General News.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4537, 20 July 1883, Page 2

General News.

' A new kind of steam 'engine has been recently patented in Austria by n Professor Wellner, of Brunn. The so-called" steam* wheel " (according to the account in the Polytechnischer Journal) consist! of a Bitnpie water wheel, mostly immersed in hot water io a closed vessel. Steam is admitted at the.l^wer part and forces the cells of the . wlfeel, vUpwgfd, .producing rotation. The steam filll morVmod more of the cells on the rising side, and at length begins to escape into: the steam space above, the water. Steam may either be produced directly ,at .the lower part or conducted to the vessel from elsewhere. The upper tube, fori'outlet of steam may lead either into the'open' air or into a condenser; The)-^mechanical work consists in the ascent of the" specifically lighter steam'in the heavier liquid. These steam wheels may either be used as independent motors, or in connection with ordinary steam engines; in the latter ease the escape steam of one kind of machine is utilised for the other ' • '

A father, according to the Chicago Herald laid his hand paternally. on his daughter's shoulder. The section of satin dividing the arm from the neck was narrow, and it whs raised,, high in a puffy mass, which looked loft enough^. ,and "did indeed sink yieldingly nnide^* the touch, until the Wei of tne actual girl was struck ; but instantly there was a stiff snappish rebound, as though a steel trap bad been sprung, and, the band was thrown up into the air. '*'Goodness !" he ejaculated,': has your shoulder exDloded ?" " No, papa," she whispered, " but I shall if you don't get back your poise right away. There's a spring in the puff to make it stand up. It's nothing unusual in the present fashion of high shoulders; but there's no use in exposing all of one's clock-work in public—so hush. New Zealand should take waning. Ter ible stories are told by a correspondent of the San Francisco Chronicle of the spread of leprosy in ihe Hawaiian islands. There is alntwSfee, panic on these islands, and so maliftiint is the disease that a healthy person will contract it from clothes washed by a person afflicted. There is no cure for leprosy. A drunken man was swaying unsteadily in Virginia street, whea a dog, with a tin can tied to his tail, ran between his legs. The collision was so forcible that the man was upset, and the dog =rau on minus a piece of his tail. The man got up be* wildered, rubbing the bruised end of his spinal column, picked up the dog's tail, and thus soliloquised:—-" This is (hie) unfortunate! Never before knowed or suspected I bad spoh a thing as a tail till I go and fall down and break it off. Might make a (hie) fortune 'zibitin' myself as a man with tail. There'd be millions in in—millions (hie) in ie! just my luck. Whenever I get a good thing it's always done before I (hie) find' it out."

Louis XIV was told that Lord Stair was one of the beat-bred men in Europe. " I shall soon put that to the test/.',said the king; and, asking Lord Stair^o take an airing with him, as soon as the door of the coaoh wag opened, he bade:bin pass and go in. The other bowed aadTobeved. The king said, " The world's in the right in the character it gives • another person would hare troubled me with ceremony." The number of- hogs received in Chicago during the packing season was 2,825,000, against 2,813,000 for the same period last year. .-. • , . ,