General News.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5094, 15 May 1885, Page 2

General News.

Manbatten Island is already like London—"a province covered with houses" —but its population is far more concen> trated. While London has but 170,000 persons to the square mile in its most densely settled districts, New York has 290,000. London has seven, inhabitants per house ; New York has 25. Id London there is an average of forty nine people to an acre ; in New York there are in certain sections from 300 to 75.0 persons to the acre. London, with less than 4,000,000 people covers 72,632 acres; New York, with about one third of the same population, is confined to 12,570 acres, or one sixth the area. The English metropolis has 486.236 houses ; New York has less than 103,000.

Discussing the chanoes of serious dam* age from the shells of a hostile cruiser, the Melbourne Argu9 writes :—" It is good from the military as well as Jhe sani-> tary standpoint that no city is more straggling in itsformation than Melbourne, that the streets are wide, that parks and gardens and private grounds abound. Our residences are spread skirmising fashion over many a square mile of bill and dale, acd if closely packed cities such as Paris and Strasburg escaped with com* paratively little hurt from the sustained fire of the batteries which were constantly fed by railways in their rear, oar widespread capital might hope for still better luck when the attack from the comparatively easily exhausted magazines of one or two cruisers. The Communists in their madness did far more damage to Paris than the German foe. Indeed, when Yon Moltke entered the city it was intact. Tho majority of the shells which had fallen in its bounds had" buried themselves in the ground and had exploded harmlessly, and when one crashed through a house it did not follow that the inmates were hurt. No shells probably contain explosives so powerful as the machines used by the dynamitards in London, and even then, whan the charge is specially placed so that it may do the maximum of mischief, there is more fright than injury. To sum up the situation, the mission of artillery is to clear a road or to wreck • building, but a man of-war has neither the guns nor the stores for the destruction of any large city-—more especially « straggling city such as Melbourne, whioh can be exposed only to a vertical fire." It S6ema that there are to be found in Paris some morphiue parties of the small* and early kind in the higher couches sociales. Those invited to such little gatherings are known to the hostess as being in the habit of resisting ills to which flesh is heir by subcutaneous injections of the narcotic above named. The injection is perforrr^d with a little instrument, the manufacture of which is passing from the surgical instrument maker to the jeweller, and ts becoming an object dart. Guests and the lady of the house sit in,a circle, and listen to a co a cert in a distant room. They describe their sensations to each other. Novices derive peculiar beiuty from the morphinizing process. la many of the new portraits exhibited traces of morphine are to bo seen in the general morbidezsa of the faces and the brownish circles that surround eyes which are, at once brilliant and softly languishing. Do not go back to your old home after many years' absence, expecting to be made happy. For if ever you happened to commit an indiscretion in your boyhood or manhood days, people will remember nothing but that, and most of them will remind you of it.

Ths Sirdar Dilar Jung, Political Secretary to the Hyderbad GofSmPient, writes to the. Bombay Gazette to express the repugnance felt towards Busssia br the native states of India. They cannot the Sirdar asserts, consent to exchange the justice and civilisation of Eogland for the corruption and despotism which characterise the rule of Russia; and he urges the British Government to employ the armies of the native States in the defence against aggression,