Home and Foreign Notes [pp. 742]

742
ITOAlE A~r FOf~~IGX WOTI'S. {D~c~~~i:~ 28,
dered at, but many a good housewife will ii ave
her faith shaken in humanity wben she reads
of the lard and rag pulp.
At Krupp's steel-works at Essen, Prussia,
8,810 workmen, and engines amounting to
9,595 horse-power, are employed. Last year
the establisliment manufi~ctured 150 000 000
pounds of cast-stee], an increase of 20 000 000
pounds over the product of 18~0. There are
528 furnaces for smelt~ng, heating, and convertiug, 169 forges, 260 welding- and puddingfurnaces, 245 coke-furnaces 130 other kinds of
furnaces, 342 turning-lathes, 130 planing-mad~ines, ~3 cutting-machines, 172 boring-mad~ines, 94 gnuding-benches, 209 various other
machines, 174 steam-boilers, 265 steam-engines
(from 1,000 horse-power downward), and 58
steam-hammers (from 30 tons downward).
English farmers use nearly a million tons
of artificial and chemical manures annually,
the materials for which are obtained from all
quarters of the globe. It is by tbis system of
judicious and repeated fertilizing that the land
is made to yield such heavy returns without
"working out," as have the abandoned tobacco-fields of Virginia.
On the 27th of October last, an interesting
j~e was given by the municipality of Florence
Italy. The occasion was that of the inau~uration of the new Florentine Observatory, that
stands on a striking eminence, from which, in
former times, Galileo made most of his discovcries.
It has recently been demonstrated that
plates of polished slate inay be used as a substitute for boxwood for engraving. These
plates will furnish over one hundred thousand
impressions without loss of detail do not
warp, and are not affected by oil or waten
~nint ~n~ ~nrci~n ~~t~~,
HE Russian Government has demanded
from'the King of Belgium the extradition
of one Vashtenew, one of fbe se~ts de c~enibre
that accompanied the Grand-duke Alexis to
the New World. Vashtencw was sent by the
grand-duke with a portion of his trunks from
Cuba to Russia. He delivered all trunks but
one to the h~penal family on his arrival at 8t.
Petersburg. But the trunk he kept contained
the letters which the grand - duke received
while in the United 8tates. Among them are
many bs~tets-do~x from foolish American women. The faithless valet took the trunk to
Brussels, and sold the letters to a young bookseller, who has since then announced as in
press a vplume which will probably prove
painfully interesting to some of our countrywomen. Its title is: " The Private Correspondence of a Prince on his Travels round
the World." The Russian Government claims
that Vashtenew is nothing but a common
thief, and wants the Belgian Government, on
that ground, to send him back to St. Petersburg, together with the stolen and interesting
trunk.
Intelligence from the arctic regions indicates
that the season has been unusually mild and
propitious for the various polar expeditions in
that region. In a letter from Greenland, dated
September, Mn Edward Whymper writes to a
London friend that, when he arrived there in
June, tl'e "land was covered with flowers, the
butterflies were beginning to appear, and almost all snow had vm~ished from the sea-level
up to two thousand feet." 8ince that thne
the writer mentions the very remarkable fact
that, with the exception of the bad week in
the Waigat, he had "enjoyed the most exquisite weather that it is possible to imagine." This intelligence is corroborated from
Germany by Dr. Petermann, the renowned
geographer, whose geographical omnal stated
that the seas which wash the in en ted shores
of Spitzbergen are free from ice for several
tions for Woodku~~ cad Ctcflia's Week'y. In
pronouncing sentence, Judge Mifler said that
he regretted exceedingly that, under the law
he could not send her to the state-prison for
several years. He ordered a bailiff to burn
the copies of the paper which were found in
the woman's possession.
Netschayeff, the International leader from
Russia, lias been delivered by the authorities
of Switzerland, where he had taken refuge, to
Russian policemen, on the ground that he was
a common murderer. Upon reaching Warsaw
the unfortunate man was placed before a court
rmeSj~~hloS) and sentenced to be branded with a
iron on the forehead, to receive one
hundred lashes with the knout, and to be sent
to Siberia. He survived the barbarous punishment, and is now on his way to Toboish.
The Paris papers tell of a duel on a piano
between two musicians. They played for
forty-eight hours without food or drink. Having eommenced with pieces of a sedate character, they passed on to waltzes, and thence to
operatic music. One had played the Afiserere
in "Il Trovatore" five hundred and eighty
times, and was commencing on the five hundred and eighty-first performance when he
sank to rise no more. The other was conveyed
to the hospital, his life being despaired of, and
the four seconds are suffering from mental
aberration.
Queen Isabella of Spain looks younger and
healthier since she left the country which she
governed so miserably. She enjoys Paris and
its amusements with undisguised relish. She
gives, twice every week, a reception, which,
strangely enough, are largely attended by the
literary men of France. At her last Jules
Janin, Louis Ratisbonne "4
were introduced to hen,and Jules Sandean
Highland Lake, East Andover, New Hampshire, has been the home of a pair of herons
for nearly half a century, and the good peole
of the town had come to regard these venera le
and long-legged fowl as birdsofoodomen.
