The World.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2274, 5 February 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The World.

The following paragraphs are extracted from the London society papers and other journals.]

Writing on the proposed authoritative transference of the Jewish Sabbath, Mr Luis Jackson says : "The spirit of the Pentateuch demunds that we sacrifice a form to preserve a principle. In view with our altered relations with the world, the retention of the Saturday Sabbath is actually a contravention of the Moral Law, and is therefore anti-Jewish. Judaism is not a sojourn in theological dreamland ; it exhorts us to view grave and potential questions from the standpoint of pure reason. The mission of Judaism is by active measures to make of every land a Holy Land, and of every city a Holy City." A pamphlet has just been published in England entitled "Twenty Doctors." Prom 1868 to 1885 the writer was a cripple from rheumatic gout. He tried nineteen doctors. Some gave him pills, some recommended him wet compresses, some blistered him, some gave him globules, some sent him to the seacoast, some to Buxton, some to Bath, and some to Aix-lee-Bains. At length he fell into the hands of No. 20, who had him carried down stairs and put on a tricycle. He tricycled in agonies. Some of his former doctors told him that he would die, but No. 20 said •' stick to it." He did. He is now quite well. Measurements have shown the thickness of the human hair to vary from the two hundred and fiftieth to the six hundredth part of an inch. The silkworm's thread is one five thousandth of an inch thick, and the spider's web only one thirty-thousandth. Bloude hair is the finest and red the coarsest. Taking four heads of hair of equal weight, A patient German physiologist found the red one to contain about ninety thousand hairs; the black, 103,000; the brown, 109,000 ; and the blonde 140,000. In the French village of Thenelles there is a young lady who has enjoyed an uninterrupted sleep since June 1, 1883. Her name is Margaret Borgenval, and she ia said to be exceedingly beautiful ; though, as was only to be expected, her three years' trance has made her rather thin. During the whole period she has never been ill, and she appears no older than she did when she first "went off." Every now and then a dose of peptone is administered to her.

The Norddeutsche Lloyd is contemplating considerable alterations in the running of its subsidised lines of steamers. These include the abandonment of the line between Trieste and Brindisi and Alexandria, in view of unfavourable pecuniary results therefrom. The steamers running between Gibraltar and Port Said will call at Naples, and there embark the mail bags, formerly shipped at Brindisi.

A Parisian contributor of the Court Journal remarks that the French still continue to be a polite people. A passenger, quite the geutlenrin, trod on the fout of a lady who was, like himself, promenading on the bouleyards. She rraared out lustily with pain. The cause of it took off his hat, and said, "Madame, you would have roarfd Htill more loudly if I had been an omnibus.'

The Court Circular says that the Roman Forum now contains a vast colony of cats, which were first introduced at some remote period, and have since multiplied to an enormous extent. The cats are supported at the Government expense, and every day a municipal official goes to the Forum with a huge basket of scraps to feed the pensioners.

Oranges were first brought into Europe from China by the Portugues in 1547 and it is asserted that the identical tree w hence all the European orange trees of this sort were produced is still preserved at Lisbon, in the gardens of one of its nobility. Orange trees were brought to England for the first time, in 1595.

The Council of the Russian Empire ia composed of seventy-six members, of whom twenty-six combine with this rank other offices in the State service. The President of the Council for the ensuingyear is the Grand Duke Michael Nieolaievitch, who has held the post for some years past, The approaching marriage ia announced of Mile. Marie do MaoMahon, the sole daughter of the Field-Marshal, with Comte de Piennes, son of the Marquis, who was formerly an equerry of the Empress Eugenie. Mile. Marie is ia her twenty-third year. The Pall Mall Gazette, amidst other blundering nonsense about Lord Barriugton, asserts that he did not care to accept the office of Vice-Chamberlain in 187-t, because it involved his acting as the official reporter, whose duty it is to send to the Queen a precis of the busines done in the Houee of Commons every night. The Vice-Chambtrlain has no more to do with the nightly report to the Queen than has the Speaker. The work is always done by the Leader of the House, and the letters written by Mr Disraeli for the ! information of the Queen and the Prince Consort in 1852 and during Lord Derby's second Administration contain quite the most brilliant Parliamentary sketches that have ever been known. They are like the most sparkling chapters in his early novels. These letters are preserved at Windsor Castle, and it may be hoped that they will be included in Lord Beaconsfield's " Life," whenever it is published, Munich is still eager to seize on any ohance of taking about its late romantic and ill-fitarred King Louis, and ever since AH Saints' Day the city has been discussing the incident in which a well-known high-born lady played a leading part. On the day in question, it seemed, she appeared, clad in deep morning and closely veiled and muffled, on th« bank of the Lake of Starnberg, opposite the spot where the unfortunate King was drowned, and accompanied by two attendants, also in black, who bore an enormous wreath of gilded laurel, from which hunir long , streamers of blue and white ribbon, .deeply and heavily fringed with silver. A boat was then brought, and the lady herself dropped the wreath into the waters of the lake at the very place the King's body was discovered. She then re-entered the close carriage that was waiting, and drove rapidly away. Hints are thrown out that the lady is the heroine of a romance quite in keeping with the mysterious life led by the late Kiug of Bavaria.