General News.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5012, 4 February 1885, Page 2

General News.

The Masonic Order has about 140,000 lodges throughout the world, and not far from 15,000,000 members.

As parly as the time of Alexander 11. of Scotland, a man who let weeds go te seed on a farm was declared to be the king's enemy. In Denmark farmers are com* pelled to destroy all weeds on their premises. In France a man may prosecute his neighbor for damages who permits weeds to go te seed which may endanger lands.

In France the owners of turkeys hire their flock to pick bugs and worms in the vineyards. /A flock of 75 birds returns a handsome income to the owner.-

At Gatcrsville, U.S., the skeleton of a man measuring 7ft. 2in., has been found in an Indian mound.

In Victoria a new scheme is proposed for the extermination of the rabbits* The course adopted is to fence all the water* holes with rabbit proof fencing, leering a small supply outside to accustom the rer» mia to the drinking place, and then to poison the water in the latter. The schema has been tried, with great success, fifteen hundred rabbits having been poisoned in two days in this manner.. A large tract of the Colorado, Desert is between two and three hundred feet be* low the level of the ocean. .It was once a part or branch of the Gulf of California.' but a bar of sand formed at the mouth* and being cut off from communication with the sea, the waters evaporated^and the bed became a basin of salt. A branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad is partly ballasted with this salt In laying atraok to the saltmine there, " the builders wera obliged to grade the road for 1200 feet > with blocks of .beautiful lumps of crystal! of salt. The quality is superb and, the. supply inexhaustible. Grasshoppers of ' enormous size, and giant centipedes hare bicn preserved in it, it is said, and are to« day, after the lapse of centuries, of full* siza and original shape." • There are millions of farms in Franca containing from a quarter of an acre to four acres, writes a correspondent front Dijon. I find that about an acre and a half is all the most ambitious man wants. The rent for land is always one half the crop. The land is worth about four hin* dred dollars an acre ; or if in grapevines, six hundred dollars. This is why Franca is like a garden. 7 In England there aro * two hundred and twenty.seven thousand land owners; in France there are seven million land owners. The Frenchman on ' his two acres, with his barefooted wife cutting grain by his side, is happy and, contented, because he knows no bet* ter. Such a life would drive an American farmer mad. . The French* * man thrves because he spends nothing. He has no wants beyond the coarsest food and the washings of the grape skins after the wine is made. Yes, he is thrifty. He saves money, too. The aggregated wealth. of thirty million, poor, degraded, bare* footed, peasants makes France rich. The ignorance of the French farmer is appalling. I never saw a newspaper in a Frenoh farm village; Their wants are no more than the wants of a horse. The Frenoh- • man eats the coarsest food; about the same as his horse. He will. eat. coarse bread and wine for breakfast ; soup, bread! and wine for dinner; and perhaps bread and milk for supper. He does not know;" what coffee or tea are, '-, . -J~£? An odd story, is going the rouh& of artistic society. It wonld seem that many years ago a gentleman in Yorkshire bought a fine picture by Turner, for which} 1 he paid some £500. The other day he died, and his household stuff wai an* nounced for sale by auction. A" London dealer, who remembered the faot of the Turner purchase, /heard of the sale, and sent down an agent on the chance of being able to buy the picture cheap. On his arrival the agent found that no one knew much about Tamer; the family thought nothing of it; and only one small oountry dealer war present who was at all likely to dispute the prize. A payment of cash down "squared the country dealer; the auctioneer having been warily questioned,, had refused to guarantee the picture ; and, the London man went home with a genuine and brilliant Turner that had been knocked down to him for next to nothing. No doubt we shall see it on the walls of Burlington House, and great will be the admiration of all beholders. But wfcet about the moMlityofthe transaction?