GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 96, 27 February 1875, Page 10

GENERAL NEWS.

The following queer story is told in the 'Australian Sketcher* : — "I was lately asked to stay to an early dinner at a friend's house. Towards the end of it, Bridget appeared at the door, and said mysteriously, ' There's a lady wants to see yon, ma'am.' ' A lady !' said my hostess. ' Have you shown her into the drawingroom ?' ' I have not/ replied Bridget. * Where is she, then ?' asked her mistress. ' Shure she's in the kitchen, ma'am/ said Bridget, ' and it's in a great hurry she is too.' • What au extraordinary thing . said my hostess, rising. ' You really must excuse me for a minute.' She returned in a short time, laughing ; and on being asked who her friend was, gave the following explanation : — She went into the kitchen, and, seeing no one there, asked Bridget where was the lady. ' Shure an' it's me, ma'am/ replied Bridget ; ' I didn't know how to toss them pancakes myself/ and I didn't like to say so before the strange gintleman !' " •• General Dot," a celebrated American dwarf from California, on exhibition in Paris, died recently at the Hotel des Estranges, 81, Peublo street, in that city. He was buried on the 11th of November in the cemetery of Cayenne. The coffin of an infant was too large for the poor little General ; a cigar-box would have been amply sufficient. His funeral was attended by the generality of the living phenomena which are exhibited at the local festivities of the towns in the vicinity of Paris. A giant, seven feet four inches high, the most intimate friend of the deceased, was the bearer of his ceffin, which he carried delicately in the right hand, weeping bitterly, Then walked a showman, an American by the name of Gibbs ; then an individual well-known by the denomination of the " Sugar-loaf Fellow," whose long tapering head delights the spectators at all the fairs ; then the " Skeleton Man," and a woman with three arms j and last of all four or five learned dogs, the great favourites of the General, and which, as well as poor Dot, were exhibited by Mr. Gibbs. The singular funeral procession walked, leaped, hobbled and trotted through the streets with a very sorry deportment, to the great amazement of the passers-by j and on their return from the cemetery they were ordered by the police to disperse, an order which they immediately obeyed, The news which arrived by the hist mail that an Austrian lieutenant had attracted great attention on the Continent by riding from Vienna to Paris, a distance of 600 miles in 15 days on one horse has suggested another race against time to a Melbourne amateur sculler, who offers to back himself for .£2OO to row 750 i miles in 15 days, or 1000 miles in 151 days. The ' Bendigo Advertiser ' states that the feat of riding a horse from Vienna to Paris — a distance of 700 miles — in 15 days, giving an average of a little more than 46 miles a day, has been surpassed in Victoria ; for the Win. Balsillie — for a bet of J*70 — drove his horse 700 miles in 14 days, between Sandhurst and Newbridge, or at the rate of 50 miles a day, and at the end of the journey the animal was as fresh and spirited as when he started. The London ' Daily News ' recently published the following statement concerning its issue of Saturday, the 21st ult. : — " This issue was, so far as we know, in respect of breadth, length, and solid contents, the largest newspaper without a supplement ever published. Its printed matter was nearly equal to that contained in three numbers of the ' Cornhill ' or the ' Gentleman's Magazine/ was more than is contained in the • Edinburgh Review/ or the ' Quarterly/ and exceeded the proportions of two volumes of the average novel. The pieces of metal lying within the sixty-four I colu gns were 1,044,009 in number. The paper on which it was printed was rolled on cylinders, a single on of which holds a roll of four and a half miles in length j each copy was delivered from the machine printed on both sides, and duly cut from the cylindrical web of paper ; and the whole edition was printed on five of the Walter machines at the rate of 50,000 copies an hour," The approaching marriage is announced of a grand-daughter ] of Fenhnorc Cooper to a grand-nephew of Washington Irving.