News and Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 20, 11 August 1894, Page 6

News and Notes.

The delivery of Dr. Talmage’s first lecture in Sydney, “The Bright Side of Things,” was marked by a sad incident—the death of a woman among the audience from heart disease.

Spencer’s gold dredge on the Clutha, working about three miles above Alexandra, broke the record last week by securing 100 ozs., about £375 worth, for one week’s work. The sacred cantata, “ A day with our Lord,” recently given so successfully by the Don street Primitive Methodist Church Choir, will be repeated on the 22nd inst—this time in aid of the circuit fund.

Jean De Reske is being paid £2OO a night at Covent Garden this season. This is the highest sum ever received in England by an operatic tenor. Exactly 20 years ago, when Jean De Reske made his debut, not as a tenor, but as a baritone, his salary was only £lO a week. During the Melbourne season of the Bell-Cole Concert Co., who appear in Invercargill in a few months, the oratorio audiences were larger than in Sydney, and at the final performance in the Exhibition Building the receipts amounted to £3BO. Fillis’s circus tent collapsed during a gale at Adelaide recently, and most of the canvas was torn to shreds, the damage being estimated at £3OO.

Victoria’s depression is making her people keen to discover new markets for her produce. Trial shipments have been sent to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore.

A successful trial has been made at Croydon of a tramcar driven by compressed gas. The cost of the gas used is said to be one penny per mile with a fully loaded car. Coleridge, who was a bad rider, was accosted when on horseback by a wag, who asked him if he knew what happened to Balaam. “ The same thing’ as happened to me, an ass spoke to him,” replied the poet.

There were 132,276 cycles used in France last year for pleasure solely. Cycles used for business purposes are exempt from taxation. The congregation of the First Church, Invercargill, has decided in favour of the Rev. J. Gr. Smith, of North Dunedin, as successor to the Rev. J. Eerguson. Dr Berger, the eminent French surgeon, has supplied a young woman with a new under-lip cut from her arm, to replace her natural lip, destroyed in an accident. Mr A. J. Balfour, secretary for Ireland in the Salisbury Administration, does not believe we shall ever see Socialism in a country like Britain. It must come gradually, if at all, and

he was sure the experimen t would fail long before it had been tiled on a sufiiicently large scale produce any great change in our 3 xisting socia system. Addressing a meeting of the Wanganui Women’s Political League last Saturday, Sir Robert Stout stated that it was the dying wish of the late Hon. J. Ballance that he (Sir Robert) should succeed him as leader of his party. Etiquette in foreign lands takes some strange forms. The Esquimaux pulls a person’s nose as a compliment. A Chinaman puts on his hat when we take it off, and among the same curious people a coffin is considered as a neat and approjjriate present for an aged person, especially if he is in bad health.

A writer in. the Cape Argus is not at all pleased to learn that Thunderbolt, the notorious bushranger, after serving 30 years in gaol, has been shipped from Sydney to Capetown. He asks —Is this part of the Hew South Wales scheme of federation ? If so, we might return the compliment by shipping a load of stockthieves to Sydney. How would the cornstalks take it, I wonder P

A very ingenious plan to illicitly supply themselves with tobacco was brought to light lately, when several Darlinghurst (Sydney) ..prisoners were caught red-handed smuggling the weed over the walls. They were armed with lines, at the extreme ends of which were fastened weights. These were dexterously cast through the gratings of the cell window* and landed without. The prisoners’ outside “ cobbers ” then tied tobacco to the lines, which were hauled in. The practice has been going on with safety for some time. The offenders are now doing bread and water in dark cells.

The Bluff is gaining an unenviable notoriety from the number of fatal accidents which are happening there, in the majority of cases due to the victims trying to board their vessels while under the influence of drink. The latest occurred last Saturday night, when Captain Brown, of the ketch Gratitude, leaped from the wharf and sustained injuries from which he soon after died. At the inquest, the jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased had come to his death by falhng from the wharf while intoxicated, &c., and added the following rider—“ Having beard the evidence, we are of opinion that the deceased was served with drink whilst intoxicated, and that the licensing laws had been violated in. the worst possible manner, and we hope the police will on this and all other occasions take steps to bring the offenders to justice, and thus prevent the recurrence of a similar sad fatality.”