CLIPPINGS FROM OUR MAIL FILES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1966, 12 February 1885, Page 4

CLIPPINGS FROM OUR MAIL FILES.

I hk Paris fortifications arc likely to be estroyed to make roo.n for workmen's onrts. There arc now 70,000 families 1 ttie city nnablc to get proper aceomlodatton and the Government has romised to coon attack the fortifications. The women medical students of Paris re asking to be allowed to walk the loHpitals and fill the position of house nrgeon TUeir petition is signed by a arge number of the leading physicians of he city, nud is likrly to lie granted. There were 2,912,000 Federal soldieis n the war of the rebellion, and assuming hat their nventgp age was 28 >ears in 805, it is calculated that 2.356 700 will «• alive in 1885, 1 ,(»-2-J,033 in 1900, 14,5(56 in 1925, ami 1233 in 1933 Prince (Jcorge son of the Piince of Vales, is an apt ami popular student in he Royal Naval College, whore he has 0 special privileges because of his i.mk. le will iro to a vessel in the Mediteranean fleet.— Court Circular. h Pearl weighing 93 carats and valued t $17,000, and believed to be the argeat in the world, was shipped to iOtidon this week fiom (suayni.iv. It iras bought fro.n an Indian who found it it Mulleje, Lower California, for §90. The Maluii ii a ladical teetotaler, and vi 1 not even allow tea or coffee in his samp. In fact he recently gave a refuge 1 sociable thrashing of throe hundred ashes for merely smoking a cigarette. Miss Vera Manning, second daughter )f the late Mr Charles Manning, and »ieee of the Cardinal, has taken the ireil. The young lady inherits £(50,000 inder her father's will. The number of deaf mntes in the world s roughly calculated to be from 700,000 to 900.000, and of these <53 per cent, are aid to be born deaf, the others losing heir hearing hy different accidents. The lumber of deaf mutes in Great Britain ia >robably about 20,000. To meet the educational wants of these there are on the itde of the globe 397 institutions, containing 26,473 inmates of both se\es. and Employing something over 2,000 teachers. French economists are urging upon their countrymen the importance of a greater interest in growing well-bred cattle, but meet with disconragingapathy. Some good herd* exist in France, but their influence is slight. The other day the best heard of shoit horii3 in the Republic were offered for sale. Catalogues were issued, and a luncheon prepared, but not a single buyer came, so that the proprietor and a reporter from Paris had it all to themselves. The annual reports upon French agriculture during the season just clomml have been published. What and rye are the principal crops, and in botli there has been an increase, both of average and total yield, over any of the last ten years. In wheat seventeen and a half millions of acres yielded 35.205.000 qnarters ; Hit as this is only sixteen or seventeen bushels to the acre, it is, after all, not very satisfactory. The export of wine from Portugal, far from diminishing, is on the increase. Be tween IS2S-38 the export was 31,029 pipes ; between 1 H<>7 - 78, 40.997 pipes ; and between 1878 83, 57,6'i0 pipe*;. It would seem, therefore, that port, as a dinner wine, is coming into fashion again. The reduction of Prince Bismarck's redundant corpulence has nearly led to serious consequences. For his sen ice in this direction Dr. • s cliweninger was made an extraordinary Professor of tlie Berlin University. Th's did not plca«e the doctor's new colleagues, and w hen he left cards on the Rtutor-Magnificus, that magnificent don sent them back to the owner. On this the fat reducer chal lengedthe rector, who, however, declined to light. The cliii-f of the H«rne ]>nr«nu of Statistics his figmed out that, if the in crease of population mcreiscs at tiie present ratio, in one hundred and fifteen yeaisfrom now, or by the Ist of January, !XK), (Jrnnany will ha\e a population ot millions, fireat Britain 1 12, Austria d Hnngaiy 70. France (5t and Italy 56. s does not siy anything about the nited States, but by analogy the figure r this country ought to be about 0,000,000. Mr Howard Paul says : "Crossing by c of the Irish steamers a few nights o, I fell in with a Paddy who had just en a convert to total abstinence. He was troubled to get a drink of something which would ' take a grip on him ' and yet be non-intoxicating. Finally, lie took up the Worcestershire sauce cruetbottle, shook it up, pouted out a third of a tumblerful, had a bottle of lemonade poured on it, and drank it down at a gulp. After pulling a wry-face, he exclaimed to me, 'Be gorri, sor, an' that bates all the whishkey liver dliuink in my loife !'" — Court Journal. The shifting oil fit-Id makes deserted towns as well an live ones. Pithole, Pa , had tweuty thoifeand inhabitants eighteen yea is iigo, wirh railroad, two dally newspapers and .ill things to match, but a man who went through the place the oth'T