GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 76, 15 March 1879, Page 3

GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

We find the following in an exchange: —Very interesting tests were mode at the liisdon Iron and Locomotive AVorks, Hau Francisco, recently, of the " Carbon Motor." The claim for this invention is that it produces power equal to steam and also applicable, with one-third of the fuel consumed in the generation of steam from water. The power of the carbon motor is vapour. It is produced by a contact of liquid carbon with heated glycerine. The boiler is tilled with glycerine to tho crown sheet, and when a temperature of 190 degrees or less is reached the carbon is injected therein, and a vapour pressure of UUlbs. or more to tho square inch is speedily obtained. A condenser is connected with the boiler, which condenses tho vapour for re-use after the application of the propelling power. George W, Dickie, engineer of the liisdon Iron Works, made a comparative fuel test of tho carbon and steam power, and the results were very gratifying to Thomas M. Fell, the inventor of the carbon motor. The report on tho experiments is very elaborate, giving the number of pouuds af fuel used, and the pressure per pound obtained. Tho conclusion of the report is in otfect that the same propelling power was obtaineu by the carbon motor with lOOlbs. of coal that was obtained by steam with 3UUIb& If these tests hold good in practical application en locomotives and and steamships, and in the working of mining and saw-mill machinery, a revolution in motive power will be the result Mr. -Fell states that the glycerine costs about 35 cents a gallon, and that a boilerful will last for years, as tho loss by evaporation is scarcely perceptible in months of use. He also claims that there is no corrosion or incrustation of the boiler, and that the dangers of explosion are lessened, because there is no application of iutonse heat.

I'OPI'I.NO THE QVKSTIOX. I showed my love my fond heart, Ami asked would she be mine Till cruel death do us part ? Slut answered 1110 uch nein ! I showed my love my bank-book— And thcu 1 touohed -her soul! Sin: sighed, with such a frank look, And sweetly lisped, yah who! I A fresh flying machine has been invented by an Oregon electrician. The machine is egg-shaped, made of sheetiron, measure* eight feet by five feet at its greatest diameter, and is to be propolled by eleotricity produced by a generator of 200 hoise-powor. The inventor declares that electrioity will carry the traveller from New York to San Vrancimx> in ten minutes. Ah evening was ooming on, when wo hail got hall way to Uoorge, we found that our honed were knocked up. We stopped, therefore, at a wool-washing establishment, and sent round the country

