General News

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4606, 9 October 1883, Page 2

General News

Considerable public interest has been felt in the opening of Watson's Bros.* new hotel, the Grand, in Dunedin. The contractors and tradesmen engaged in its erection gave the proprietors a dinner on Friday night, the Mayor was in the chair, and Mr H. Driver, M.H.E., in the vice chair. Highly complimentary speeches were made as to the enterprise of the proprietors. On Saturday the building was thrown open for inspection to the public, and was visited by 6000 persons. The building, with its four floors of concrete, staircase of the same material, and magnificent interior fittings, is held to be unquestionably, the finest in the Australasian colonies.

He was an irreverent observer of the English Bishops who wrote of them as they appeared recently in the House of Lords : " There sat some seventeen elderly persons in Episcopal robes, their puffedlawn sleeves suggesting in a rather curious way that a feminine element, not youthful either, had somehow found its way into the House. Look at their faces. The. stamp of their profession is on them. Nobody would say that these men are of the world, or men of business, or men of affairs.- The pinched lips, the eyes mostly too near together, the skin drawn firmly over cheek and chin, the sloping corners of bitter mouths, the air of sanctimony, and of always posing before (he world—all, this and much more the mSTb casual observer may see as he glances at this phalanx of spiritual legislators."

Astronomers are comparing notes about the great comet of 1882. At the Cape of Good Hope Observatory they noticed that it passed over the sun's disc without a trace being visible, the inference being, of course, that there was little opaque matter in it. Had it not been for its great velocity it would have been drawn into bur luminary. But it did hot approach so close to the sun with impunity, for its nucleus was subsequently noticed to be considerably altered, and to have a rather disorganised appearance. It is surmised that this was a second return of a groat comet which appeared 371 years before Christ.

English papers received by the mail contain accounts of the finding of the body of Captain Webb, who lost his life in trying to swim the Niagara rapids. " The body," we are told, " bore evidence of the fearful violence of the struggle which the unfortunate swimmer had undergone. None of the symptoms of death by drowning were revealed, and it was concluded that death resulted from the shock from the force of the water in the whirlpool rapids coming in contact with the submerged body with such force as instantly to destroy the respiratory power, and in fact all vital aotion. The shock was of sufficient intensity to paralyse the nerve centres, partially dessicate the muscular tissues, and forestall death by drowning. ;