General News.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4687, 15 January 1884, Page 3

General News.

The Londoners bavo taken to the Thames throughout the summer months, and eat, drink, and sleep in what are known as " house boats." These usually contain a snug dining-room and sittingroom combined, two or three small bedrooms, a kitchen, and verandah. * There are no fewer than seven vast hotels now in course of erection in London, four of them with about 1000 bedrooms each. The alarm at tbe increasing density of the network of telephone wires in London does not subside. Almost every day the dragging of a new wire across the old ones brings home the fact that the leading streets of the metropolis are beiDg Systematically roofed in. No less than 1400 telegraph and telephone wires, it is said, stretch across Leadenhall street. Over Queen Victoria street they intersect each other at almost every foot. Already nervous persons avoid riding ootside omnibuses. Meanwhile the authorities one after the other repudiate all power to control the opposite interlacing of chimneys and stacks. There is no one even to remove or look after the number of disowned, unused, and decaying wires. . Old-fashioned flint-lock guns are fully manufactured in Birmingham. They are of the old Queen Anne long and smoothbarrelled kind, remembered by our oldest hunters. The first idea would be to laugh at the notion of manufacturing flint locks at this hour of the day; but the Birmingham makers are turning out large quantities of them, which find ready sale, as they are much more adapted to the jungles and plains of Africa than any detonator or breech loader. Flints can be found everywhere almost, and one will last 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. The scheme for connecting the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean by means of a canal has entered upon a practical phase. A syndicate has been formed to carry out the plan either with or without the assistance of the Government. The name of M. Hersent, a contractor of the Panama Canal, is conspicuous on the list of promoters. A sum of £12,000 has been set aside for surveys and preliminary expenses. It is proposed to carry the canal from Bor^ deaux or Arcachon to Nailonne. It i* wonderful, the exquisite pain we contrive to give to people whom we really love very much! We give it by snarling and snapping, saying sarcastic, biting things; the idlers of the family being often the busiest in this occupation. Now with the bee, we forgive the sting for the sake of tbe honey, but who can forgive the wasp ? And who can forgive the bee if he stings not his enemies, but his friends? And that is what some of you do; and oh! how the sting rankles and poisons the lives of people for whom, I verily believe, you would lay down your own. Yes you would die for them, but will not check your illtemper or your ill-feeling enough to enable you to live with them. When two conscientious people quarrel, both _ think themselves right, but hard words will not mend the matter; one might as well try to mend glass windows by pelting them with stones.