MISCELLANEOUS.

Waikato Times, Volume VI, Issue 329, 23 June 1874, Page 2

MISCELLANEOUS.

A trial of a special express train with Pullman's sleeping: car nttnehed, made on the Midland railway on March 17 r demonstrated the astounding fact that trains can be runwitb safety at the rate of seventy-fivo miles an hour. The trail* was timed very fast to see if the sleeping cars shook about y. nnd the trial was from Derby to London, St Pancras. Theengine had the steam brake, and the cars and tender Had the new air brake which is now fitted to all Midland trains. The car brake will stop a heavy express of twenty-five carriages running seventy-five miles an hour, in 290 yards. Tho distance from Derby to London i? 129 miles. It is aIL on the block system, and all trains were shunted for this special express. Tho exact distance of 129 miles was run in 142 minutes, but this does not show the actual speed, as three stops nnd three starts took six minutes, and speed was re* rluced to twenty-five miles an hour over thirteen junctions, which each took a good minute — leaving the time as 123: minutes for 129 miles, which averages over a mile ft minute all the way. In one case on a level piece of line seventeen miles was run in 13tnins 18secs, which averages apout seventyfive miles an hour, and twenty miles was run in 19mins. The cars ran as steady as tables at seventy-five miles an hour.. The driving wheels of the engines wore 6ft B£in. Tho death is announced of Sir Francis Pettit Smith, the introducer of tho screw for the propulsion of vessels. Sir F.Smith, who was born in 1808, commenced life as a grazing farmer. His attention during his early years was largely given to the construction of models of small boats, for which he designed different modes of propulsion. One of thes©models gave such promise of success that Mr Smith, in 1836y took out a patent for his invention— a screw revolving beneath the water at the stern of the vessels. It is computed that tho total cost of vessels in her Majesty's navy and the merchant service in Britain which have been fitted with the screw greatly exceeds at the present £120,000,000, with a saving to the country of several millions sterling. Mr Smith's experiments, however ruined him ; and his only return from a grateful country was a Civil Service pension of £200, the honor of knighthood, nad a gift of a service of plate. Dr Gardner, the author of a popular work, entitled ' A* Handbook of Domestic Medicine,' has just published s> volume entitled ' Longevity,' relating to the means of pro* longing life after middle age. In it he calls attention to those peculiarities of the constitution which distinguish agefrom youth and manhood, and points to those symptoms of deviation from the healthy standard which are usually disregarded, and which insensibly glide into fatal diseases, if neglected. Mr Gildart Jackson has a shrewd little paper in the Coniemporartj, on the question, ' Why am I a Christian ?' wher» ho observes : ' Kenan says somewhere that he does not doubt the possbility of the miraculous, but that he denies that tho miraculous has ever been proved. Are we not a long way towards that proof when a liberal interpretation of the history containing miraculous fact 3 is the only reasonable one ?' — A cademg. By a new regulation " leader writers" are excluded from the Reporters' Gallery of the House of Commons-