MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Argus, Volume IX, Issue 690, 12 July 1900, Page 4

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

It has been deckled to arm the Volunteer Garrison Artillery throughout the United Kingdom with the L7io quick-tiring gun, and it is stated that this will be followed by the. issue of the 15-pounder B.L. field gun to the Field Artillery. A butcher's assistant bought some bottled beer from a Poole grocer, and after drinking a portion of one. bottle was taken ill. An examination disclosed three mice in the bottle, one in a state of putrefaction. At the County Court the grocer was ordered to pay the consumer £1 10s damages.—London Daily News. Tlitt tallest and biggest man living is said to be a fanner named L. Wilkins, who is arousing great interest in scientific circles in Europe, where he has cone on a trip. This giaul was born in and when he was but ten years of ate his height was six feet (says an American contemporary). He has now grown to the unnatural height of Bft 11.[in, and turns the scale at .'lu'tlb. Captain Dreyfus, who is now living at the Villa Hanterive, just outside Geneva, is described by oue of the few people who saw him on his journey as looking in very good health. His face is full and ruddy, but his hair has tinned quite white. He walks with a heavy step, and his shoulders are bent with suffering. He does not go out, but spends all his time iii the grounds of the villa. It is stated that Colonel E, Cough, who was superseded by Lord Mcthuen and sent to England, has had no charge mode against him. He has therefore applied for an enquiry, which has been promised by the War Office authorities. The gallant Colonel, for whom there is the greatest sympathy felt in military circles, has been offered an appointment in the Remount Department. This offer Colonel Gough has felt bound to refuse, holding that nothing could compensate him -for the loss of the position which he occupied with such distinction. Colonel Cough has retired from the Army, The annual sum hitherto set apart by Great Britain for secret service purposes is to be more than doubled. A Daily Mail representative has made inquiries as to the purpose for which these extra thousands are needed, and there is good reasou to believe that, to a large extent, they will be required for work which will have to be done in South Africa. The need of an adequate organisation when the war is over to deal with the secret societies which are sure to spring up, and whose one and only purpose will be to spread, as far as possible, a spirit of disloyalty, has been made obviously clear since lighting begau. Mr J. M. Bacon, who with his daughter made a lofty balloon ascent to observe a meteor shower, tells some interesting things about the sounds that reached their ..ears. At a lick-lit of 5000 ft. the ringing of horses' feet on a hard road could be heard. At 4000 ft. the splashing sound made by ducks in a pond was audible. The barking of dogs und the crowing of cocks could be heard at 7000 ft. ot 8000 ft. These sounds penetrated through a white floor of clouds which hid the earth from sight. In the perfect silence of the air around the balloon they were startled by what seemed stealthy footsteps close at hand. Investigation showed that this sound was caused by the stretching of the ropes and the yielding of the silk as the balloon continued to expand. A strange defence was set up in a case heard at a sitting of the S.M. Court at a coastal town the other day. It was a case in which " women's disabilities " were involved. A dairy farmer had contracted with a family to milk his herd, and one rather extraordinary condition of the contract was that a certain not infrequent disability was not to occur to interfere with the due carrying out of the work. However, in due time, a little event did occur, with tbe result that operations in the milking shed were disorganised. An action for breach of contract was laid, and at the hearing counsel for the defence said that if there had been a breach tbe cause was an "Actus Dei." Magistrates like precedents to guide them, but in this case only one is known, aud that occurred so loug ago that it oculd hardly be used as a guide. The proprietor of a small hostelry recently applied to the Adelaide Licensing Bench for permission to change the name of the placo to " Mafeking's Hero Hotel." The Inspector ot Police said he did not think it was right to name the hostelry after such an illustrious ofliccr, and he maintained that the name of Badcn-Powcll should not by any means be associated with such a place. "It would," he averred, " be a standing disgrace to the colony if it were allowed," and as an afterthought he added, " not only to the colouy, but to the British Army." The applicant protested, aud asked whetherthelnspectorhad the power to call his hotel a low one, whereupon the Inspector stated there was no doubt about it. The place was frequented by the scum of the city. Then the applicant naively remarked that that was his reason for changing the name. He wanted to establish for the place quite a different reputation from that which it bad hitherto borne, and in his opinion to accomplish this it was imperative that the name should be chanced. The Bench approved of the alteration. An interesting bit of early history was placed before the House in a petition from John Guard, a native of the colony, who is now 69 years of age. He is the son of Captain John Guard, who was a master of the barque Harriett in ISoO. Petitioner was born in Queen Charlotte Sound, in IS3O, be being the first European child born in the South Island. In ISM 4 the barque Harriett was cast away on the beach at Okahu, near New Plymouth, and petitioner, then a child in arms, and his mother, were taken prisoners by ths Maoris, and kept in the pa by one of the chiefs for some mouths. Eleven of the crew were killed. The others escaped with witness' father in a whalcboat. His father eventually got to Sydney in a brig. Then the matter was reported to the authorities and the warship Alligator, with 100 troops, came over to New Zealand, and after some lighting they rescued witness and bis mother. Uia father did not receive and compensation for the loss sustained, any witness now asks for a small grant of 50 acres of land at Port Underwood to support him in his old age, with Ida wile and daughter. first fight (says the Review of Reviews) was when he was Lieutenant - Colonel Kitchener, (iovernor of Suakin, the Red Sea gate of the Nile. He fortified it, and worked off some of his restless energy in worrying the unfriendly Mahdist tribes, who bitterly resented the extinction of the trade which resulted from the blockade of the Soudan. He had not been there much more than a yenbefore Osman Digua turned up at the head of a confederacy of tribes. Putting himself at the head of f>oo men, Kitchener went out in support of the friendlics, who had stormed and plundered the camp of the Muhdi's lieutenant. But before be could reach them Osman Digua had rallied his forces aud was driving the friendlics in hot haute back on Suakin. Kitchener did his best to cover their retreat, but without much success. He had twenty men killed and twenty-eight wounded of his men. In this action he received a nasty wound in the jaw, from which he soon recovered, and a nastier reproof from Lord Cromer, then Sir E. Baring, who rapped him across the knuckles for abandoning a purely defensive poll y

