ITEMS FROM OUR FOREIGN EXCHANGES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2049, 25 August 1885, Page 2

ITEMS FROM OUR FOREIGN EXCHANGES.

Til f municipal authorities of Viterbo, Italy, have certainly hit upon a strange and disgraceful way of enriching the public museum of their town. One night, recently, several of their officials and a band of vv oik men entered the old church of Sta. Maria di Gradi, famous as containing the fine sarcophagus of Pope Clement IV., who was buried there in l"2(iS. They opened this tomb and violated the innei coffin, in which the body of the Pope was found in a fair state of ptesenation (it w.is presumably emiulincd), and ai rayed in Papal robes. The cot p>>e was lemoved fiotn the coffin; a splendid iin_» w.is taken from one of the ling( r-> ; the je willed agiaife, by which the cape was fastened at the breast was cut aua\,aud so were the beautifully-em-biouhred gloves and sandals, and a portion of the cape. The desecrated corpse was tlun huddled back into the co.lhn and replaced in the tomb, while the spoils \mic taken to the municipal buildings, with a \ie-v to their being placed in the museum of the city. It may be hoped that the Italian Government will take measuius for the adequate punishment of the pcipetiotors of this outrage. A singular domestic drama in humble life h.i< just taken place at Scarborough, England. It seems that one Humphries and his w ife kept a lodging house in that resort, and lccently a navvy has been lodging with tlie couple. He became very fiiendly with Mrs H., and one day last week they took the extreme step to be man led before the registrar by special license. But the police officiously interfered, and, on going home to the house, a detective found Mrs Humphries Sitting on the na\^y's knee, pinning a dower in his coat, while her husband, with an air of entire unconcern, was cleaning the fireplace. The detective moved tho woman to the station, but the neighboma assembled, and proceeded to "draw" Mr Humphries and the navvy by hooting, blowing w histles, and beating tiay*. They finally succeeded in exaspeiating th«" navvy, who resoited to violent measures, and was eventually conveyed to the place of durance where his innamorata languished. But nothing has as yet succeeded in arousing the wrath of Mr Humphiies, who clearly is a gentleman of a very evenly-balanced mind. A sim.iti.ar funeral took place on June loth in Pat is. A wealthy bourgeois of the Rue St. Jacques, named Begis, tired of life and caiiug nothing for his relations, made a will in favour of M. Poubelle, the Piefect of the Seine, and then proceeded to hang himself. The succession is estimated a* about £6,000. Whether the terms of the will imply a general trust for chanty may be doubtful ; but M. Pou belle has executed the first instiuctions of the testator, which weietogive him a decent funeral and pay two francs to any poor poison of his ariondisseincnt who would follow his coipso to the grave. M Poubelle issued thiee thousand invitations, and a string of fully two thousand claimants for two fiancs appeared as mourners. The clergy of St Jacques icfused admission to the church on account of the suicide, and tho coitege pioceeded to Pere Inchaise. Tick English billion— a million millions — has set Sn Henry Bessemer calculating. He reckons that a billion seconds have not elapsed since the woild began, as they would leckon 31, 67S years, 1" days, 22 hours, 4,) minutes, 5 seconds. A chain of a billion sovereigns w ould pass 736 times i ound the globe, or lying side by side, eieh in contact with iis neighbour, would form about the eatth a golden /one twenty-six feet sik inches wide. The same chain, were it stretched out straight, would make a line a fraction, over 15,325,4")5 miles in extent.. For measuiing height, Sir Henry chose for a unit a single sheet of piper about one three bundled and thirty-thiid of an inch in thickness. A billion of these thin shunts, pressed out flat and piled \ui tic illy upon etch other, would make an altitude of 17.34S miles. A\ English gentleman and his wife, who have been tiavelling in Sicily, fell into conversation one day with the driver of the vihiule in w hich they were riding. " I was not always as you see me," said the coachman sadly ; " I once occupied a much highei position." The tiavellers piicked up their ears for a romantic story of nobility in distress. "Yes," added the diner, "I was once a brigand, and all the men of my family occupied the same honoutablo position ; but I becatrc engaged to a girl whom I loved to distraction, and my funutt, disliking the piofession because of the risks, persuaded me to give it up, so now I am only a caniage driver. ' A KK'fNT w liter on serpents says that in ceitam paits of Bengal there is a race of gipsies, one of which for a fee vi ill furnish a small cobra to any applicant, "and no questions ask^d." A man who desires to commit murder procures one of these reptiles and places il w ithin a bamboo just long enough to let the head protrude a trifle at one end and the tail at the other. Aimed with fins deadly weapon, the murderer ticeps softly to his enemy's tent at dead of night, cuts a hole in the wall, and intiodutus the bamboo. The tortmed leptile, cirelcss upon whom it wiocks its animosity, strikes its fangs into the sleeper, then is withdrawn, and the as«a«sin steals silently away. Snakes are often employ* d in tiopical countries as a sort of domestic animal. The shipchandlers of Rio dc Janeiro for example, have each a boa housed among their bulky goods to act as a ratcatcher ; these often become partially tamed, and are lecruited by menageries, in which service they perform another utility by affording an income to their owners. It is a long time since any foreign visitor so suddenly became so locally populai in Eastbourne, England, as the Maiquis Tseng, the marchioness, and other members of the family and suite of the Chinese Embassy. Indeed, the peisonal geniality of the picturesque Orientals, their ready command of the English language, and cosmopolitan adaptability to Sussex coast society seem to have given Eastbourne an impulsive sympathy with the mysterious civilization of the Flowery Land. The Ambassador and his friends turn up at nearly all tho meetings and events at Eastbourne, mix freely with the residents and visitors, and arc everywhere and on all occasions warmly welcomed. This welcome is well deser\ ed ; for, as worthy examples of the highest Eastern social culture, full of fraternal good nature and quick Anglicized intelligence, the Chinese visitors at Eastbourne cannot help being popular. — Court Journal. The Italian savant Narducci has just laid before the Acadcmia de* Lincei a number of documents showing that Pope Sixtus Y. and the Republic of Venice weie at one time negotiating for the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez ; a plan w hich wes only abandoned for fear lest the difference in the level of the two seas would quickly cause the traffic to be impeded by the sand.— Court Journal. Thhre are twenty large glucose establishments located in seven different States with an invested capital of over $10,000,000 and a capacity to consume 151,000 bushels of corn a day, giving employment to 4, .173 \\oikm«n, pa} ing annually S2«")S,000 in wages, consuming woith of materials, and yielding a product of 818,270,000. A coui'Lt, recently married at Lynn, were at a loss for a bndesnnid. A friend called at an intelligence office in Boston, and secured the services of a handsome woman to act in the capacity required, lie paia §3 for her services, besides pa j ing her expenses both way. She had ncvei s_en nor d-d s! c kno.v thecontiact ing patties. Tin; famous microscopic edition of Dante, published at Padua in IS7S, has li.ul its nose put out of joint by the disjov cry of an Oificiolum, from the Venetian press of Giunti, 1049, which has never been under the binder's knife, and tneasiuea 48 milometres by 33,