GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 75, 8 March 1879, Page 3

GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

Fasaananto, who attempted to njnnll ' ginate tin' King of Italy, informed his examiners that liis intention wn, tofininh tin' King, and that if he had had money onough to lniy a revuU i'i'-,le! would have sucocoded. lie had no personal fooling against the King or Government lie intended the n.<u>as*ination a* a means towards a universal ropubU* Riguor Melillo, editor of the Censor newspaper, has been arrested. He was formerly an associate of l'assauante, and was arrested with him in IH7O for posting revolutionary placards. A shopkeeper who sold Fasaanante the knife with which he attempted to kill the King boa boon armttvd.

A couple of pick-pockets have chosen the captive balloon at I'aris as the MM of their o]ierations. A young English female, of attractive exterior, liuil of late so frequently ascended in the icrestat, accompanied by a well-dressed man with a wooden lei,', that the circumstance was noticed. Very recently two ladies, after returning from their ajronautic excursion, remarked that their panes had disappeared. At the same time it was ob served that the female and her companion hastened away in a very suspicious manner. The police being informed of what had happened to the two lndiia stopped the couple and took them to tli" commissionaiy. The pockets of the man having been examined, no less than twenty portmonies were found in his possession,containing theaggrogatesuiuof :10,000 francs, Uoth were committed to prison,

The Australian Eleven (writes the Argus Correspondent) hail one very unpleasant experience at Toronto. On the cricket-ground five of them entrusted their watches to the care of a young man who had been recommended to the secretary of the club by the local Young Men's Christian Association, and he decamped with the jewellery. Allan and lloran lost the valuable watcl.es presented to them in December, 1876, for their performances against the English Eleven in Australia. A full description of the missing property was given to tho detectives, but nothing hud been heard of it up to the time the team left San Francisco.

The London Times, on the elections in the United States, says:—lt is with very sincere satisfaction that we publish the results of the November elections in the United States. The gravity of the issues on which the electors had practically to decide could scarcely bo over-es-timated, and there was some ground for apprehension that the caprice of the Democracy might turn the scale in favour of reckless agitation and a ruinous policy. Now, as often before, the good sense of the American people has come to the rescue just in time to save the country from the consequences of party blundering and immortality of professional politicians. Little thanks are due to the leaders of the Republican patty, and still less to those of the Democrats. Neither side can bo exonerated from the guilt of paltering with inflationist, repudiationist, and socialist agitations which culminated in the foundation of the Greenback Labour Party. The Times thinks it not improbable that both Tildcn and Tlumnan will disappear front the front ranks of the Democrats before 1880, and that Bayard will be their candidate for President.

The barque Courier has returned to Wellington from New Guinea with the New Zealand expedition. The whole affair is a dead failure. The vessel was purchased from an American named Stan wood, and left Wellington in Octobcr last. He represented that he had been in New Guinea for fourteen and bad several trading ports established. He also said that there was a large and profitable business to be done, and promised to meet the vessel at New Guinea. After securing the cash for the vessel he left for Sydney, and never turned up again. The party found none of his'.lading ports or any of his produce. They had no intercom-so with the natives except by signs, none of the crew understanding the language. The crew suffered much from low fever. The party found no traces of gold or other valuable minerals. Thoy found traces of the schooner Dove from Sydney, the name being discovered carved on trees, but they did not see the vessel, neither could they understand from the natives whether they had Been the vessel.

