MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 372, 17 December 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Unsuccessful gold-seekers, returning to Vancuver from Klondyho, state that the Ashcroft Trail is strewn with skoletons and dying men. Sir Arthur Curtis, tho missing baronet, was said to have oammittod suicide on the trail from want, disappointment, and illness. Three Chinamen were reeeived into the Baptist Church by public immersion at Christehuroh on Sunday last, in the presence of a crowded congregation.

Lord Russell of Killwen, years before he took silk, was sitting in court, when another barrister, leaning across tho benches during the hearing ot a trial for bigamy, whispered, " Russell, what's tho extreme penalty for bigamy ?" " Two mothers in-law," repliod Russell, without hesitation.

The manufacture of " ancient " articles to meet tho demands of curiosity hunters appears to be still carried ou. Two cabloads of counterfeit antique silver are said to have been seized at a home in London on behalf of the Goldsmith's Company, who inflicted fines amounting to £3OOO. The company have the power inflict a fine of £lO for eaoh forgod hallmark.

Three centuries ago exactly Sir Francis Drake brought fresh water from Dartmoor to Plymouth by a channel 24 miles long. A new reservoir, with a capacity of 650,000 gallons, has just been completed, to take the place of the original basin at Burratou, at a cost of £175,000. A "Fyshyuge Feast" in remembrance of the benefit conforred by Sir Frauois has beeu held yearly at Burraton sinoe 1598.

" One child in eight attending Melbourne hospitals dies from acute milk-poi«oning," was the remarkable statement made to the Chief Secretary of Victoria. Out of 1000 infantile deaths, 1000, wo are told, are due to this class of disease. In other words, the most of those thousand deaths are preventable. They ooeur because the milk given in summer months to the children is often too stale and contaminated.

Female drunkards in New York (says a contemporary) aro now treated something after the mannor of lunatics. When it is conclusively proved that a woman indulges inordinately in alcohol, opium, or any other intoxicant, she shall, by logal process, bo kept iu a luuatic asylum for twelve months. If this be true, all wo have to say is that men drunkards should be similarly dealt with. Why discriminate between the sexes?

For the future (says the New Zealand Times) all tobacso, cigars and cigarettes seized'by the Customs Department, and failing to biing the upset price of the duty at auction are to be hundoa over to tho local charitable institutions, viz., the asylums, hospitals, old men's homos, tho latter to bo given tho preference. As the duty on tobacco is only 3s Gd per lb, it is not likely to go a-beg-ging at that price, especially when offered for sale publicly. There is therefore very little probability of tho Boothing weed being liberally distributed in the manner provided.

A nesv machine for making bread from raw wheat will soon he put in operation iu the largo cities of the United States. This machine will be the most revolutionary in its effects on Several industries. The wheat is poured into the machine, soaked in water converted into pulp, and after the retuse is removed it is formed into loaves and conveyed by rollers iuto an ovtn and baked. A few ordinary workmen operating the niachins will make bread enough for a large city, and, according to experts, the bread is purer and more wholesome than when baked by the present process. It is said that bread cau be produced as cheap as flour to day.

People in the interior of New South Wales find flics the bane of thenlives in the summer time, and are often heard in their annoyance to ask whether there is any place on the earth where these insects cease from troubling. There appears to be such a place, according to an affidavit read in one of the Sydney courts on a motion for the attachment of a person for non-payment of divorce costs. The party proceeded against saii that it was a case of persecution, and the opposing solicitor had told him that he was bent on putting him "where the flics would not get at him." " Where is that? I would, like to know,' queried|Mr Justice Simpson. "In Darhogburst Gaol," replied counsel " they have screens th^re.

We wonder if farmers have ever counted up what they save'by thoroughly dipping their sheep ? It is quite conceivable that infested sheep meau a loss to their owners of from 3d to 2d per head. It is quite within the murk to conceive this depreciation to involve the eventual locs of a few pounds iu condition, also a pound or more of wool, and last, but not least, a-lower price for the clip. To use a perfectly safe figure, we will put it thus: That if our flocks were left entirely to the mercy of the peste it is certain they would return on a» average at least 2s per head less per annum than if they were clean. But it is preferable to underestimate the loss, iu order to render the contention indisputable, aud wc fix the loss at Is per head. Thus dipping sheep saves their owners from au annual loss of Is per head.

Two ladies and a gentleman were in a carriage on a Russian railway the other day (say.s the ''11011)0 News") when a thickly-veiled lady, carrying a strikingly beautiful bouquet of roses, entered the carriage. As soon as the train had started she asked the gentleman to close the window, an;l then began* walking up aud down the cirriagc. She stumbled. The roses fell. The gentleman gallantly assisted her to collect them. She was profuse in her thanks, and pressed him to accept two or three of them, while she cave some to his two companions. The travellers know no more until they woke up in Berlin, and found that they had all been impudently robbed. The roses were drugged. The police tracked the veiled lady, and found "her" to be a man, and it has been discovered that he has accumulated a neat little fortune as leader of a gang of " railway specialists."

To remove any alarm which may have arisen in the minds of intending travellers from New Zealand and elsewhere by the Messageries steamers as to their position iu tho event of a conflict between England and France, the general manager of the company in Australasia has forwarded a circular to the agents in the different colonies on tho subject. The circular points out that Article IX of the Anglo-French Postal Convcnt'on of 1890, adhered to by New South Wales, and published in the New South Wales "Ca/.ctte" of March 13, 1895 reads as follows:—"In case of war between the two nations, the packets of the two administrations shall continue their navigation without impediment or molestation, until a notification is made on the part of cither of the two Governments of the discontinuance of postal communication, in which case they shall be permitted to return freely aud under special protection to their respective ports."

The Paris ' Reporter' says : —' A Cynthiana man went home to supper the other night and found his wife standing on her head wedged in between the bed and the wall in such a way that she could not move. The poor woman was nearly dead, and without coaxiug promised her husband after she was restored that she would never again try ' summersets ' to reduce her fatness. She paid a New York firm two dollars for a receipt for obesity. At last reports she was as fat as ever.

After a cavalry horse has been in sorvico for six montba he knows, it is said every buglo call, and when in action partakes of the hopes and fears of the conflict just as his master does. When the troopors begin to cheer and tho sabres to flash he will often scream out, and his eyes blaze and are fixed steadily in front. If a volley comes and he is unhurt, he lowers his "head and tosses it right and left, and then take a sudden breath for the crash. If charging infantry, he will thunder straight at a man and knook him down ; if against a lino of horsemen, he will lift his head and front legs as if going over a fenco, The horse that losses his rider, and is unwounded himself, will continue to run with hia set of fours, until some movement throws him out. • Then he goes galloping hero and there, neighing with fear and alarm, but will not leave the field. If possible, he would avoid tho dead and wounded, and in many cases leap over them. When he comes upon three or four other riderless horses, they " f r ill in," and keep together a 9 if for mutual protection, and the "rally" of tho buglo may bring tho whole of them into tho ranks in a body. A horse which has passed through a battla unwounded is frotful aud nervous for the next three or four days. His first battle is also the making or the unmaking of him as a war horse. If the nervous tension has beeu too groat, he will become a bolter iu the face of danger. If the test' has uot been beyond him, he will go into the next fight with his head held high and flecks of foam blowing from his mouth as ho thunders over the ground.