to beg for others. Here there was also a large shop and a temperance hotel, and an Oitrieh farm—all kept by the same person or by his son. Word came to us that all the hoises in the place had done, each of them, an extra hard day's work that day ; but, so great a thing is it to be a Besident Magistrate, that in spite of this difficulty two horses were promised us! Hut they had to be caught. So we walked up to see the woolwashers finish their day s work, the sun having already set. Their mode of wtiol washing was quite new to me. The wool, which seemed to have been shorn in a very rough manner—cut off in locks aftor a fashion which would have broken the heart of an Australian squatter, wool chopped as you would chop a salad—was first put into a square cauldron of boiling or nearly boiling water. Then It was drawn out in buckets, and brOTgh* to troughs made in a running stream, in which the dirt was trodden out of it by coloured men. These were Hottentots and negroes—the children of the old slaves—and ono or two Kaffirs from the East. The wool is then squeezed and laid out on drying grounds to dry. The most interesting part of the affair was the fact that these coloured men were earning 4s. Cd. a da}' each. Some distance further on the next day wo came on two white men, navvies, who were making a dam and were earning only Is. 7d. a day and their diet. That might together be worth 2s. Cd. They explained to us that they had found it very hard to get any job, and had taken this almost in despair. But they wouldn't hate trod the iroof along icit/i the black men even for 4s. (id.—Mr. Anthony Trollope's " South Africa." The British Government, as is well known, have of late years paid great attention to tho forests in our Asiatic dominions ; not only protecting, and in many places replanting, large tracts of indigenous woodland, but also introducing valuable trees, such as the cinchona, from America. It would seem, however, that in tho Straits Settlements, where the species producing guttapercha are beeom-' ing, in the course of ordinary production, more and more scarce, 'he C'hineso settlers are adding to the havoc by the extensive clearings they are making in the tracts allotted to them. In such cases, even when the clearing goes back to a state of nature, the majestic primeval forest, full of beautiful and useful trees, is replaced by a secondary growth of ugly and worthless shrubs. The correspondent of a horticultural contemporary suggests that it should be made obligatory on these . ii • i . t S t , • (■muc.se planters and others to piant in the last year but one of their occupation a certain quantity per acre of useful trees, and to have remitted to them the ground rent of their estates for these years by way of compensation, so that at the time they cease to occupy their holdings they would, by showing so many trees per acre of a fixed kind, two years planted, obtain from the Inspector of Forests a cheque for a certain sum, which would be accepted in discharge of ground rent, transferable, of course. Defaulters might i even be fined Such an enactment would, at a very small cost to the Government, give an ii.'ipuise \f> clearing the superabundant forest, and in a few years, at the smallest possible outlay, the State would become the undisputed owner of valuable patches of the most useful trees. ilr. Thackeray has said that wherever a little colony of English is settled they mahc a little England of their own, with their Worcestershire sauce, their Crosse and Blackwell's pickles, their Durham mustard, and their Cockle's pills, It is no wonder indeed that the Civea Romani prefer tho piquant pickles of this firm to their flabby continental initiations, and take kindly to tho toothsome girkili lather than to the jaundiced " sauregnrkenzeit," which, though cucumbers, are but pickled in brine, innocent of tho taste of vinegar, and strongly suggestive of cholera. The pickle industry is in fact a great featuie with this firm, but not the greatest. True, indeed, that onions are purchased by the field, red cabbage by the acre, cauliflowers in unknown proportions, and walnuts by the ton. Nor is this all that is needed, as to supply tho special demands of tho firm they have been compelled to run a vinegar brewery of their own, apart from the parent premises in Sono Square; and such is tho excellence nnd purity of their acid brew that they have carried off tho highest honours both at the Vienna and Philadelphia Exhibitions. • ff It has not fallen to tho lot of many men to slay nearly 500 tigers—to say nothing of smaller game—in a life time, even when one's whole energies have boeu devoted to suoh pursuits. M. d'Harancourt, a Frenchman, who has been pur. suiug the avocation of a " hunter " in all parts of the world, claims to bo tho " greatest tiger-killer in the world ;" and having achieved this reputation, ho it now, it appears, reclining on his laurels, in dignified position of Tiger Slayer in General of the Government of the Strait* Settlements, having been engaged, so it is reported, to destroy those animal* at £lO per head. An English officer ui India, however, Major Probyn, Bupcrin-i louden t of Police in Khondeish, must' run this sloyer of tigers protty closely 1 in his claim to tho title of champion tiger-killer. During tho lost few years Major Probyn ha* killed no les.tlio.ii four hundred tigers in the district, of Khondeish alonu, and tho Immunity from the ravages ofthoso animals which ho has secured for the inhabitant* of U>o district ha* even overcomo tho suspicion with whioh the ' natives too often regard Etnjlishinen who kills a tiger, Tho destruotton of those 1 felinos 1* looked upon by certain classes a* an act of sacrilege, certain to be vbitcd with fearful puniahjaont on the

