Miscellaneous.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2634, 18 June 1877, Page 3

Miscellaneous.

Edinburgh, May 16.—The Scotsman states that a" firm of importers of nitrate of soda at Glasgow have received a telegram confirming the destruction of Jquique! byau earthquake. A large num,ber of natives were lost. \

A London telegram says that a Presby: terian clergyman who was: ceasing to be a pastor was offered % 5000 for his manuscipt sermons. r The purchaser intended to retail them to ministers of the Church of England, and, as they were long, he proposed to cut them in two, to suit: the rectors and vicars. The offer was declined.

PatHerO'Keeffe, who kept up a long warfare with his ecclesiastical superiors, and Specially with Cardinal Cullen, in relation to the Callan schools/has retired to a Trappist monastery in Ireland. The vow of the Trappist imposes silence upon every member of the order. , Robert Bain a well-known English boat-builder of Lambeth, died recently. Duringihis life he saved more than"forty persons from drowing, and " Bob Bain's Crew " were for years well known, having won every race {for which they contended in France, Belgium and Holland. Mr Bain received the Cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon 111. Cardinal Manning will contribute to the Nineteenth Certury a series of papers' from original sources, to be called: "The True Story of the Vatican Council." -The first paper will appear in the" March number of the review. It is also said that a monthly notice of •' Recent Science," the materials for which will be first submitted to Prof. Huxleyy will appear in the same review. ; : The London Athenseum thinks that the following sentence from a recent article by Mr Gladstone iv the Church Quarterly Review may be safely pronounced ■worthy of preservation in works upon-the English language as containing a greater number of confusions of metaphor than were ever before crowded into the same number of lines: " His balloon, even after careering wildly in the fields of air, always managed when alighting oh the earth, to find its way home."

Kecruiting has been progressing so briskly lately that nearly every regiment in the service is full. The military offipers at Woolwich Arsenal were excused ■it . ' '

yesterday from the monthly muster and parade, because of the importance of the work in which they are engaged, viz : repair and preparation of waggons and ambulances constituting field trains. Beve!i twelve-ton naval guns Lavo been shipped to Portsmouth, arid 400 tons of ammunition and arms are being sSlipped lo Malta.. Admiral Lane has made inquiry of the Chatham Dockyard authorities as to the earliest date thejironclad Temeraire/eight guns, and the iron corvette Euryalus,' sixteen guns, can be ready for sea service. Companies of Royal Engineers, at the School of Engineers hero, are being made up to their war strength. iho Hercules, Triumph and Inconstant are all in the dock-yard and will require the labor of months to reh't them for active service. The Times says : " The Hercules was probably the most efficient of our iion-clads and the Inconstant the fleetest cruiser, but the admiralty have so arranged that at the beginning of a European war we find both these ships disabled. We are assured the Thunderer is ready for sea, but news from the Mediterranean has already told us that her sister vessel, the Devastation, needs docking to repair after a two years' cruise. If this is so the Thuuderer can only rank as a relief. That we have more and better ships than any other Power is shown in the fact that we cannot use the ships we have. A very sad story of the troubles of a youthful schoolmistress was told at an inquest held the other day at Lemington, England, on the body of a young woman, 21 years of age, whose body was found in the River Learn. The deceased, who bore a very good character, left a training college last Christmas, and being 3 for all England as Queen's scholar. In January she took the post of mistress of some schools which had t been without a regularly appointed mistress for three months, and which had had four mistresses in about two years. Here she found that she was unequal to the task of managing the children of these schools, who, previously unruly, became so uncontrollable that she was obliged to resign her duties. She was, according fo the evidence of the landlady of the lodgings she occupied, frightfully exhausted by her school work, and seemed greatly depressed. She was confined to her bed for some days, but the day before the body was found she left the house in a state of excitement, and was never seen alive again. Her body was found early the next morning in the river near a mill. The jury returned a verdict of " Found drowned."