General News.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4470, 3 May 1883, Page 2

General News.

A stonewalling episode took place on the licensing question in Sydney. The house sat all night and until next morning up to eleven. The bona fide traveller radius was fixed at five hundred (?) instead of five miles, and clubs were placed on the same footing as other places as regards Sunday closing. The Bill will probably be defeated in the Upper House. A terrible accident took place on the night of the 23rd at the Ellen borough mine in New South Wales, i A great mass of stone fell, burying two miners and completely pinning three others to the ground, to be only rescued after three hours' imprisonment. Andrew Dennis, and two who were buried, were killed on the spot, and presented a sickening spectable, every bone being broken. The former had only been married a week. Mr Herbert Gladstone, M.P., son of the Premier, made a remarkable speech at Leeds recently pn Irish affairs. He branded the English regime in Ireland as a " complete catalogue of political blunders," and said that as England had given a Parliament to all her great colonies, there were, in the abstract, " strong reasons for granting Home Rule' to Ireland." He reminded his readers that America had been lost by the withholding from her of elementary political freedom

Jones, Miller, and Co., " the Sydney Leviathans," have laid £100,000, to £2000 against Warwick and Grosvenor (brother to Chester), in the Melbourne Derby and Cop. A writer in the Philadelphia "Medical Times " says that he has for eight years made a practice of treating erysipelas by the local application of borax dissolved in glycerine, one drachm to an ounce, which is to be well rubbed in and applied on. linen. The result has been to cut the disease short apparently ia a few hours. In Some cases he used tincture of iron internally, in some not. The Philadelphia Times calls attention to the curious history of the average oil region city, taking Pithole, in Venango County, 89 an illustration. " Twenty years ago," it says, " the site of Pithole was covered with wheatfields.aud to-day waving corn and wild flowers cover the same spot. But between that day and this there arose and fell one of the most remarkable cities the world.has ever «een. Twenty thousand people gathered there in a single year, and when the great oil well failed to pour out a torrent of wealth the gaudy theatres closed, the mammoth hotels became tenantless, and the churches lost their worshippers. Banks, newspapers, stores, and offices ceased to exist almost as suddenly as they were called into being, and the life and light of the famous city went out for ever. To-day there is one voter in Pithole. It may also be said that there is but one other man inline neighborhood, and he does not ■-...-■■•

vote. There are dozens of villages in the old oil country that exist only in the memories of the men who saw their birth and death. The new wells in Warren Countyare strangely like the wells of Pithole, and the rush to the new town of Grarfield bean an almost fateful resemblance to the craze which was the guiding spirit of the wonderfuLcity in Venango." The Riverton paper has it on good authority that a party of Chinese at Bound Hill have taken 1000 ounces of gold from their claim during the past two years The" haw French rifle will carry -more than two miles. Wiggins, the weather prophet, accounts for the failure of his great storm, as _,„ follows :—" The astronomical day begini at noon on the meridian of London, and our day begins at twelve o'clock at night. I overlooked this fact, so that the _ v ? side of the earth presented to f planetary force was opposite to that* which I gave. . I did not notice my mistake until this evening, so the storm fell on the Pacific instead of the Atlantic. There is some very interesting inform>'f mation in the " Financial Reform Almanac." The total sum paid to ' Wd^'^ Queen and Royal Family is £893,382 a year. In pay or pensions, £162,336 a year,is distributed amongst members of ,r the :House of Peers; and £162,940 \ v amongst members of the House of Commons. Ten thousand wibs I foisted on the Indian revenue, at a cost of £5,196,551 a year, and one hundred and fifty thousand pensioners in the United > Kingdom, tickle the Treasury to the tune * of £7,000,000 a year. One gentleman has received since 1874, £3,100 a year,, and „ another £1145, a year pension, as compensation for offices abolished in that yei'r. The income of the Church of England is four millions and a half per annum. * Iti s -' 1882, nearly 30,000,000 was paid as interest on the National Debt. ; : ■■:"? At Arrowtown (in the, South Island),, . two gentlemen undertook to collect sub-"' scriptions on behalf of a family suddenly bereaved of its bread-winners, with the ostensible purpose of relieving theneces* sities of the families in question. It appears that £40 13s had been raised, and , T out of this sum the gentlemen who col-. % lected the money paid themselves accounts owing to them and others, as it is stated, at the request of the widow, to the amount of £39 14s 9d, banding to the relict for her relief and that of her eight children the magnificent sum of 18s 3d! If this is not looking after " No. 1," at v the expense of the.public, we don't know what it is. ; A Protestant paper announces that a colony of Franciscan monks and nuns it X about to settle at Clevedon, England. ' The largest hotel in the place has bjsen v bought for the new monastery, and .a villa ">'■' with extensive grounds has been secured f<?r the nunnery.