village at the act. Major Probyn, however, naving practically rid the district of the presence of the unwelcome visitors, has earned the giutitude of the inhabitants, and recently when there was a talk of his leaving the neighbourhood, they niemoralued the Governor of Bombay not to remove him. Doubtless there are other districts in India where his presence would bo equally welcome to the people—if unwelcome to tigers. No letter in the alphabet has been so much abused and misrepresented by the English as the letter H. The following petition from a volume entitled "The Wild Garland " is an extremely clever presentation of a few of the grievances of that unfortunate letter: Tlte letter " Il'e" Pttition. Whereas I have by you been driven From house, from home, from hope, from heaven, And placed by y-ur most learned socioty In exile, anguish, and anxiety, And used without one just pretence With arrogance and insolence. I hero demand full restitution, And beg you'll mend your elocution. Aimcer. Whereas we've rescued you, ingrate, From handcuff, horror, and from hate, From hell, from horsepond, and from halter, And consecrated you in altar, And placed you where you ne'er should he. In honour and in honesty. We deem your prayer a rude intrusion, And will not mend our elocution. William Ohiuanu Stafford, tho olerk who absconded with £15,000 in notes the property of the Liverpool branch of tho Bank of England, was arrested at Jersey, on October 13. The police had received intelligence that the plisoner was supposed to be cruising in tho English Channel in a yacht, and might possibly touch nt Jersey, and a telegram was received at Jersy on Saturday from Alderney, which caused the polico to keep a sharp look out Yesterday morning the cutter yacht Surge entered St. Heliers Harbour, and was boarded by the police, who learned from the captain that she had been hired a week ago at Cowos by a " young gentleman," who was then on board. The police on going below found Stafford iii the cabin. Ho replied to questions from the officers that his name was Henry Mitchell; but feeling sure be was the man they wanted they requested him to empty his pockets. He pulled several sealed envelopes, which ho said enclosed letters of introduction, and the first one opened did contain a letter of introduction ; but all the others were filled with the stolen notes, and each envelope had in small figures iu me corner the amount of the contents. Stafford was, of course, immediately arrested and taken to the. police-station, where the total value of the notes was ascertained to be £IO,OOO, and Stafford accounted for the absence of tho remainder by .ting that he had been defrauded ot ~uem. Tho captain of the yacht stated that the prisoner was very anxious ro proceed to Spam, but ho alio captain) not being accustomed to ,: going foreign," declined to undertake thuv voyage. Tho prisoner had manifested great uneasiness whenever the yacht put into a Channel port, and expressed the wish to get to sea again as quickly as possible. Ho was brought before the Lord Mayor and remanded. How the Premier, Sir O. Grey, gets rid of interviewers, is told in the following characteristic story, which we clip from the Timara Herald :—" There is a capita! story told of tho Premier and a gentleman holding prominent position, which illustrates, perhaps, as well as anything could the way iu which public business is subordinated to private idosyncrasies, under the present regime. The gentlemen in question had long suffered from the neglect by the Ministry of a matter of tho first moment to himself anil those he . (presented. The matter was simple enough, and only needed the Premier *i "ivo his decision upon it one way or tho ouier. The rest ot the Ministry knew all about it, nnd were quite prepared to deal finally with it, but their chief had put off dealing with it again and again, aud would never gi.e anybody a chance' to bring it before him. At length tho patienco of th* member—for the gentleman referred to represents a Northern constituency—was fairly exhausted, and he determined to make a desperate effort to get his business out :>f ithe Premier's hands altogether. He accordingly, found a means to obtain an interview with him alone, and, after dotailing the cose, and doscribing the distress that he was iu about it, begged the Premier; as a favour, to allow two of the other .Ministers to look into it, and settle it for the Government. Sir George heard him patiently to tho end, when he told him, with an air of terrible wcari* noss and distraction, that he had so many anxieties and cares that his head was well nigh bursting. Changing his manner, then, to ono of great interest and pleasantness, vhioh raised the hones of the applicant to the highest pitch, ho proceeded to narrate to him an aneodote of a little child who had seen a life mouse tome out of a little hole and eat v. little bit of cheese, and who hod asked him whether he thought God taught tho little mouse to oat cheese. 'Now was not that a nice thing for the little creature to say to mo ? What 1 mean to Uiy is, wto it not really, though, a vory interesting thing ? Do you not think children are most interesting ? &c.,&a, &c, &c.' Tho member tore his hair and ilod, and that business remains in statu quo to this day. This story is not only highly characteristic, but it boa the further advantage of being strictly true in i every particular."