MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 372, 26 November 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Lir.RAniAX (recording the damage condition of a book just returned) : "Page 113, a hole. (Turning over left) —Page 04, another hole."

John Roberts, billiard champion, in the course of his bankruptcy examination, said his average earning with his cue were about £3,000 a year.

The Commissioners of National Education of Home are able to report in their latest Blue Book that the ' female teachers are instructed in plain cooking,' and ' have, in fact, to go through the process of cookiug themselves in turn.' Apart from the looseness of the expression employed, we should be glad to see such utilitarian views enforced in our schools.

The United States Government, says the Philadelphia Press, has just published an old maid's chart, which is fxpicted to be of the greatest value to unmarried women all over the country. It is a map, printed in colors, and shows at a glance just in what localities bachelors are thickest and in what regions spinsters arc most dense pet' square mile. Horseflesh, assflesb, and mulefiesh arenow eaten in suchlarge quantities France that the regular butchers who deal in beef and mutton are getting uneasy. In the dingy restaurants frequented by the lower orders of Rome, Florence, and Naples, they go one better. There a dish composed of the harmless wood serpent's flesh is regarded as something of a dainty.

The talk about the boy soldier in the British army has been very much overdoue. I have seen very many thousauds of them near enough to look into their eyes, and the impression which they have left is that of alert manhood, smart and intelligent, at the very age for the maximum of physical work. _ A little campaigning, a little hardening, and they are still the soldiers of and Albuera, still the infantry which live again in Napier's fiery eyes.—Conan Doyle.

The increase of juvenile criminality in Wellington was again at the Magistrate's Court on Friday last commented upon by Mr Eyre Kenny, who said he had resol cd in all future cases, where he had the power, to order floggings to be administered to,the offenders. Magistrates at Home had adopted that cofirse now, and he thought it a -ery good one. The offenders didn't get contaminated by contact with other prisoners, and (lid get something else that they remembered for a long time. Mr .Donald Fraser, of Rangitikei, who has just returnod from a month's trip te Australia, says the drought recently experienced in New South Wales has been far more pronounced than generally understood, and station owners have found it necessary to destroy the lambs to save the owes. On one station where Mr Fraser stayed the sheep were mustered and 11,500 lambs slaughtered. Mr Fraser fully anticipates that, consequent upon this, the wool crop in New South Wales will be shortened by fully six or seven million sheep.

The New Zealand Times at the close of the parliamentary sessiou commented upon the manner in which some members abuved the p:ivilege of their position. This has called forth from Mr G. Fisher, M H.R , the following characteristic communication, which our contemperary publishes : " General Assembly Library November 9,189 S. Editor hew Zealand Times,—Re your article ' Abuse of Privilege.' You cowardly sueak. If the House had been sitting I'd have warmed you. You knew"that.-Geo. Fisher."

The Daily News reproduces some interesting statistics published by the Washington Bureau of Ordnance as to the cost of annihilating the Spanish Navy. The expenditure in powder and shell was trilling. £9OOO worth of ammunition was sufficient to send Admiral Montoijo's fleet to the botti m o Manila Bay ; 5081 projectiles were fired, for the most part six and one-pounders. Admiral Cervera's ships were somewhat more expensive to destroy. £20,000 worth of powder and shells settled the fate of the flower of the Spanish Navy ; 7581 shells were fiied, varying in size from I3in projectiles to one-pounders. A curious fact is mentioned by a Lima eorrespondet of the Australian Philatelist. He writes :—" Since 1573 a mass of unclaimed correspondence has been accumulating in the Dead Letter Office at Santiago, Chili, which it is estimated exceeded 4,000,000 letters, postcards, and packages. It is extraordinary that the postal authorities have not dealt with them before and returned them to the writers, as is done in most countries. Now that the mass has become too great for storage, orders have been given to burn them wholesale, only Plicll letters as appear to contain coin or bank notes being opened. Already about 4375 dollars in large and small sums have been recovered, and over £22,000 in bank drafts out of date. The proceeds have been deposited in the Treasury to await claimants." Mr C. L. Maargoliouth, who returned to England by the s.s. Ru ahine, tells me (London correspondent of the " Post ") that the strongest impression which ho had brought back from New Zealand this time is the evident desire of the present Government to discourage, so far us possible, all additions to the New Zealand population from the outside—that is to say, immigration of every kind. He assures mo that in the course of his investigations ho has come across numerous instances of very suitable people with capital who desired to go to New Zealand being deterred from doing so by the vexations and seemingly capricious obstacles that wore placed in their way. _ He appears to bo sanguine that something may yet bo done with the Taranaki ironsand, provided that the matter is taken up in a really practical and businesslike way, and handled by the right class of people. " What causes the heat " is the heading in the Daily Mail of September 9 to the following telegram from Paris : —" M. Flammarion, the well known astronomer, made a special examination of the sun to-day at the Juvisy Observatory, and found that there was a gigantic spot upon its surface at the present time. The diameter of this spot is no less than 50,000 miles, and is altogether six times as large as the earth's surface. This spot, which is perfectly visible to the naked eye through smoked glass, appears to be causing a violent perturbation of the solar surface. Adjoining it are other spots constituting altogether a colossal group, the length of which is more than 130,000. miles. This phenomenon, M. Flammarion says, is the more remarkable from the fact that the sun is approaching the minimum in the scale of its activity. He therefore concludes that some revolution of an extraordinary character is going on, and that this causea the intense heat now prevalent." According to an American paper, The Public Health Journal, the dreaded mosquito, which is such an intolerable nuisance ill the summer mouths, more particularly along river banks and on the sea coast, can be easily abated by the use of a very simple remedy. It is i

stated that but two and a-half hours are required for the development of the fullgrown mosquito from a mere speck, its first stage. It can be instautly killed either in its infancy or at maturity by contact with minute quantities of permanganate of potash, the cheap purple salt which is used so much for disinfecting purposes. It is said that a solution of the salt containing only one part in ir>,ooo of water distributed in the mar.shes where the mosquito breeds will lender the development of their larva? impossible. To quote the journal itself : —" A handful of permanganate will oxidise a 10-acre swamp, kill its embryo insects, and keep it free from organic matter for 30 days at a cost of 25 cents. With care, a whole state may be kept free of insect pests at a small cost. An efficacious method is to scatter a fewcrystals widely apart. A single pinch of permanganate has killed all the germs in a thousand-gallon tank."