A Highland bagpiper on his travels opened £lB wallet by a wood-sido, and sat down to dinner. No sooner had he said grace than three wolves name about him. To one he threw bread to another meat, till his povonder was all gone; at length he took up his bagpipes and bogan to play, at which the wolves ran awny. " The deil tak me," said the now dinnerless piper, "an I had kenn'd you lo'ed music sae weel, y<ai should ha' baon it before dinner." Nothing puzzles the mere savage more than our restlessness, our anxiety to acquire and to possess, rather than to rest or to onjoy. An Indian chief is reported to have, said to a European : —'• Ah, brother, you will never know the blessings of doing nothing and thinking nothing; and yot, next to sleep, that is the most delicious. Tlins wo were before our birth, tints wo shall be again after death." The young girls in Tahiti, who were being taught weaving, very soon left tin.' looms, and said, " Why should wetoi! \t" J lave wo not as many breadfruit* ami cocon•nuta as wo can cat ? You who want ships and beautiful dresses must labour indeed, but we are content with what we have." ... A most essential difference between many so-called Kcvagtv. .".ml ourselves is the little storo they sot on lifo. Perhaps we need not wonder at it. To a woman or to slave, in many parts of Africa or Australia, death must s em a happy oscapr, if only they jOOuld feel qiiitu certain that tho next life would not bo a repetition of this. They are like children, to whom lifo and death arc like travelling from one place to another, and as to the old people, who have more friends on the other side of the grave than on this, thoy are mostly quite ready to go, and consider it evon an act of filial duty that their children should kill them when lifo becomes a burden to them. —Professor Max Mueller in Maciuillan's Maga/iue.

Dr. Fai i, in a communication to the lancet, states it as his opinion that bodjr disinfection in tho treatment of infectious fevers is not nearly so strictly observed tiy medical men as its importance demands, and calls attention to the great prophylactic value of rectified spirits of turpentine as an external application in small-pox. He states that it at una- relieves any smarting or irritation, effectually corrects the unpleasant odour given olf in tho more confluent form of the disease, and seems in a marked degree to arrest pustulation, and modifies to a great extent, and in some instances prevents entirely pitting. Its powerful antiseptic ami disinfectant properties, too, are indisputable ; ami in this it possesses an additional advantage in preventing the spread of the infection. He used it with great success in the epidemic of 1871-2 ; and since then .it has been used with most satisfactory results by others. It should be applied every night aud morning by means of a feather, in the proportion of ono part of the turpentine to four of olive oil. Dr. Earr believes that if this plan of antiseptic inunction were carried out in all cases the mortality from that loathsome and dreaded disease, smallpox, would be considerably reduced, and its ravages proportionately checked.

Tho Now Caledonia visitors from Australia ore speedily made aware, in the most unexpected quarters, that salvation of Napoleon Ill's last attempt at colonisation is looked for from this continent. We are told that it is argued that sin?e there is a propability of au early withdrawal of the penal establishment, the cost of maintaining which Ims surpassed all calculation, the island would have no further value for a nation so ill adapted for the work of founding and maintaining colonies as the French, by their own admission, have proved. Also, that in the event of an abandonment of the experiment of a ponal colony in the Pacific, tiio interests of the free settlers, who have mado themselves homes under the guarantee of one of the great powers of Europe, and who could not therefore, witli any pretence of justice, lie left to their fate, would be best secured by getting the British Government to take over the possession that lias proved so unprofitable to France.—" Melbourne Argus " Very interesting returns have just been published by the Imperial Maritime Customs, shewing the share taken by each nationality in the carrying trade between China and foreign countries for 1«77. The preponderance of the mercantile marine of Great Britain over that of all other countries is almost startling. The total shipping entered and cleared from .and to foreign ports was 2,715,000 tons, of which 2,132,000 was British, 553.000 tons representing the shipping of all other countries in the world. The local carrying trade between the different treaty poit< is represented by a tola' tonnage of t),205,000 tons, of which Ureat Britain has 3,830,000 tons, and the Chinese 3,055,000 tons. This last includes foreign built vessels only, and comprises the sailings of but one company —tho China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company. The most marked features in the whole year's carrying trade, as compared with previous years, are tho insignificant and rapidly decreasing share taken by the United States ; the immense increase in local shipping of foreign typo taken by China ; and the enormous preponderance of Groat Britain in all branches of the trade of China, foreign, local, and internal transit over all the other countries of the world taken together.—Shanghai Correspondent London Times.