AMERICAN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 203, 21 December 1871, Page 6

AMERICAN NOTES.

A San "Francisco paper has the fol-lowing-.--Queen Victoria has mad« provision for any failure in the direct succession of tho throne, by contributing 500 guineas to the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, for which sum she is entitled to have any of her family taken care of.

An Englishman has given the " Battle of Dorking " a careful reading. Like Rip Van Winkle, he doubts, but unlike old Hip, he doubts not himself at all. He writes a long letter to a Richmond paper, from which we extract the following. It is as good as the " Saturday Review's " criticism on Mark Twain: "The papers are all talking about the battle at this place, in which the Prussians gained a great victory over us. I assure you it is a blAotod hoiiA — a . bloody canard from beginning to end. I've been in Dorking all my life, and I ought to know, you know. You must forgive my English bluntness, but I fear you newspaper people, like the balance of the world are much given to lying."

The St. Paul " Pioneer " takes the " Despatch " of the same city to task for its hurriedly prepared head lines, in which it was announced — " Despatch " reporter on the grounds — Killing an Incendiary," and adds that they have sent a man to Chicago with instructions not to be beaten if he has to kill two incendiaries. This arouses the dormant energy of the " Despatch " prop rietors, who state that they have telegraphed to the city for their reporter to slay four men, including the " Pioneer " correspondent.

John GHlvan, of Decutar, was helping to get a safe out of the ruins on South Water Street, near the Union Depot. The men had got the safe nearly up on the sidewalk, when it slipped back on them. A man came along and asked what was the matter with the safe, and one of them said it had slipped off the -rollers and gone back on them. He said, " Get out of my way," and seizing on it like Samson, lifted it up, walked with it ten or twelre feet, and threw it on the wagon. He caught it on the bottom edges, raised it up with the force levered against his breast, and walked off with it. The proprietor said it weighed 2,464 pounds. The man then offered to bet $500 that he would lift and carry 3,000 pounds. He is about five feettenor eleven inches biqjh, weighs perhaps 260 pounds, built like a Hercules, and about 38 years old. He was a boss bricklayer in Macon.

At Belleville, New Jersey, adisturbance occurred one Sunday evening between some Chinese employed in the laundry business in that place, and a squad of laborers. The Chinese fired on their assailants and one of the rioting party was apprehended. A Chinese boy was dangerou ly wounded. The measures taken by the United States for the suppression of the Ku Klux Klan have resulted in several conflicts between that organisation and the Government troops. It is expected that President Grant will declare martial law throughout the whole of the Southern States.

Murdera are co frequent occurrences in the city of Philadelphia, that the " Press," noticing the death of one of the victims, prefaces it with the remark that, '•' In the midst so of many horrors, an event such as the death of "Willim Barmweil will excite but little attention."

There is in the town of Meridian, Connecticut, (says the Scientific American) a Leffell double turbine wheel, running under 240-feet fall, and driv-

ing a manufactory. It uses only about one-half of a squaie inch of water, and runs at the marvellous speed of 3000 revolutions per minute, or fifty revolutions per second, which is by far the most rapid rate of motion ever applied to a wheel in America. The wheel at Meridian is of the most dimi nutive . size, scarcely exceeding in dimensions the old-fashioned <( turnip " watches which our grandfathers used to carry in their capacious vest pockets. The complete success of this wheel has attracted much attention, and affords further evidence of the wide range of adaptability of the Leffell turbine.