MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 351, 8 October 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

A man, named Stirret, has been found dead on the main street of Kalgooilie, with his head battered about. It is believed that he is the victim of a fight and that he was subsequently robbed.' Crime is on the increase in Kalgoorlie. During the past few weeks a number of persons have been robbed aud left stunned and bleeding in the streets.

Sir Henry Thompson, F.R.C.S., in the Nineteenth Century says:—A teaspoonful of sound beef extract in a breakfast cup of hot water when the brain is fatigued and the stomieh unfit for work is often the best antidote possible, invigorates tho system, and prepares if for a 1 ght meal or for a little more work as the case may be—a result far too frequently sought through the pernicious habit of obtaining temporary relief in a glass of wine or spirit.

Talking to a big gathering of Bristol merchants the other clay, Prof. Robertson, the Canadian Commissioner of Agriculture, made some exceedingly interesting statements. He said that by next spring Canada will have a canal system providing navigable channels fourteen feet in depth from Lake Superior to the oceau. These have cost, in round figures, twelve millions of money, and an additional expenditure of four hundred thousand pounds has been authorised to provide accommodation for big ships seeking cargo at Montreal. Forty-five per cent, of the population of Canada are engaged in agriculture, and the annual value of the crop products now reaches over one huudred and twenty millions sterling.

A gigantic salvage operation is about to be attempted. Last summer the Russiau iroDclad Hangondd, while engaging in manoeuvres, went ro the bottom near Wiborg, off the Finnish coast, after striking ou a hitherto unknown rock. The wreck now lies in 96ft. of water, flat on her side, the bottom being soft mud, into which the vessel has been sunk about 20ft. The Neptune Sslva£>e Association, of Stockholm, offered to raise the vessel for the sum of 950,000 roubles (£150,000), on the condition that if the attempt failed the cost of the operations to the extent of a million kroner should be reimbursed to the association. The offer has been accepted by the Russian Government, and the preliminary work has already commenced.

At Brisbane, recently, a married woman was charged with cruelty to a child, aged 5 years. According to the evidence, accused had brought the child up like a wild beast, confining it in a 100 gallon tank, and allowing its clothes to rot with filth on its back. The child|)became brutalised, and would eat ravenously of bullocks' entrails and drink blood. It would also bite ears off lambs for food when it could catch them. From long confinement in the tank the child had lost one of its legs, also its voice, and crawled on all fours like a beast. The child is the son of accused's brother's wife, who is dead, and the father resides in New South wales. Accused had four children of her own, who are treated well. The accused was fine! £25, or six months' imprisonment. The child has been com eyed to Rome, and taken charge of by the police.

The folly of fighting for heavy damages after defendant has offered a reasonable compromise, was instanced in the action of Mis Williams, widow of Dr. Williams, against a Melbourne chemist, says a Sydney paper. Dr. Williams, a notorious morphia-maniac and cocainist, was supplied by the chemist's assistant with atropine in mistake for morphia. The negligence was admitted. Dr. Williams injected a dose of one of the drugs into his arm and died—ftorn atropine poisoning, as his widow alleged. The chemist offered her £4OO in settlement of the claim. She preferred to go in for £.'looo damages. The medical evidence was not clear as to the rioctor's death, the symptoms being consistent with cocaine poisoning. The jury found for defendant with costs, and the comely lady went sadly home to think about it.

In the course of a remarkable article in The Paris, a Republican Parisian newspaper, the writer, commenting upon Mr Goschen's new naval programme, says that in three years England will be able to put in line 45 first-class ironclads and eight armoured cruisers—a total of 53 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 753,500, all new vessels with formidable armaments. In three years France will have 41 vessels, with a total tonnage of 365,000 tons. England will also have at its disposal in time of war the innumerable ships comprising its merchant navy to furnish auxiliary cruisers, transports, and crews —a point in which France is terribly inferior. In three years the French naval forces will be equal to two-fifths of the English fleet, while the united fleets of Russia, Germany, Italy and Austria would not equal the other three-fifths of the English fleet. In three years, says The Paris, thanks to the measure voted the other day after Mr Goschen's speech, England will be in a position to resist, victoriously and alone, all the naval forces of Europe coalesced against her, presuming that such a coalition could ever be possible.

