liquors, and total prohibition of the manufacture or sale of all intoxicants. There are over 200,000 adult members in Great Britain pledged to further the programme by practice and vote. I am glad to hear that Mr. Fawcett has, in his own words, “ derived very great benefit ” from his fortnight's stay at Bath. The waters have cured the rheumatism with which he has been constantly afflicted for several months past. Mr. Fawcett left a most flattering memorandum respecting the general excellence of all the arrangements at the baths. I am not surprised that he should have been pleased, for they are, without any exception, the best-appointed and most luxuriously-arranged mineral baths in ah Europe, and perhaps I might add, without any exaggeration, that for gout and rheumatism the waters of Bath are the most efficacious that can anywhere be found. Their excellence is again beginning to be generally recognised.— Truth.

Another munificent bequest has just been granted to the town of Dundee for the purpose of education. At a special meeting of the directors of the Dundee High School held a few days since, Provost Moncur said that the late Mr. Harris, who during his lifetime was such a munificent benefactor of the High School, had by his settlement left a further sum of £lO,OOO to the High School, subject, however, to the life-rent of his sister. Miss Harris has now intimated her desire to anticipate the realisation of her brother’s wishes by at once making over to the trustees under his settlement the sum of £lO,OOO, if for that sum a property could be acquired suitable for the junior and girl’s department of the High School. The Provost further announced that a property suitable for the purpose could be acquired, and it was agreed to draw up a minute expressive of the sense of the school board of the great liberality displayed by Miss Harris.

It is stated that a new electrical eentri. vanee has been perfected by Mr. A, St. George, the inventor of the telephone which bears his name. This invention is really supplemental to the telephone, and will enable every description of convenation carried on through the instrument to be not only recorded, but reproduced at any future time. Briefly stated. Mr. St. George's invention may be thus described, A circular plate of glass is coated with collodian and made sensitive as a photographicplate. This is placed in a dark box in Which is a slit to admit a ray of light. In front 6! the glass is a telephone diaphragm, which by its vibrations opens and closes a small shutter through which a beam of light as constantly passing and imprinting a dark line on the glass. Vibrations of the shutter cause the dark line to vary in thickness aecording to the tones of the voice. The glass plate is revolved by clockwork, and the conversation as it leaves the telephone is recorded on the sensitive plate, the imprinted words spoken being fixed as is done in'photography. The plate can be brought forward afterwards, and when replaced in the machine and connested with a distant telephone will, when set in motion, give back the original conversation.