NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 199, 23 November 1871, Page 6

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

The Chicago " Tribune " is responsible for the following : The bonework of a whale recently stranded on the beach at San Fraucisco is being wired together for exhibition. The owners secured the services of the Academy of Sciences to get the bones in their proper places, but at the end of the first day the members were paid off and discharged. It has since transpired that they got the creature' 3 head on the wrong end, and rejected several sections of the backbone, claiming that the animal had more vertebras than the books allowed him.

During the last five centuries France has been engaged as follows in both civil and foreign wars : In the fourteenth, 43 years (5 of civil and 38 of foreign war) ; in the fifteenth, 71 years (17 of civil and 53 of foreign war) ; in the sixteenth, 85 years (33 of civil and 52 of foreign war) ; in the seventeenth, 69 years (17 of civil and 52 of foreign war) ; in the eighteenth, 58 years (7 of civil and 51 of foreign war) ,- total, 32G years of war, during which time 184 great battles were fought.

Visitors to Paris at the present time- are warned against purchasing little knobs of brown bread, mounted in picture frames or imbedded in small metallic globes, to be used as paper weights. These knobs of brown bread are. exposed for sale on the Boulevards as specimens of the food which the inhabitants of Paris were compelled to eat during the seige, and these plain little globes of " pain de seige" are eagerly purchased as mementoos of that eventful period. Immediately after the first seige was over, it is stated, the intelligent bakers of Paris set about supplying the demand of the famous black bread, and as the demand has not yet fallen off, the trade in spurious loaves, it is said, has been going on very briskly ever since. Visitors are also cautioned against buying " bullets that have killed insurgents," and a young scapegrace of Paris recently confessed that his means of living were derived from selling souvenirs of the seige;- which he manufactured by firing bullets out of a horse pistfbl against a stone wall, and then disposing of them at twentyfive cents a piece. The French have a story that Sir Walter Scott >»nee offered his yonngest daughter her choice between a dowry of 100,000 francs or Quentin Durward. She asked to read the MS., took it surreptitiously to a publisher, found that he would give her 120,000 francs, and dutifully and meekly told her father that she would rather have the MS., than the money. Sir Walter was deeply touched by this mark of filial devotion. Tbe Piiris journal which tells the story says that a French girl would never have done such a thing as that. She would simply have taken the 100,000 francs, and — she would have found some way to have gotten the romance also.

The" Birmingham Liberal Association has ad dressed* a circular to the Liberal members for Parliamentary boroughs, on the subject of reform in the House of Lords, The circular says : "We believe that the time has arrived when the hereditary principle w-hich neither ensures wisdom in the individual nor patriotism in the body, must be abolished; when the second Chamber must be brought into union with popular sympathies, and when the undoubted right of the House of Commons to carry the will of the people into action over all opposing interests and authorities must be secured.

The once famous Fenian Head Centre, James Stephens, has arrived in New York. He intends to establish himseif in the wine business.

The London " Telegraph. " says, editorially, that there is no longer much room to doubt than to the misfortune of the deficient harvest will be added the disaster of the cattle plague. The foot ani mouth disease is spreading among

the horned stock of the kingdom with deplorable rapidity. Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire are the three English counties chiefly affected. It has' spread as far north as Perthshire. To give a clearer idea of the ravages in one county, there is the city of Preston, where, up to Saturday last, 4,870 cattle were attacked. It has already spread over 73 British counties, and is also spreading in Ireland. The number of animals suffering is estimated at 25,000, but the pest involves sheep and swine. Besides this disease, which attracts attention, the p'leuro-neumonia has appeared — this deadly malady ravaging herds in 31 counties of England and 13 of Scotland, and' doing a certain amount of damage in Ireland.

The subjoined we copy from the Plumas County " National " :— Quite a large quantity of hone) is found in the woods near La Porte, and bee hunting is becoming a favourite pastime. I Since the introduction of bees in this State, our immense forests are gradually being colonised by these industrious honey manufacturers, and such is the mildness, as well as the geniality of our climate, that they will multiply rapidly, and our land before long, like that of ancient Canaan, will be overflowing with honey, if not with milk. The long anticipated collision between the United States authorities and the Mormons has occurred. - Referring to the arrest of Brigham Young, the " News of the World " makes the following remarks :—": — " Biigham Young has continued fooling with the institution of polygamy until at last it has got him into trouble. The leader of the Latter Day Saints finds himself a prisonei 1 , charged with concubinage, and in charge of a United States Marshall. Utah has laws forbidding this kind of business, but Brigham and his polygamists have set the law at defiance, on the ground that it should be made subservient to religious beliefs. Why the system of concubinage has been allowed to exist in Utah, those in authority, whose duty it is to execute the laws, alone can tell. One of the reasons assigned is that the Mormons have, until recently, .been isolated from civilisation, and that, under the circumstances, the easiest way to get along with the evil was to let it alone. "We now find polygamy, • arul the evils it entails, deeply rooted in the very heart of our country, with justice crying aloud 'for the removal of the foul stain upon our nation. If Brigham Young should be convicted on the charge of 'lewdly and lasciviously cohabiting with sixteen- different woraeu,' he will .probably receive the penalty prescribed by statute: 'imprisonment not over ten years nor less than six months, and a fine of not over lOOOdols. nor less than lOOdols." A conviction of the head Saint will cause a general scatter ing among the balance of the Mormons. With all there is activity with the soldiers — preparing for an emergency."

The largest quartz mill in the world is in course of erection. It will be 180 feet in length by 120 in width, and its height from the foundation to the top of the roof will be 75 feet. It will contain 60 stamps, weighing 9401b5. each, and will be capable of crushing from 180 to 200 tons of ore per day. The stamps will each fall 90 times per minute, and the number of revolutions at which the amalgamating pans are to run is 95. The pans and all the machinery in the mill will be of the latest and most approved style. It is intended that the mill shall be not only the largest but the best in the world — the model mill of the universe.

At the burial of Wal+er Montgomery, his wife knelt over his grave and dropped therein the orange flowers worn at her wedding two days before.

Mr. Richard Bentley, the well-known publisher, died on the' I Oth of September, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. From the 1 840 his name has been identified with the best talent in the literary world. He was associated in this way with Dickens, Lord Lytton, Captain Marryatt, Samuel Lover, Dr. Maguire (Father Prout), Eev. E. H. Barham (Ingoldsby), Fenimore Cooper, Prescott, Sam Slick, and many others. He will also be remembered as the founder, in conjuction with Charles Dickens, of •'•Bentley's Miscellany."

The population of G-reat Britain keeps on increasing at the rate of 1173 per day, of which number it is calculated 468 emigrate and 705 remain in in the land of their birth.

Tbe armies and navies of Europe are said to contain at present 5,164,300 men, 512,394 horses, 10,224 old guns, and 800 mitrailleuses. The total cost of boring the Mount Cenis Tunnel amounts to 13,000,000 dols., of-^which France pays 9,000,000 dols.

The following mot is making the rounds of the European papers : — When, at the peace preliminaries, the sum of milliards — which now seem to sit so lightly on France — was mentioned, J ules Favre, not exactly bursting into tears as before, yet appeared utterly speechless with horror. When he had recovered from his paroxysm, all he could say was that "even .if one were to oount from the time of Christ till now, one could not manage to count such an enormous sum." Upon which Bismark replied, with a smile, " Don't let that, distress you. I have thought of that, and therefore brought this gentleman," pointing to. Bieichroder, the Jewish -banker, " with me. He counts from the creation of the world."