General News.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4657, 7 December 1883, Page 2

General News.

Old-fashioned flint-lock guns are fully manufactured in Birmingham. They are the old iQueen Anne long and smoothbarrelled kind, remembered by our oldest hunters. The first idea would be to laugh at the notion of manufacturing flint-iockg at this hour of the day ; but the Binning ham makers are turning out large quantia ties of them, which find ready sale, as they are much more adapted to the jungles and plains of Africa than any fancy detonator or breech loader. Flints can be found everywhere almost, and one will laat for a campaign; but once get out of caps in Africa and your fancy gun is no better than the staff of a gorilla. During all the years of " new guns " Birmingham has been silently and profitably supplying this old-time trade. A well-informed Englishman, resident in China, writing to the Pall Mall Gazette on the probable consequences of a French conquest of Tonquini remarks: "Despite Mr Colquhoun's assertions to the contrary, there can be little doubt that the opening of the Bed River will give an impetus to foreign trade. Even at present, notwithstanding the burdensome exactions of the Black Flags and the troubled state of the country, a considerable trade with Yunnan passes up and down the river. It is a mistake to suppose that British interests in China will in any way be injuriously affected by the success of Jfejj French in Annam. Much will, of- co.urse, depend upon the administration; :o£ the French, and to the jealous poiiey which they hare | hitherto pursued is in a great measure to be ascribed the little progress that has been made. By the treaty of 1871, the French Government received authority to collect the Customs duties on behalf of the Annamese Government. In perform* iog her engagement France has shown a spirit of favouritism. The tonnage dues levied upon shipping at Haiphong, Hanoi, and other ports are extremely onerous, yet vessels flying the French flag are exempted from any payment'whatever. The resalt is that shippers of produce at Haiphong are obliged to patronise the only two French ships that frequent the port, while British vessels seek employment at other points aloDg the coast whither French influence has not yet reached."

A friend of oars, gays an exchange, who suffered severe pains from neuralgia, hearing of a noted physician in Germany, who invariably cared the disease, crossed the ocean and visited Germany for treatment. He was permanently cured after a short sojourn, and the physician freely gave him the simple remedy which was nothing but a poultice and tea made from our common field thistle. The loaves are mac* crated on the part affected as a poultice, with a small quantity of the leaves boiled down to the proportion of a quart to a pint and a small decoction drank before each meal. Our friend says he has never known it to fail of relief, while in almost e7ery case it has effected a care.

A recent appointment to office in the United States Post Office Department is Miss Eugenia Washington, a collateral descendant of George.

It costs Switzerland §14 lesß to ship a pauper to America than it does to feed himi a year. This accounts for a good deal of the " assisted emigration." ■ AJ )oijsOD.ous herb is stated to grow wild ■in- Sardinia resembling parsley, -which causes those who eat it to die in laughing convulsions. on

A German baron.who made the art of bed making, or rather bed-placing, a study for years, holds that in whaterer hemisphere a maa may be, he should always sleep with his feefc to the equator, and let the body lie as " true as a needle to the pole," To sleep with the body lying east and west is tantamount to committing suicide. - _ The Archbishop of Canterbury, in opening the Diocesan Conference at Lambeth Palace, said the subject which was Dressing on the Church, and which outweighed every other, was religious instruction.