General News.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 4058, 31 December 1881, Page 3

General News.

At Creiwick (Victoria), the Rev. Father Hennebury, of temperance crusade fatn>V gave the origin of dancing as follows:—-: When the devil was cast out of Heaven he dropped right down into Hell, buf the paving stones being too hot for his/feet, he commenced to hop and skip about qnite lively (whence originated ilie J phrase ■" dance like the devil"), andeter since his imps have danced jigs, polkas, and quadrilles. i An extraordinary occurrence happened on board the barque Gladstone during her voyage from London to Sydney. Captain Jackson reports that on October 220 d, a man fell overboard. Tho|( lifeboat was lowered, and four men an&'the mate went in search of the castaway/and eventually rescued him. He was clinging to the leg of an albatross, which fye had seised as it was flying past him. f :j^ - New York papers /give details of the closing scene of the late President's life. No one about the/sick bed/thought that the end was near. \ Every y^idication was that the patient/would pass a compara- ~ lively comfortable pleasant night. In fact, Dr Bliss h/fmaelf said, a little after nine o'clock, need, I think, give yonrßelf no yfneasiaess; if he dies tonight we wvil have abundant warning." About. half^ast nine o'clock Dr Bliss had written op tbe tablets which were used for the mudnigbt memoranda the instructions tdt the nurses during the night. [When /he had made the memoranda he drew /it from the pad of which it was a part, fend found that it was the last sheet. He ifeniarked the fact to General Swaim eadfsaid, "It don't signify, although if waf were superstitious in the presence of tKis crisis we might misinterpret its ©leaning." # / France sends annually to Great Britain / forty millions' worth of products, and / only takes back ten millions value of / goods; thus the balance has to be paid to ' tbe thrifty French in cash. ; For forty-two days the four surgeons ' attendant on President Garfield—-Bliss, Barnes, Woodward, and Eeyburn— charged the Government 4200d015, 01 JOOdols each per day. Dt Agnew's bill

for the same number of days for " consultations, operations, and visits," was 32,600d015, and Dr Hamilton, for " visits and consultations," rendered a bill for a similar amount; the medical men's services amounted to 87,000d015, (£i7,520). An American reporter went to see Emilie Melville, and this is the paragraph he wrote next day, headed '• The Melville underpinning."—" Hor feet are the tiniest, daintiest little bits that ever were encased in hosiery and sandals! You need an opera glass to find them. When you see them you want to.see more of them; yon seem to bear the rustle of silk, and the tinkle of lutes, and the air is heavy with Arabian perfumes. They play at hide and seek with your admiring eye; now daintily stealing out from beneath the jealous, selfish gown that would conceal them, and now petulantly hiding their pretty little charms beneath the fluffy wealth of immaculate skirls. Emilie is very proud of her feet. One of her eccentricities is to give her old slippers to the newspaper critics "—but, we had better stop here.