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Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 405, 4 November 1874, Page 3

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I Mr H. M. Stanley has left on his Zanzibar expedition. It is said that he will eventually have as many as 800 men at his disposal to carry out its objects. He has had two portable steel boats i,uilt in this country specially for river service. It is said that Mr Stanley regards the expedition on which he is now entering, as one attended with great personal danger. One of the members of the expedition is a magnificent dog presented to Stanley by Lady Burdett Coutts, and said to be worth £500. The annual fete of the A. O. F. took place at the Crystal Palace on August 18th, and was attended by upwards of 60,000 persons. The consumption of eatables and' drinkables seems to have been enormous. The Order is now in an exceedingly prosperous condition, the number of members admitted into it during the past year (about 50,000) largely exceeding the number admitted during any previous year. A story of unutterable ghastliness comes from Hungary. The peasants in two vilages in that land of ignorance being apprehensive that the cholera, which had ravaged their hamlets last year, might re-appear this season, applied to a local witch for advice as to the means by which the calamity might be averted. She told them to devour the hearts of those whom the cholera had carried off last year. The superstitious peasants forthwith proceeded to the church yards, dug up the bodies of the cholera victims, tore out their hearts, many of which were reeking with decomposition, and devoured them with ghoulish avidity. The proceeding was finally put a stop to by the authorities. The hag who was the cause of the fearful revel, was tried, and let off with the ridiculously light sentence of three months' imprisonment. If one is to believe certain statements which have obtained currency iv respectable journals, there is a probability of the famous Caledonian Mine finding a dangerous rival in Wales. A company is now in course of formation for working an auriferous reef discovered in Merionethshire, the precise locality not being specified. Some of the quartz from this reef is stated to have yielded, on assay, at the rate of from 6ozs to 400ozs of gold to the ton. The stripping is 24ft., and gold is declared to be plainly visible in the stone. The locality in which the reef exists is said to have been pronounced by Sir Roderick Murchison to be auriferous, and this opinion has since been confirmed by a gentleman of practical experience in the auriferous and argentiferous regions of North America. If one takes statements of this kind for what they are worth, and it is only the fact of their having obtaiaed influential journalistic currency that induces me to reproduce them here. Time will soon show whether Merionethshire will be a more permanent goldfield than Sutherlandshire or County Wicklow. A new form of " religious difficulty " appears likely to spring up in Orkney. The combined School Board of Kirkwall and St. Ola has resolved that a treatise on "the nature and effects of alcoholic beverages " shall be read in the schools under their control during the time devoted to religious instructions. The late Baron Anselm Rothschild, the head of the Vienna establishment of the world-renowned family of financiers whose name he bore, died at Vienna towards the end of July. His will has since been opened and the property he has left is estimated at £22,000,000. He leaves nothing to his daughters, -who are supposed to have received their share during his life-time, added j to which the deceased Baron always had a , strong desire tto leave aa much aa possible of ,his fortune to his male descendants. The daughters however according to the Austrian law, will be entitled to receive a "compulsory portion" of £160,000 each. One of them is still unmarriel. There i 3 said to be some probability of the daughters disputing the validity of the will, in which case there will no doubt be some prefcby pickings for the lawyers. The Baron's funeral was unostentatious even to meanness, the body being taken from the railway station in a carrier's van. The annual report of the Post Office department, has been recently published, and contains some interesting figures. The army of officials in the employ of the department now numbers 42,000. During each of the last two years their number has increased by 2000. Of the 42,000, some 10,500 are employed in the working of the telegraph lines. The experiment, tried in the Returned Letter office, of employing female clerks has proved a great success, the Controller of the office expressing his surprise at both the quantity and the excellence of the work done by the young women under his direction. The net revenue derived from the Post and Telegraph departments during the financial year "was close upon a million and a half, being an increase of 6.^ per cent, on the preceding year. The medical officer to the General Post Office, in his report on the candidates for miner appointments in the department during the past year, gives the following examples of the replies of candidates in making their written statements as to their medical histoi ries : — "Fether had a sunstroke, and I caught ib of him." "My little brother died of some funny name." "A great white cat drawed my sister's breath, and she died of I it. " " Apperplexity. " c ' Parasles. " "I caught Tiber Fever in the Hackney Road." "I had goarnders." " Burralger in the head." " Rummitanic pains." "Shortness of breadth." " Carratic fever." "Indigestion of the lungs." "Sister was consumpted ; now she's quite well again," " Sister died of compulsion." "Toncertina in the throat." " Pistoles on the back." The still j more astounding stupidity of many persona is evidenced by the fact that during the year there were posted IS, 500 letters bearing no address whatever, and containing money to the amount of £13,000. A startling incident happened at the Wells assizes. A woman named Grant was condemned to death for the murder of her illegitimate child, and heard sentence passed upon her with seeming impassability. On leaving the Court, however, she fell down in a swoon from which she could not be restored for several hours. When consciousness returned she was found to have lost her reason. She has been reprieved in consequence. The Corporation of the City of London ia becoming "disgustingly rich." Its accounts for the last financial year show that its revenue amounted to £438,600, whilst it has a cash balance in the Bank of £640,000. According to Colonel Henderson's latest report the number of habitual criminals on the Police books in England at the end of 1873 was 117,568, and this number is increasing at the enormous rate of 30,000 annually. During 1873 125 persons were killed and 2513 injured by street accidents in London. ________ ___, __.

If a bird in the hand be worth two in the bush, it" is no less true that a thorn in the bush is worth two in the hand An lowa man sued a woman for calling him a '* skunk," and the ve>dict of the jury was " Not guilty, but if she was we'd clear her." The rate of consumption of water is greater in Glasgow than any other Scotch town except Greenock. ' ' What is it it mixed with?" asks a contemporary. i "What are you going to do?" asked a man of his frieud who had been injured in a I railway accident. "I am first going in for repairs, and then for damages," was the reply. A man of the world says that " about the only use of the wife of the period is abolished by the invention of a piano-playing machine. '' An obituary notice in a Connecticut paper concludes with the announcement that " the deceased leaves two infant daughters, both girls."