MISCELLANEOUS.

Waikato Times, Volume VI, Issue 311, 12 May 1874, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Neio York Ttmet give the following account of tlie reception at "Washington on New Year's Day : — Fmt tho diplomatist* assemble!, the earliest to arrive being Admiral Polo, tho Spanish Minister, "in a gorgeous state dress weighed down with gold bullion " ; then Sir Edward Thornton, " another mass of moving gold lace and bullion " ; then the Austrian Minister, attended with iv secretary of legation, dre=?ed in a Hungarian costume "that wou'd enable him to make his fortune on any stage." At half-past 11 came the Judges of the Supremo Court and the members of Congress. As the former pass up to the President " they shake his hand in a melancholy way, exchange a word with tho ladies," and then "join the diplomats in the parlour." The Congresemen follow. An exchange of commonplaces ensues, and the latter pass out to their carriages and are whirled away. " Time now, 12 p.m." The blaze of army and navy uniforms appears. The officers come in squads. " General Sherman looked very well. A bland smile stole across his item countenance shaded by a gracefully plumed chapeau." Then Admiral Porter appeared upon the scene heading the representatives of the navy, many of them very sea-lions in personal appearance. The scene shifts, and the first assistants of the Cabinet officers »i.d the chiefs of the Bureaux arrive. "The crowd now yawn for the first time. Time 12.45 p.m." Then follows a procession of veteran soldiers, and then "it it the ' sovereign's ' tnrn." Tho policemen stand away from the gates, and the people come crowding up the walks until they bank up in a mass that has to wait its tin a in the compact file which is making its way into the house. " The crowd is composed composed of every grade of Washington society The coloured friend and brother who has left his whitewash-brush outside jostles the lavender gloved exquisite, portly cisy-going merchaats, coarse-looking women, beautiful women, country visitors, disappointed patiiots in search of office, pert chihlieu, newsboys — every type of Washington humanity is here." Conversation with the President is impossible. This is illustrated by the fate of a "red- faced man with a conliding waistcoat," who advances smilingly to the President, and is in the act of taying, "My name is Johnson. I met you out at Seneca in Wisconsin," when lomebody hits him in th» small of the back, aud he js sent beyond the Chief Magistrate with such a velocity that before he can explode an oath he is in the parlour. At 2 o'clock the Piesident retired, "with a very black ghve upon his hand ;" the doors were closed, and tbe show was over." ► From the Newspaper Press Directory for 1874 we extract the following on the present position of the newspaper pi ess :— " There are now published in the United Kingdom 1,585 newspapers, distributed as follows : — England, London, 314$ Provinces, 915— total England, 1,229 ; Wales, 58 ; Scotland, 149: Ireland, 331 j Brilish Isles, 18. • f these, there are 95 daily papers published in England, 2 in Wales. 14 in Scotland, 17 in Ireland, and 2 in British Isles. On reference to the edition of this useful Directory for 1854, we find the following interesting fact*— viz., that in that year there were published in the United Kingdom 624 journals ; of these 20 were issued daily— viz., 16 in England, lin Scotland, and 3in Ireland ; bat in 1574 there are now established and circulated 1,585 papers, of which no less than 10 are issued daily, showing that the Press of the country has very greatly extended during the last 20 yeais, and more epecially so in daily papers, the daily issues standing 130 against 20 in 1854 The magazines now in course of publication, including the Quarterly .Reviews, number 339, of which 242 are of a decidedly religious character, representing the Church of England, Wesleyans, Methodists, Baptists, Independents, and other Christian communities." Mr Everard P. Corbet, writing on the Ist January from Howick, Pieter Maiitzburg, Natal, gives the following description of a chase after one of the Caffre rebels :—": — " I told you in my last I was off to Natal. There had been an insurrection among the Caffres, and I went down to try to put a few of them out of the way ; and have just returned. The chief rebel, named Elanger-bay-laylar (pronounced as written), shot three Jwhite men when they Hrst went out to take him, and then bolted over the mountains with his tribe aud cattle. We wer3 ordered to follow, and, after a very atdons march of about three weeks, ran him into another chief 'a country, who let him fall by treachery into the hands of the mounted police They gave him up to us, .and we have just brought him down and put him into the piison *\t Pieter Mantzburg Our horses were very tned, as we had an immense deal of climbing over a country never before trie! by wh}te, people, and uninhabited, probably, except by a few bushmtn. One morning, before breakfast, we went up a a hill of 4,000 ft., and descended the same day, the ranges we were in running to the height of ll,(iOOft above the sea levol. One night we had snow, and, as our our provisions fell short, we had to live on very thin beef (taken from the rebels), which we drove with us. We had about 1,500 Caffres, and there were about SO white men, so a good deal of beef was got through. At the end of the day's march, when we encamped for the night, the oxen would re shot, and, when skinned, we would cook them as best we could, generally