Property in Melbourne is now considered to be rtcovcrin" from bedrock. "In various ways, ' says the Argus, " it is becoming apparent that if a great recovery is not near at hand, yet that the inclination to buy real property is becoming much more pronounced than it lias beeu for years past. Owners of capital have for a long time stord off, waiting for a safe bottom of value to be touched. Not only does such a basis appear at last to be found, but the heavy fall in the rate of interest upon investments that has taken place during the last few years and the dearth of securities of other kinds have relatively bettered the capital value of property. Hence it is the belief of the most reliable authorities that not only has retrogression ceased, but that with a recognition of the fact buyers are steadily coming forward. The larger exchange of country estate, the more willing disposition manifested by investors to buy city properties, the improved valuations of such investments, the perceptible advance in rents, and the desire to obtain possession of the residuum of the assets of building societies and kindred institutions, all betoken an improved situation. The sound basis of investment—viz., a fair interest return on permanent lines—is fully rccoguised."

Without any exception, every report issued by an English Consul-General abroad adds its testimony to that necessity for a revision of English trading methods wliieh has been so often demanded. In tho latest criticism, written by Sir Charles Opponheimer from Frankfort-ou-Main. the unwillingness ot English merchants to moet the wishes of German dealers is very clearly pointed out. Tho carelessness is the more deplorable, as it has occurred in matters involving a very small amouut of trouble. The Consul-General quotes one instance in which a German leathor-dealer has tried for years to get a certain shade of goods out of the English manufacturers. He has been invariable met with refusals. A large French firm have seized the obvious opportunity, and are applying for a contract to supply exactly what in wanted.

Mr Zangwill informed a corresrespondent of the Westminister Gazette that many years aco, when an obscure lad, teaching iu a Jewish school in London he sent a short poem to one of the best known of the American monthly magazines. The poem came back with the first mail. But Zangwill kept it by him, and quite recently he sent it on again to the same magazine. This time, immediately on its receipt he received a cablegram from the proprietors of the mauazine offering to buy the " world's rights," and almost immediately they issued a huge poster intimating that their next issue would contain a poem by I Zangwill. The poem was the same poem, word for word ; but iu the interim Mr Zangwill had achieved fame, aud his signature was worth monf-y.

A remarkable walking match took place at Berlin a fev/ weeks ago over a distance of about seventy English miles. There were twenty-two starters, amongst thern eipht vegetarians, and the distance had to he covered within eighteen hours. The interesting result was that the first six to arrive at the goal were vegetarians, the first fini'shins? in fourteen and a quarter hours, the second finishing in fourteen and a-half, the third in fifteen hours and a-half, and the sixth in seventeen hours and a half. The last two missed their way, and walked five miles more. All reached the jioal in splendid condition. Not till an hour after the last vegetarian arrived did the first meat-eater appear, completely exhausted. He, moreover, was the only one, the others having dropped off after thirty-five miles. The victor presented himself, at the request of several high officsrs, to the German War Minister, who took a great interest in hearing about his Vegetable diet and way of living.

There is a serious danger to which Egypt is liable, and to which it will continue to be liable until the Soudan and Upper Nile are brought under civilised rule. Dr. Robert Felkin writes in the Wide World Magazine : "Supposing the White Nile were allowed to remain in the Khalifa's hands, one could never say when it might not be diverted into the Red Sea—the old course which tranditions say it originally followed. As things are, it is quite possible to divert the river at the Sixth Cataract, and the Abyssinians have threatened to do this very thing on more than one occasion. Gordon himself admitted its possibility, and said that anyone with a ton of dynamite could easily block up the passage through which the river flows at this spot. The Nile could then he diverted though the desert until it found its way into the Red Sea. And without the Nile, where would Egypt be ?

It is not generally known (says the Postman's Gazette ") that in a corner of the General Post Office in St. Martin's le Grand there are a staff of picked men engaged in opening other people's letters. This seems somewhat curious, but as a nutter of actual fact it has led to the arrest of more than oue notorious criminal. Whenever any crime of more than ordinary importance is committed, the police, in the event of the parpetrator making good his escape, get a list of his acquaintances, which together with their addresses, is forwarded G P.O. Then the mails ,are carefully searched 'or any epistles directed to them. These are opened and copied before they go on their journey. I was in this way that the police discovered the whereabouts of the notorious Lefroy, win murdered Mr Gold on the Brighton railway, and that led to the arrest of James Canham Reid, the Southend assassin.

