News and Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 28, 14 October 1893, Page 10

News and Notes

A very exciting whale chase lately took place in Holm Sound, on the extreme east of the mainland of Orkney. Thirty boats took part in the capture, and also an English steam yacht. Out of a shoal of 700 only about 50 were captured. At the High Court of Justice at Edinburgh, David Mustard Hobbs and Joseph Severn, from Dundee, pleaded guilty to scuttling two ships with the view of defrauding insurance companies of about £13,000. Hobbs was sentenced to seven years, and Severn to live years’ penal servitude.

T. Burns, who claims to be the champion diver of the world, met with a shocking accident on 7th bust, whilst fulfilling an engagement at the Botanical Gardens, Sheffield. He was advertised to dive into a small shallow tank from a height of seventy feet. As he was being hauled up to make tlie dive one of the cross beams broke, and he fell heavily to the ground. He was terribly injured. Mr Beaumont, a river digger, writes a Cap© correspondent of the Mining World, has been fortunate enough to find the largest stone ever unearthed at the Vaal River diggings. It weighs 271 - carats, perfect form, and is valued at £20,000. Mr Beaumont was working a claim which had been abandoned a few days previously, and the gem was found in a beau of debris covered with mud.

A wasp plague lately caused great inconvenience at Home. ,A curious incident happened in a village near Sandwich. A labourer discovered a wasps’ nest, and, struck with the beauty of its formation, instantly took it home, and carelessly put it aside, with the object of taking it to a naturalist. The nest proved to be full of eggs, which, with the warmth of the house, developed during the night into a hundred wasps. The next morning the house was swarming with wasps, and the family had to make their escape as best they could, some' of them being severely stung. Wm. Williamson, an American parachutist, lately made an ascent near New York. The air ship went majestically upward, and took a course toward the river, but getting in another air current was taken slowly into shore. Williamson waved his hands and bowed to the crowd below. When at an altitude of about one thousand feet he cast loose from the balloon, and with his parachute held above him plunged downward. The umbrella-like arrangement did not open at once. He was whizzing through the air with the swiftness of a shot, and in a few seconds the spectators saw him make an effort as though to shake it open. It spread suddenly, and his descent was retarded with a jerk, and the parachute began slowly to settle. Then the crowd breathed freer. The sudden retarding of his flight downward might have dazed ths aeronaut, or even dislocated some of the muscles of his arm. He was fifty feet from the ground, and it looked as though he would land safely, when his lingers relaxed their hold, and he fell. He struck upon the roof of a small building, and bounded off to the ground. He was quickly surrounded by a large crowd. He was alive and conscious, but unable to move a muscle. Tiie physicians found that he had struck on his sxhne in such a way as to cause paralysis of his entire body. An extraordinary scene lately occurred at Peterhead in connection with an attempt on the part of the Gothenberg steamer Dagmar to enter the haibmr and discharge a cargo of Sweedish machine-manufactured barrels. The steamer first attempted to enter Fraserburgh harbour, but the coopers at that port put a stop to this, and on the vessel proceeding to Peterhead the coopers there were equally determined, They surrounded the Dagmar with fishing boats, and made a desperate effort to get the vessel towed out to sea, but failing in this attempt they threatened to strike if the barrels were lauded. Several hundred coopers and as many women marched through the town in an excit.d manner, and ultimately all the men in the various coopering yards gave up work until tne parties to whom the barrels were consigned decided what steps were to be taken. The masters ultimately paid the freight dues, and the vessel returned undischarged. These coopers are nearly all professeuly Iladicals and free traders, but when personally affected they are evidently Protectionists.