Many and varied have been the prescriptions fur the altainmtnt of long life, from equanimity to lemon-jume and iron) open v\ind"«" '" a Civil l,ii<t pension th. .c i■ <- I l» World says) been none more rt-nriikul'i' than that now licinc rccriininiiiilnl, on *lio 'redr r-x----p„n» prmeipli', l.y a pitiui.-l.ai .»tm-.i-can who els'ii'i* to have received the au<lIS in a fei»iit" "f practically unimpiitfd bodily vigour. Urk-iiy—nut to nay barely—stated, the secret of this Western Metliivc ah's longevity, according t-i Ids own account, is Ilia invariable habit, ol standing for one or two hours of every day with his entire body exposed to the uninterrupted rays of the sun. Personally, I believe stamp collecting mid autograph'hunting to he two of the most senseless fads in exist once. Nov is the former altogether a harmless mania if we are to believe the British Medical Journal :—"There is a disgusting disease of the hair, known as piedra (stone;, and hitherto considered to be peculiar to Columbia, in South America, where it is comparatively common anions; the fair sex. Men also suffer, though to a less extent and chiefly in their beards. Black, gritty particles form on the hair shafts; they are so hard that they rattle like pebbles (hence the name) when the comb is used. An unpleasant feature of the affection is a peculiar acid smell." This disease, it seems, is sometimes conveyed to Europe on the gum that is used on the back of stamps. This should, at all events, be a warning to those whose fad is stampcollecting. But there is something even worse connected with the craze. In London and other large cities there are men who sell packets of stamps to boys at school, and with those are often sent photos, or pseudo-photo 3. that must in plain language be termed obscene. Wo have, therefore, not only the risk of having our boys at fchool affected with piedra but with mental uncleanliness>B well.—Dr. Gordon Stables, in the Scotsman.