day hays that all that now appears "is a l"g cabin, the dismantled wing of an old hotel, sonic decaying titnbr r« and a httlc clearing in thr forest, •0 saturated with oil and salt water that nothing will grow upon it. A poor, demented old man is vow the only inhabitant. The attempt made last week to blow up the London Bridge is (says an American Exchange) not very important in itself, because the execution of the wicked de«ign was such a complete and utter failaie. It is important, however, as a manifestation of the organized existence of a depiavcd and reckless spirit, which has no regard for human life or propci ty, and which continues to be haimlcss simply because of it-> e\cth siv e cowaidice. That the organization which inspired this, and other outiages ot a similar nature, has its headquarters in the United States is a fact that does not admit of a doubt ; nor can it be gain aayed that the money which sustains these cumes and the criminals that perpetrate them, is openly solicited and collected in this countiy. The action, therefore, of our Governmet in toltiating the organi/ation and equipment of these weious assaults upon a friendly power ii a ■erious international offence, and should be remedied ai soon as possible. In order to get a thorough understanding of the matter, let us revet se the position of thing* a little. Suppose that a number of unreconstructed rebels .should form an organisation in some piit of England for the purpose of reversing the verdict of Appoinatox Court House, and that in the furtherance of that purpose they should continuously and openly collect money, and forward men and explosives to this country, for the purpose of destioying the public buildings of Washington City or elsewhere. Just contemplate the existence of such a state of n flair*, and then siy whether or no tlif- United States Government would be justified in expecting the British Government to exert its w hole energies in putting down the foul conspiracy which was abusing its hospitality "' Mr OBrien, the editor of the United Ireland, a paper published in Dublin, is n man of great mental resources. Mr O'Biicn is continuously discovering maies nests, but they nrc almost invariable empty ones, the maro having always flown a sufficient time previous to the discovery to make it impossible for ainono po's'ssing a less thorough scientific knowledge of the phenomena, to say whether the nest has been that of a maie or an apparition MrO'Biien's latest discoveiy is to the effti t that that wicked Biitish Government sent a woman to Ireland to contribute $123,000 towards the budding of a launch, to be used on the Thames River, in throwing bombs at the Parliiment building*. This stoiy, of course, possesses nil the enr marks of possibility One ran iradily conceive of the Hiitish Government contributing to-.v. aids the destruction of the Parliament buildings m order that they might have the satisfaction of putting the destrojpis in gaol ! Mr O'Biien should hire him*clf out M a curiosity.

The United States has about sixteen million children of " school age," hnt leas than ten millions aie enrolkd in ti c schools. There aie two hundred and ninety thousand teachers employed in -ill and tho schools cost ninety-one imllion dollnrs a year. — Springfield Itepubl can B"ii/r f?p wood, like that cmploytd ff.i a good many jears bnck m liotton.uiy chairs, already competes with cam .is fin the purposes of the aitist, .md wit! bmdeis' boird for look oners. It h>>ht ni ss, almost cntue absence of cle.-u.igi lines, and non liability to split aie among its commendable f> a -ires. D.- I'rvn/ Boas, who has resided a Cumhdl.iud Sound Mine 18S3. is repot te to have ie iclied St John's on board an j American vvhaLi. Ow ing to the mort ihtv among his dogs hi> cxplontions have mil been so txUiiMve as lie de-ircd : but In has, novel tlu'les-s, in ipped a considerable ti act of country, and collected much in formation on tho VxVimo At the recent Ornithological Congress, J held in Vienna, the piincipal Mil>)e< t« discussed uere-(l) An international law for the better piotection of buds ; (3) the establishment of ornithological stations all o\er the inhabited globe for observing the migrations and other habits of birds ; and (3) investigations regarding the origin of the domestic fowl, and nienMiies for the amelioration of the condition and breeding of domesticated birds in general. Rkvkktim; to the subject of " Rmt on Corn," Mr (Jeorge Robttibon, Portal egre, under date 7th May, wires :— ln the Weekly Supplement of tho 3rd inst. Dr. Stuart quotes Dr M. C. Cooke as his authority on the cycle of life in plants. I quote a higher authority, viz., the Old Book, chap. i. v. II and 12, which completely knocks that theory on the head: — When I sow turnip seeds and they produce rose trees, and these rose trees pioduce oak trees, then I may incline to be convinced of the truth of the polymorphism of plants." LoM.MITY IS" \VIUHKII4tI-. Tlll> fol lowing letter appeared in the Times :— Sir,— lt was my privilege recently to join my sifter and my three el.ler brother-, at our usual yearly mooting. My «ister was born Oct. 3rd, 1791, age 02 ; Hist brother, bom Nov. 20th, 17M, | aup !)0 ; second biother, born Apnl 13th, 1707, age Mi ; thiid brotlur, bom Oct. 2!