EUROPEAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 932, 27 February 1872, Page 3

EUROPEAN NEWS.

A new guillotine has lately been introduced by M. Heinrich, Execu-tioner-general of Paris. M. Heinrich, who is a very humane man, thought it was cruel to force criminals to go some distance from their cells and then climb a flight of stairs to be killed, and his new machine is so arranged that there is no platform to ascend. The condemned no sooner emerges from the prison than he is thrown down on the planks, secured, and his neck thrust under the knife, which is made heavier and broader than before. But the first application of the new machine was not wholly successful, as the victim, after being tossed under the knife, contrived to get his head loose, and to scream aloud until he was again secured, and his knife fell. An inquest was held at Oxford respecting the death of Miss Florence Matilda Pike, aged twenty-three, daughter of Mr James Pike, J. P. The young lady bad been suffering from a liver affection, and had been

accustomed to takechhu-odyiH!—smne-times as much as sixiy drops at a time in order to relieve the pain, One morning she was found dead in her bed. Dr. Jenkins said the cause of death was an overdose of chlorodyne, and said that the mischief was taking one dose after another before the effects of the first had passed off. The deceased, be said, had probably laken half-an-ounce bottle during two days.

An American writes that Dr Livingstoue has been killed in the newspapers thirty-seven times during the last seven years. Lord Rosslyn was installed as Grand Master Mason of Scotland on the 30th November. At the banquet which followed the installation, in the Freemasons' Hall at Edinburgh, about 300 members of the craft were present. Mr Skelton, an English architect, has patented a lamp of a practical and ingenious character, by which the rays of light hitherto wasted through the upper parts of an ordinary street are utilised on a similar principle to that employed in lighthouses. The effect is most singular, as the lamp shows three flames instead of one, and, in fact, gives three times as much light as at present. The cost is estimated at about five per cent per annum more than the lamps at present in use.

The Parisian ladies have resolved to give up chignons, finding them productive of headaches, throbbing of the eyes, lassitude, and giddiness, without any compensating benefit. There are 30,000 widows of soldiers in Germany—one of the consequences of the late war.

France produced silk and silk mixed goods to the value of £240,000,000 in the year previous to the war. It is stated that Mr Hepworth Dixon has entered an action against the " Pall Mall Gazette " for an alleged libel that appeared in an " Occasional Note," in that paper some time since, in which Mr Dixon's work on Mormonism was spoken of as obscene. The damages are laid at £IO,OOO. A case will shortly come on at the Court of Queen's Bench, which is likely to be watched with much interest by literary critics. The action is brought by the inventor of the article largely advertised as " The Bag of Bags," against Mr A'Beckett for stating in his publication "The Tomahawk," that the title was " very silly" very slangy, and very vulgar." The Communist refugees in London have started a paper entitled " Qui Vive," under the editorial care of M. Vermersch, formerly editor in Paris of the " Pere Duchene."

The Leeds Town Council have purchased Eoundhay Park, for the public use, at a cost of £139,000, When does ahorse eat best?—" When he hasn't a bit in his mouth;