But lately a sacrilegious fowlersotone of
them, when popular indignation rose to such
a pitch that the sportsman narrowly escaped
with his life,
The Emperor William drinks but very little
wine his nephew, the Russian Czar, drinks a
great`deal of votky (Russian whiskey) President Thiers is fond of a bottle of Chambertin; King Amadeus loves the sweet wine of
Alicante; Queen Victoria sticks to her port
the sultan and the khe'dive relish Bordeaux;
and the Emperor of Austria takes his Tokay
regularly.
Private contributions have made good one
hundred thousand dollars of the loss of tbe
Harvard University by the Boston fire. But
Rarvard needs a hundred thousand more to
place her where she stood before, and her
graduates nnd fi4ends should come up to tlse
mark.
A Spanish editor, baving called King Amadeus several hard names, and intimated that
the people would do well to send him and his
wife back to Italy, has now time to cogitate
over the beauties of the freedom of the press
in Spain at the city-prison of Seville where
he will have to remain for the next tweke
months.
The trustees of Columbia College have
purchased a splendid site on Washington
Heights, to which it is proposed to remove the
college. The plot of ground comprises nine
acres, and is located just above One-hundredand-sixtieth Street, extending from the line
of the Boulevard to the river-front.
The sultan and all his vassals, including
the Khe'dive of Egypt, the Hospodar of Ronmania, and young Prince Milos of Servia, will
be at the Vienna Exhibition next year. Tho
Emperor of Austria will invite the rulers of
all civilized cou~nes to visit Vienn~ on the
occasion, and the ~resident of the United
States will be strongly urged to attend.
"The burnt child dreads the fire," but it
seems that Chicago does not; for, according to
the Ckic~qo Tritune, there are more wooden
buildings in that city now than before the
ravages of the fire-fiend.
monflis in the yeai~ and this year have been
peculiarly iceless. The further discovery in
September of an open sea to the eastward of
Spitzbergen by Captain Nils Johnsen, the last
explorer to make report, looks very much as
if the American expedition under Captain
Hall, and also the far-advanced German voyagers mider the Austrian leaders Payer and
Weyprecht, had struck upon a year remarkably
auspicious for their perilous endeavor.
S~~ie of the Mid-England papers are considerably exercised over an event which has
occurred in connection with the Prince of
Wales's visit to Lord Aylesford in Warwickshire. According to the moden~ unsportsmanlike fashion, grand 6et~ss were among the
principal amusements of the visit, and to the
first of these events some reporters gained admission. The result was, a severe criticism on
game-butchery in a Bin~ingham paper, and
on the following day the reporters, on arriving
at Packington Hall, were met by a policeman,
who announced that he had his lordship's orders to see them off the ground. The incident is likely to aggravate tlie bkterfeelin
engendered by the exaggerated system o
game-preservation which for some years has
been, in vogue, and has caused very strong feeling on the part of tenants. It was strongly
condemned by Lord Derby in a speech last
spring, and the impression is general that its
days are numbered.
The Lencet, which has recently puNished a
series of reports by a special commission appointed to investigate fully the accommodation
afforded to steerage-passengers from Liverpool
to the United States, seems inclined to the
opinion that, although there is not a little to
condemn, yet there is not cause for wholesale
fault-finding. As regards the provisions, they
were pronounced good in quality and abundant
in quantity, the supposition being made that
few of the emigrants fared so well previous to
embarking. The arrangements for ventilation
are very defective, and the sexes are mixed in
a way that tends to promote indecency. The
hospitals are inconveniently situated, and in
some instances there are no lavatories and very
imperfect closet arrangements for the women
and children. Taking the reports in the most
favorable light, it is evident that there is
needed a change in the construction and the
supervision of emigrant-vessels.
One of the London papers reproduces " an
interviewing" of Mr. Froude, during which
the reporter asked whether the "swell young
mititeires" of the Household Brigade were not
as idle and useless as those French officers who
lounged on the boulevards of Paris, whose
lack of vigor both in mind and body their last
campaign so palpably proved. Mr. Fro~de
supposed that they were, but added that there
were but few of them; and, further, pointed
to the fact that, at Waterloo, in the Crimea
and elsewhere, they had certainly done excellent service. The really redeeming point
about English officers,1057;11]from a service point of
vi ow, is that., unlike their French brethren in
an~s, they are, for the most part, men of very
active bodily health and fine physique. Although, with rare exceptions, wonderfully illiterate - probably more so even than the
French-they can ride, shoot, swim, and fence,
and have a vast amount of pluck and endurance.
The new Turkish grand-vizier, Mehemet
Rouchdi Pacha, has risen to power from a very
humble station in life. The son of poor parents, lie joined the army as a private soldier
in his sixteenth year, but his talents soon
raised him in the service. He devoted himself earnestly to the study of the French language and of military science, and, having
translated a French military book into Turkish Sultan Mahmoud recognized his talents,
and became his patron. When but twentysix the war-ministry was tendered to him, but
he soon resigned, resuming it, however, shortly before the breaking out of the Cnmean
War, during which he greatly distinguished
himself by his administrative ability. He is
the author of several works on strategy and
fortification that rank hi~h
A widow lady named Mellen, who said she
was from New York, has been sentenced to
two months' imprisonment at Frankfort-onthe-Main for collecting, in May last, subserip