>th, 1SO»», aire 77 ; my-" If. born Dee. 10th, 180S, ago 7'». One family of rive, 4*20 jeais, an average of upwards of fW years of age each. Aie there man} families of five persons whose united age is 4-20 years ?— K. Stockdw.k, The drove, Bolton, Dec. 15th. Tiuk.n whicli yield gutta percha art, becoming seal cc, as the grow th of young trees of the best varieties lias not kept pace with the destruction Di Oxle\ calculates to supply tin- (5,018 piculs— a picul is equd to 133J pmnds — exported from Singapoie fiom the Ist January 18 Hi, to 1;t47, no fewer than 0!),1SO trees wcie sacrificed, and according to the Sarawak Gazette, 3,000,000 tucs were re([uired to supply th>; OO.(MK) piciiN exported during KS.")t to 1874 i'hese are only two instances of the demand for the gum, the liist showing the tradi for its infancy, and the second indicating clearly the increasing pressure brought to hear upon a limited and comparatively small producing locality Sir. Jotiv Lriiisoi k continue* his c\peiimenta with his dog, and lie hopis in time to make the creature as accompli -.bed as tho nveinge biped It is about oiglitecn months since ho began the edncatiuii of his poodle, " Van ' His. ideas was that the dog, if he wanted anj thing, should ask for it, and, as his bark might not be intelligible, a scries of cards were arranged by means of which he could make known bis desires. Thus, a cud labeled "Food ' i-> laid within Ins reach, and when he is hungry he takes it to his master. In tho same wav, if ho wants to goout.be picks up a caid with tho w'oid "Out" upon it, ami brings that up. A f.vonnte card with him i» labeled "Bone," for its presentation is followed by tho bestowal of a toothsome morsel. Having hucloili d in teaching the animal so far, Sir John his lately boon tiyin 3 ' sonic experiments in order, if possible, to teach it to distinguish color. But this ha- hithorto, he says, pioved a failure — Court Journal. As Eugenic, tho ex-Empress of the French, in IS'>7 knelt by the pallet of a cholera stricken man in the hospital at Amienc, and pressed his dying hand, he murmured, half unconsciously, "Thank you, my Sistei," mistaking her for one of the nurses. "It is not a Sister," whispered the nun in his tar ; "it is our Empiesa come to \isit us." "Do not conect him," said Eugenic promptly, "he csn not give me a nobler name." Tint same day she mo\ed towards a closed door. The bead suigiou iv attendance bogged her not to cross i^, as it led to the smallpox waid and to some dangerous cisou. ''Let me s-je them," she said, ''they suffer too," and entered. She had as little care for her beauty us for her life, and tho ciowd out-<ide lecognisod the abut gation of the woman as will as the bravery of thy sovereign, and she was well nigh mined in tiiuniph to her carriage ; and hei attendants, whin they disiobed her, found that the hem of her garments bid been cut and earned off as relics. With the faults and failings of hei nature and education— faults that hastened pel haps the fall of iicr shoit-livcd popular H3 — she had the reckless in tropidity of her Celtic origin and the indonutible will of her Spanish forefatheis. The beauty of Madiid, the So\ereign of the Tiiilerica. the widow of Furuboruugh was never lacking in spirit and courage. Aiconoi. KtR Sti dfntx. — Dr. Clouston, of Edinburgh, has recently delivered an extremely sensible and useful address on "The tiffects of the Excessive U*o of Alcohol on the Mental Function of the Brain," to the btudents of the University of Edinburgh. He dots not take tho position ot a preacher of "abstinence," but of moderation. He says, " You will understand that I have nothing to do with any use of alcohol whicli cannot be tiuly said to be excessive — -that is, probably damaging or dangerous to the mental power of the brain," In this view of the subject we are thoroughly with him : and in another matter to which he alludes at the close of his Icetuie we aie, if possible, even more thoroughly of his way of thinking : — "To conclude: Looking at tho Uimcrsity student, taking into account the period of life at which you study, the work you have to do. the unfavourable conditions of life in which you have to live from a physiological point of new (there is no physiologist who w ill for a moment pretend that sitting in a. study classroom for four or five hours a day is in itself a good thing foi a young man) ; taking the long cold period of our Scotch dark winters, when we cannot get enough outdoor exercise ; taking the fact that neither you nor I know the weak point" of our constitutions as derived from