stripping off flesh and laying it on the ashes. If was all right when there was wood, but sometimes we could not find any, so we had to wait till breakfast time. My Christmas Day was the plainest I ever spent ; it was wet and the beef was bad — not an ounce of fat in the whole ox. We had neither bread nor biscuit, only one teaspoonful of ground coffee for the day's rations, and no grog. On New Year's Day we were just in Natal, half-way down a chain of mountains which form the watershed of this part of South Africa. I was very well the whole time, in spite of wet and cold, and altogether enjoyed the trin, as the troop I was in contained some very good fellows." Congress is bard puzzled to reduce the votes fovthe public expenditure within the public income, so as to avoid tho imposition of new taxes. The New Ycrk Times states that in a debate on the Army Appropriation Bill in the House of Representatives on the sth of Febrnary a discussion arose upon the subject of clothes. It appears that there is a large lot of uniforms of old style on hand, which the army authorities no not intend to use. They had accordingly asked for a large appropriation for new uniforms. Mr Wheeler, however, thought that in these pinching days it was a very good plan for the army, as well as for other people, to wear old clothes and he thought that Shack Nasty Jim and his brother Modocs would excuse tho soldiers of the army if they did not appear upon the plains with skirts lined with sky blue, with hats of mohair braid and yellow metal trimmings, and red and white and crimsou pompons nnd balls," and that the Republic would receive no detriment if the officers should neglect the order which rum — " That the chapeau should be worn with the front beak turned slightly to tho left, so as to show tho ornament " The House struck out $100,000 from the appropriation for new clothing. The Brussels correspondent of the Pall Mall Ovzelte writes : — The Archbishop of Malines, Primate of Belgium, has published a pastoral, communicating the Pope's last Encyclical, and denouncing the Freemasons as the anthori of all the evils afflicting mankind and tho strength of the two forces which oppress the Church, Crosarism and pretended Liberalism. Tho Freemasons of tho high grades, says his Grace, conceal from those of the lower degrees the true purpose of masonry, and make only dupes of them, but their acts reveal it to those who will open their eyes. Masonry is tho enemy of the Church, denies Divine revelation, and rejects all faith in the Word of God. It lives in peace with Christianity on the condition of seeing Christianity deny its divinity. Whoever becomes a member of a lodge affiliates himself to a society which blasphemes the divinity of Christ and tbe great work for which he died tho Universal Church. It is, therefore, not astonishing that tbe Church excommunicates all those who becomo Freemasons. His Grace exhorts N. T. C. F. (those letters, notwithstanding their somewhat Masonic look, signifying simply nos ires chers freresj to make known these truths to all, so that they may remain faithful to the Catholic Church. The Paris Figaro relates the following story : — " An American, named Charles Bnggs, blew out his brains at the Hotel de Lille on Monday. In 1867, Mr Briggs married, at Washington, a young woman named Susannah Hawnght, but the union proved unsatisfn^ory, a divorce was agreed upon and obtained. A few months later Mrs Briggs became the wife of aMr Gunnel. Her first husband's love was revived by this event, and he sought vainly t:> obtain an interview with hn former wife. His pursuit of her extended over five years, ajid in December last he followed her to Paii*. On Sunday he met her with her present husband at the door of the Vanetes Theatre, and a violent altercation ensued. Ho returned to his lodgings, and at 2in the morning ho shot himself, leaving a letter which detailed the above circumstances. A French journal notices, as a recent occurrence, a horrible parody of William Tell's great "feat performed by a weaver «t Paint Etienne, who enjoys a reputation in the neighborhood as an excellent marksman. In order to give proof of his skill, be took his gun and went into the gnrden with his son, a lad twelve years of age. Here ho desired his son to plnce a potato on his head, and to stand about fifteen paces oft". Tho son obeyed, the father fired, and tho potato was cleft in two. The neighbors present at this shocking performance shook their heads dubiously. Ho therefore repented the experiment, and although the boy was obliged this time to hold a lantern owing to the increasing darkness, the father fortunately bit tbe mark. Tbe spectators went home delighted, but the police being informed of tho matter, took a different view of it, and the modern Tell is in custody. Among the cargo sayed from the steamer Dhoolia, wrecked in the Bed Sea, arid subsequently sold, was a box bearing no particular specification, but which has made a fortune for its purchasor, as it contained £10,000 worth of postage ■tamps for India. Some excitement was recently caused in New Orleans by a man walking into the Senate Chamber of the Louisiana Legislature while that body was in sesaion with a kog of gunpowder in his arm*. He set it do« non the floor, struck a matoht and endeavoured to explode it, but was fortunately captured in timo to prevent the disaster. He had become crazy at the failure of Governor Kellogß to right some of his wrongs, and intended to revenge himielf by annihilating the entire Government.