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Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3084, 6 January 1879, Page 2

Theee was apain for the third consecutive time no business at the R. M Court to-day.

We. have been shown by -M r W. Drew, in his museum, a singular' lusus natures, in the shape of a lizard with two tails; Mr Drew states that up to about a fortniglit ago be did not perceive anything peculiar about the lizard, when he "noticed a strange protuberance growing from the side of the. tail. This has increased in size, and is now nearly half as long as the legitimate caudal appendage. Mr Drew has recently added to his already extensive collection a smill colony of frogs* spider flvs, and also several articles from Queensland, including two fine boome* rangs.

The Hamilton Spectator Bays: —" It will doubtless be learnt with great satisfaction that a large landed proprietor in the Western District has not, as reported, been ruined by the failure of the, Glasgow Bank. His liberality has, it is said, saved him. Some years ago some £600 worth of shares were left to the.wife of the landed proprietor in question, but knowing that the lady had a poor brother at Home he advised her to make over the shares to him. This was accordingly done, and an act of generosity has thus saved from ruin, after years of toil, one of those estate owners who are. so fre-quently-abused by the Liberals of Victoria." How about the poor brother now ?

A Queensland paper, referring to the power of the telephone, tells a curious story of a married lady living near Toowoomba, who had been completely deaf since childhood, and has been enabled to hear by means of a simple string-tele-phone being placed with its one end on her forehead —thus, it is contended, communicating the sound direct to her brain, independently of the ears. This fact, it is agreed, shows (says the writer) that 11 the organ of hearing may be actually cl seel, and still a sensation of hearing, of a delicate nature, be made known to the brain."

The decline of the greatest newspaper in the world, the London Times, has created a good deal of excitement at home. Speaking of it.Earl Beafeonsfield said: —*' J>fo oue ought ever to despair; look for the unexpected, it is sure to occur. If you want: an example turn to Ihe Times. Man/ ' daily' rivals sought to supplant it, tut iii vain. Theu they set up weekly papers, some intellectual, acne comic, and some that are boih instructive and amusing; but the supremacy of The Times remained unshaken. The penny papers, too, had their hour of expectation; but it was soon seen that what the great journal had lost in monoply it had gained in enhanced dignity. Lastly, came the great'attack of the provincial papers, as well written and almost as punctually informed; but again The Times, by coaxing the railway companies and accelerating the expresses, was enabled to hold its own. But what no* one foresaw, what no one had dared to hope or tear, the day at last came when a Walter took it into his head to be his own editor; and the stately fabric, reared with so much patience, maintained witSv such delicate care, begins .to crack and tumble down." ' '• - ;%:':: :'

Mehemet Ali, as is well known, sprang from a Huguenot family,-which on.the Revocation of the Edict of .Nantes migrated from France to Germany. He joined a German merchantman as cabin boy, escaped at the age of 11 to Constantinople, and entered household of Ali Pasha, who speedily; struck by his intelligence, gave him military instruction and made him enter the army, in which he eventually gained the high position he lfeld at the outbreak of the late war. His

nomination as Plenipotentiary was not so strange as appeared at first sight. He was acquainted with the Russians, spoke German and French fluently, had a more supple 4mind than most of the eligible Turks, and had much more culture and aptitude than could hare been found elsewhere. Nothing in his physiognomy could have made him be mistaken f r a Turk ; and when he happened to doff his fez he showed the purest conceivable German typn. His accent, whatever language he used, was also Ger man; but he had a liveliness of disposition rather recalling his French extraction, and in France he would have been familiarly described as bon enfant. At Berlin he had to display prodigies of skill to maintain a position essentially false; but he ultimately won a certain popularity among the members of the Congress. Ho amused them by the originality of his situation and character. He one evening delayed the whole Frontier Delimitation Commission by reciting a poem he had written in German, full of sentiment and delicacy, entitled " The fiose of Jericho."—Times Correspondent.