our ancestry— taking all those tilings into consideration, I think that a student will have little icason to blame himself who totally abstains from alcohol during his peiiod of study. You will all admit that a man who docs so avoids certain manifest risks ; most of you will admit that he will do more work ; you will all admit that he does not losevery much of the best kind of social enjoyment dm ing his period of *tudy ; you will all admit that after his studies are over, and when he has developed into full manhood, he will bo likely to enjoy it all the better, as well as more sifely, if he takos to tho moderate use of alcohol. After that some of the risks arc owi. And if ho should remain a total abstainer all his life, it may not be the woit-t thing ho can do. lam not here miggc&ting to you what I did not piactise myself ; foi (luring four years of my studies* I was a total abstainer, and it w.im a coui.se I never have had any reason to u-giet." Students should lay this addiess to heart. Tlip present writer, bv no means a partisan of tho teetotal cra/o, was, like Dr. Clouston, nn abstainer during his student life, not professedly, but ns a matter of physiological expediency ; and not only does he not regiet it, but ho in corn meed that he succeeded far better without nleoho! than ho would hnvf dona with it. —lancet,

The Bad and Worthless. are never wuttitttl or loimtirfntril. This is e^pecial'y true of afmiily niciltcine, am* it is poMti\<« proof tint tlie reim-d) imiffrltrl in of the lu^liLft \n\\v. As soon us it had bitn touted ami |»m\ •»1 by thr w hole world that Hop li Meih was tin (nut-it, licht and tli< tno-~t v ,ilu tlile f.itml) m. dicine on eirth, m.uiy imitation* s[>iunj/ up jikl licg^n to fttettl tin; noticr»< in \\ Inch t!i<' pn ss ami the pt-oplc of thr i oiuiti y ii.id v\\n< .sscil tin* imritß of if ]} , nml in e\rry way trymy to induce sutffiing iiiv.ilklb to use their .stuff insttinl, txpccting to inaki- monvy on tlte cit'tlit ami good name of 11. 15. Many o*h»rs started ncis tmms put up in itiiiiilir «tylc to M ]\ , with \auon»ly di'\i«nl nanit-s in w nn h tin \rord " Hop" or " Hop-i" Wfit umil in a w.iy to indue*- people to bebe\f liny ucru the simc as Hop Hitters. All «ucli pretfittitd rtnuilies or cures, no nnttci %\ liat then style or name is and f>ptui.illj tluwr with the word " Hop" or " Hops" in then name or in any way oon nocted with thrm or tht-ir name, art 1 imitations or counterfeits. Beware of them, 'louch none of them. Use no tiling but genuine American Hop Hitters, *ith a bunch or cluster of green Hops on the white label, and Dr Soule's name blow ii in the glass. Trust nothing else. Druggists and Chemists are warned against dealing in imitations or counterfeits.

Hai> Him Titat Timr!— An ass brays. — His Riverence (facetiously inclined) : "Put, d'je hear yer mothrr calling to ye ? " — Tat : " Shure an' I do— father." I)rni\<» ISS.'J l'rof. Tacchim made solar observations at Rome, indicating a pi obligation of the maximum of the sunspot period, and as compared with the observations taken in the preceding year | an incrojsc in solar ncti\ ity. The ! number of groups and the aize of the j spots, especially from the laat quarter of lfib.J up to the hf^iiining of t'cltruarjr, at lea^t, were con sidered signs of exceptional commotion in the centre of our planetary system. Airoitiustf to a New York paper, a joung woman was nuing her ex-sweet-heart for a breaeli of promise, and the buyers, as usual, were making all sorts of inquisitive inttrrojfatorh's. "You "ay," remarkid one, "tint the defendant frequently sat very close to yon ?" " Yob, sir," wai the reply, with a hectic flu«h. "How jlose ?" "Close enough, so'aone cheer was all the settin' loom we needed." •' And you say he put his arm round >ou?' "No, I didn't."' "What did you cay, then'" " I said he put both arms around mo." "Then what?" "He hugged me.'i '• Very hard ?"' " Vis, he did So hard that I cami' pnrty near hollenn' right out." " Why didn't \oti holler ?" "'Canst' " " 'ihat'n no reason. }Je explicit, please Ileoiuse what ?" " 'Cause I was afeared he'd stop." The court fell o.'l the bench, and had to be tamed and put under th« hydrant for the purpose of reiuu'tatiou. Yvs ! It is certainly true. Ask any of jour trirnd« who h.ue puixh lift) then 1 . (>.irli< k anil Cranwell hire numern'n im.nkfd Un at\<l Terr fa>our.iblo ■ oinnienrfalimn Ironi < mintrj cu^t niors on tlmir r\crlK nt pukmi; of l'urnitnr>', Cn>iker>, ,;nil Gl>s<, &i . J-ulic^ .md ?i-nllfinon about to furni«h %li(mltl re-niL-mlicr th.it G.irluk .in<l Crann til's i^ run Chi .ip I'iirii^liiny \\ arcliomr ot Auckl.iml Furniture to *uit .ill < I M<f^ ; Also Carpets, Unor Clotrn .mil all House Ncce«s irics. If jour new li<iu«c is ni-.irlj hnnhct), or, jou .ire k u||> K to h't't in lrrml, xivit O ir!ii.k .mil Cr.inwell, Quwn-'trcet and Lornc-*trcct, Autk-1-ind Intf riding pur< hT«rr« iin bnvr a r.it«lo(fur tr<>r.