General News.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5073, 18 April 1885, Page 3

General News.

K)ne morning lately twenty-four large Bramapootra fowls were found! by Mr F. A. Krnll, of Wellington, dead in bis fowlhouse. As the place was quite secured, and also from the wounds of the birds, it is believed that , the marauder rauat hare been either a weasel or a ferret. According to Professor Young, the central portion of the sun is probably for tho most part a mass of heated gases, the photosphere is a shell of luminous clouds, the chromosphere is composed mainly of ■condenaible gases, and what constitutes the corona is entirely unknown. The Skye crofters have taken poseessionof several large sheep farms which were stolen from their common land, and which had been their heritage from timo immemorial. In several cases tbey have removed the fences erected on the new farms, and have driven their own sheep and cattle to feed on the disputed properties. A correspondent writes to Truth: — ".The other day I entered the billiardroom of, a restaurant not a hundred miles from Temple Bar. Presently a girl of about twenty came in ; she was well but not showily dressed, and appeared to be « lady. She sat down on one of tho benches, lighted a cigar, and entcrsd into c&versation with the men beside her. Their alarm was comic in the extreme; they fidgetted uneasily, nnd answered in monosyllables, and one finally bolted from the room. With a smile of disdain she buttonholed the marker, asked him several questions which showed him'that sho thoroughly understood the game, and, Having elicited from him that there was a pool in the evening, announced that Bhe meant to loot in I At this treat the spectators' faces deepened into, the greatest horror, but the fair stranger was perfectly unmoved. When she had finished her cigar she Went away, and we all breathed more freely. lam bound to say that her behavier was, if unorthodox, strictly proper. She copied in every way the manners of the sterner sex, and obviously wished to be treated as a man, and not as a woman. Is this an extraordinary result of the higher education of woman ? " It certainly appears that the emancipation of the weaker sesc is advancing by leaps and fconnds. 1 Over 1300' wolves were destroyed throughout France in 1883, and the rewards amounted to 103,720fr. In nine eases the wolves attacked persons, and of the whole number 495 were cubs. , An irresistible claim iB made in The Times on behalf of General Gordon's heirs. Wbe« he threw up bis Congo commission to go to the Soudan he relinquished a settlement of £7000 upon his heirs which had been made by, \he King of the Belgians,' and it is suggested that Parlia* ment should make good this loss. General Gordon certainly had someone in view whom he wished to benefit by the settlement, for one of the correspondents mysteriously says,that the Government, if they wish to recognise any obligations of this kind, " have only to carry out the provisions of the will which General Gordon made the night before he left London for Brussels." In Northern Siberia, if a young native desires to marry, he goes to the father, of the girl of his choice, and a price is agreed upon, one-half of which is paid down. The prospective son-in-law at once takes up his residence with the.family of his lady-love, and resides with them a year. If at the end of a year he still desires to marry the girl he c»n pay the other half, and they are marrifd on the next vißit of the priest. If he does not want to marry her be need no.t, and simply loses the half he paid at tho start;