FROM OUR EXCHANGES.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 149, 28 May 1879, Page 2

FROM OUR EXCHANGES.

The ‘ New Zealander’ of the 20th says : Yesterday, in the Divorce Court, tire matrimonial knots that had bound no less than eight couples were unloosed altogether, or the first stage of release, in the shape of rules nisi, arrived at. There were some very peculiar experiences laid bare, even in tneso brief expenoacesS or u

few hours. The w ifo of a medical man, formerly residing on the Coast of the Middle Island, who hadXmeu treated most atrociously by'Her husband, obtained a happy release from a thorou gWy Jg bad man. A celebrated writer on a Christchurch contemporary was relieved of a wanton wife, and an ill-used woman, residing in Wellington, was relieved of a brutal husband. Tire most extraordinary case, however, that has been recently heard in this or any other Court of the kind, where frequently strange things crop up, was that of Henderson v. Henderson. It was shown that there were people in the world base enough to entrap, or rather frighten, a lad of 14 into marriage ; and more singular still, there was found a minister of religion licensed to solemnise marriage, base or blind enough to perform the ceremony, the blushing bride being many 'years older than the boy, and about to become a mother. His Honor Judge Johnstone may very well ,be surprised at the disclosures made. The lad was merely used as a scapegoat, as the counsel for the petitioner said, to cover the woman’s shame, and it is simply monstrous that a minister of any denomination should be an active agent in such proceedings. The facts that were brought to light in this case should lead to some alteration in the Marriage Act, by which a recurrence of such a scandal should be rendered impossible. The famous Italian actress, Madame Ristori, has made her first appearance in Barcelona, coming direct from Lisbon. This was the first appearance Madame has made for twenty years in Spain. It appears that nearly a quarter of a century ago the famous actress was sentenced to death in Absentia by the Spanish Courts for acting some piece which the Inquisitionary Government of the country deemed revolutionary. For the purpose of her appearance in Bacelon a special pardon had to be obtained from the present King, who, to his credit be it said, at once granted it, and in the most unconditional manner^ The Italian ironclad Italia is not only the largest man-of-war ever built, but is intended to be swifter jin pursuit and more formidable in attack and defence than any other ironclad in the', world. At Oastellamare, in Italy, this latest prodigy of naval architecture has been for some time on the stocks, aud its approximate dimensions have been ascertained, as far as possible, by M. Distere, an engineer of the French navy. The new Italia is considerably larger than the Duilio or the Dandol o, beingl3,ooo tons in load displacement, but has been constructed on lines of similar fineness for the sake of speed. Her length is 393 ft., her beam 72ft., her mean draught of water nearly 28ft, and her depth from upper deck to keel 50ft. The hull is described as an immense continuous iron girder, surrounding on all sides, defending and supporting the | inner ship, with its engines, boilers, furnaces, and armaments. The lower parts of the vessel are protected against the action of torpedoes by a double bottom, divided into separate cells, and about 3ft. Sin. in height. Two watertight bulkheads run lengthways from stein to stern. At the West End of London an artful and elaborate system of fraud has been discovered as carried on by a middle-aged man, who gives the name of Vernon Montgomery, and has passed himself off sometimes as a baronet, and sometimes as a viscount. His confederate was a girl of 20 years of age, styling herself Ethel Vivian, who seems to have led anything but a respectable life, although she tried to pass herself off as aj friendless orphan, who had successfully!resisted the many temptations to which sl|e had been exposed since she came to London. This precious pair had inserted advertisements in all the leading newspapers in the shape of heart-touching appeals from E. V. to V. H. Ci I entreat you,” she said, a to help me in this time of deepest trial. HI, and friendless, I can look to no one but you for assistance. By the memory of the past I implore your aid, or I know not what I shall do. My last shilling is expended on this advertisement. Remember me at this season of happiness and reunion,” for these advertisements appeared about Christmas and New Year time. A great number of persons, who could not have imagined themselves to be the “T.H.” to whom the advertisement is addressed, answered it and sent her money. Unfortunately for her, she consented to meet a young man in the city, and he offered to help her to get employment. But Miss Ethel Vivian did not want, honest work, and made various excuses, until this young gentlemam began to suspect her, and after putting the police on her track, had the courage to appear before the magistrate as one of the principal witnesses against her. It came out in the course of his cross-examination that he made notes of their conversation, hut his records were in the Japanese language, which is about the oddest thing ever heard of in the way of diaries. Lord Napier, of Magdala, in the House of Lords, has expressed the opinion that it is a disgrace to the British Empire that the state of things existing before the Afghan War had been allowed to continue so long. A war with Afghanistan bad long been inevitable, and he held ihatour boundary ought lo he beyond the mountains inhabitated by those tribes who had been backed by Afghanistan. The battle of India, wherever it might have to be fought, ought to be fought outside and not inside those barriers ; and if we held the districts of Jellalabad and Candahar, we should therefore postpone the day when the frontiers of the two great European powers which divided Asia should be brought together. Taste eou Reaotkg. —Sir John Herschel has declared that “ if he were to pray for a taste which should stand under every variety of cu’cumslance and be a source of happiness aud cheerfulness to him through life, it -would be a taste for reading.” Clive a man he affirms, that taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you cannot fail of making him good and happy ; for you bring him in contact with the best society in all ages, with the tenderesfcj tho bravest, and the purest men who have adorned humanity, making him a d enizen of all nations, a contemporary of all times, and giving him a practical proof that the world has been created for him, for ins solace, and for his enjoyment. A Strange People. — Botel Tobago is an island in the South Seas which has lately been visited by a party of United States Naval officers. They were surveying a rock east of the South Cape of lormosa, and called at this is'and. They found a curious nuv of Malay stock. These aborigines did noD know* what money was good for. Nor ied the-r c •*.:?Cvl tobacco or rum. They

gave the officers goats and pigs mr tan pots and brass buttons, and hung around the vessel all day in their canoes waiting for a chance to dive for something which might he thrown overboard. 1 - They wore clouts only, ate taro and yams, aM had axes, spears, and knives made of common ircti. Their canoes were fevmade without nails, were ornamented ** with geometrical line-. "LTiey wore the beards of goats and small shells as ornaments. Such is the account of these strange people given by Dr Siegfried, in a letter read at the last meeting of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Condition's of Idiocy. —ln the annual report of the Pennsylvania Training School for feeble-minded children, for 1878, two interesting facts arc noted. The statistics of the institution show that a larger proportion of males than females are admitted, the ratio being greater than can he explained except on the presumption that idiocy, like other infirmities, strikes with most severity the male ; also that in the order of birth nearly half the idiots are first-born children, a fact strongly simo'estive of a special line of ills to which the°first-born are peculiarly liable, and to which they so often succumb either in death or in chronic disease. These disadvantages, the superintendent remarks, arc often a sad recountal of the young mother’s unfitness cither for the genesis, nourishment, or intelligent care of her offspring. It is also noted that of the whole number (288) present in the institution at this date, 150 are half orphans and 74 whole orphans. This startling fact would seem to prove the assumption of some writers, that idiocy is one of the results of a degeneracy of race, by which after a long exposure to debilitating influences and excesses, it ends in premature death, in scrofula, idiocy, or sterility.