King Henry the Seventh had a parrot of whom he was very fond. One day this bird happened to fall from its perch into the Thames, which flowed just beneath. Whilst spending its days on this perch it used to hear the watchmen plying to and fro, and thus picked up many of their sayings and phrases. When it fell into the water the parrot called out lustily, " A boat, a boat; twenty pounds for a boat." One of tho watermen who chanced to be passin"- heard the shrill voice, and when he saw what it was that called, he recognised the king's favourite, and took it to the palace, demanding the twenty pounds that the bird had promised. Now Henry the Seventh was a very mean monarch, and would never part with a penny if he could help it. So he refused to give the money; but after much arguing' both on tho part of the king and the waterman, the former agreed to lei the parrot decide the matter. So Poll was questioned as to what should be done, and without hesitation she called out, "Give the knave a groat." The unfortunate waterman had, therefore,, no choico but to depart, without his reward, though it was rather ungrateful on the part of the parrot.

The Sydney moat inspector complains bitterly of the decisions of the Stipendiary Magistrate being subject to variation by the Department of Justice ; and that, it a man has enough political influeuce, his chances of quietly gettiug his fine reduced, unknown to the public, are very rosy indeed. He adds that any interference with the decision of a Magistrate is a monstrous outrage upon the rights of the public, and should not be tolerated for an instant. In a number of diseased meat prosecutions heavy fines were imposed, amounting in two cases to an aggregate of £2O, and in another case to £4O. It was evident that the internal organs—which, of course were removed—must have been literally rotten. Yet although the time allowed by the Magistrate had expired, three of these persons have not paid fines. Distress warrants, to enforce their recovery, were issued, but before any action could be taken, a message came from Mr Redgrave, the Chamber Magistrate at the Central, to return them, and to take no further action in the matter for the present. It was evident that some person had the matter delayed with a view to have the fines remitted.

Hypnotism is the coming horror —if it isn't here already. In the great Howard will case now being worried in a London law Court, a sou of the late Mrs Howard alleges that his mother was in a hypnotic trance when she willed her favourite doctor £30,000, and rather unfortunately for his cause, this doctor had previously published a book in which ho expressly states that ' it is possible, by

hypnotic suggestion, to obtain gifts, promissory notes, and so on, md that wills can also be influenced in this way, if the. person knew who was the experimenter, and had the utmost confidence in him,"' If the person experimented upon happens to be a beautiful young heiress engaged to the man of her choice, the Svengali who operates upon her may secure herself as well as her money; and thus we see that another large rock has been dumped upon the already undesirably rough course of true love. Hypnotism is one of those peculiar things which we ridicale to-day, respect tomorrow, and come to actually dread the day after. That there is a cause for fear seems certain, for in one year hypnotism had appeared in the evidence given in three murder trials in Europe, and it also cropped up thrice within 12 months in England—once in a case of forgery, once in a criminal outrage case, and once in a case of jewel robbery committed by a young lady of good family and high position. In America the situation is serious enough already, for in four cases the danger of hypnotic suggestion was admitted, and had its effect upon the verdicts returned.

The materials for an amusing farce were to hand lately, both Napier and Hastings having a share in it, says the Napier Telegraph. The better half of a married mau living at Hastings was expecting from oversea a near relative. The latter had been so long absent that Mrs " So and So" at Hastings did not know her relative by sieht, nor did he know her. By letter it was arranged that she should meet the visitor on the arrival of the steamer at the Glasgow wharf. To make the meeting simple Airs "So and So " sent her photograph in the letter. Now, her husband is a veritable Theodore Hook for practical joking, and without troubling how the thing would pan out, took his wife's photo out of the letter, and substituted for it that of a married lady at Napier, a friend of theirs. So the mischievous letter went off. It is of no use to explain coincidences, but they happen all the same. It turned out that the Hastings lady, through some misunderstanding, did not go to meet the steamer. Equally, of course, according to law of contrariness, the Napier married lady and her husband did. There are several gooctlookiug ladies in Napier, and this vas one of them. Her husband has not

big stock of beauty, but he is horribly jealous as a make weight. They weuo on board, and very shortly the lady found herself almost suffocated in the embraces of a tall handsome stranger. And the husband !—-it was rattle-snakes. The hubby " went for " the stranger all he knew, but the attacked party only laughed and said, "All right, old fellow, she is my Bister." "Not much, she isu't, for she has got no brother," was the reply. Seeiug that they were the centre of attraction of a large crowd, the stranger took out his pocket book and waved a photo before the amazed husband " Will that satisfy you ?" Explanations followed, and letters shown disclosed the real state of matters, and then they knew how it had happened and vengeance was swornjagainst the culprit. The quarrel ended by an invitation to dinner, after which the three adjourned to Hastings, when things were made lively for the Hastings man.