The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-07-14
GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

In the house OF Devonshire laborer there
| were lying in an ordinary sized bed two moth
ers. two sons, one daughter, one grandmother,
one grandson, brother aud sister, unole and
nephew, all of whom (eleven) were compre-
hepded in four persons, viz A mother aud her
daughter, each with an infant son.
The railroads of the United States have in
use 3. SOC, 900 car wheels. Those on fast pa s.
senger trains are renewed every ten months (;
but freight cars use the same W heels sometimes
ten years. The average life of o wheel is SO 600
| miles, and ct that rate is takes 700 600 q year
at a cost. less the old wheels, of So. 100000.
It was not believed that the Paris Exhibi
| tion of 1873 would be q financial succsss yet
| the Government Commissioners already feel
that they are out of financial difficulty. The
] coat of buildings aud main tenance is estimated
at about 50 600 600, and a revenue of nearly
| 81 600 600 is already assured. Tue attendance
| has exceeded expectations.
Physicians of Berlin have sent forth urg-
ent warming against the use of the popular
baby carriage in which the little ones sit facing
| the Nurse and are pushed backward. The
patural desire of the eye is to draw nearer to
what il sees, aud the practice of reversing this
normal order of things and causing surrou nding
objects to recede is liable to affect IN II )usIy
| the development of both sight and brain.
China is not the only great empire It'll cted
| By famine. From Bra zii comes the news that
in three Important provinces the springs,
brooks, and rivers have been dried up for many
month";; that crops do not grow, and that pso-
| pie are perishing by many thousands. In the
city of Arac.t from the 10th of February to
the 8sh no less than 664 persons died of hum
ger, and at least 10 900 people have perished in
the province of Cara alone since the beg ming
of tie calamity.
At the recent Republican Convention in
Illinois one of the fsgs bore the device, Give
us Grant in 1880 Two Good Terms Deserve
Another ~ and the bare mention of Grants
name was the signal for deafeniRg applause.
The father of the infamous force Dill, remarks
| the Augusta Chronicle, may be the Republican
candidate in 1880, bot he cannot be elected uu-
lo.g kkn \ s,,In H. L..
the Radicals to regain control of some of the
Southern States.
The statistics of the graduating classes this
year at Yale, Amherst and Williams Colleges
eight in favor of free trade to thirty-one for
protection. These. as the Philadelphia Pres
suggests, are not Western or Southern, but
Eastern colleges. which draw the larger part
of their student constituencies from regions of
the country where protection, if 1T does not
actually predominant, is relatively ever so
much stronger than it is elsewhere.
The Prussiaus have made experiments with
the telephone and portable wire to see how far
it could be applied to outpost service. AL
though the weather was very cold and strong
wind was blowing, conversation was carried
on with ease by men 400 yards apart. The
the hoods of their great coats over the head
and cara in order the better to confine the
voice of the instrument. The wire used was
arranged on a reel fixed on q mans knapsack,
40 that as the man walked forward the cable
unwound itself behind him. By this means
the wire can be laid at the rate of 100 yards q
minute.
The Gear of Russia is said to have awaited
the approach of the twenty-frst of last April
with superstitious anxiety, that being his
sixtieth birthday, which he feared he would
attained the age of sixty, and it is tradition
that none ever would. A little over q year
ago the Grand Duchess Helena died shortly
before completing her sixtieth yesr-a circum-
6tAnOAa th hRf loOkad tn the Gar like the fn1-
flment of prophecy, and plunged him into
deep dependency. Since the midnight hour
OF April 81 he is like new man, and displays
strange to him.
The town of Anderson, Ind, has just passed
through an experience absolutely unparalleled
in the history of American municipalities.
retrenchment council came to tie vote on q
500; he gave the casting in it's favor.
Then the clerk was asked to show csnse why
his salary should not be reduced 5000; he failed,
and it was. The Marshal and treasurer fol-
lowed suit, and then the Spartan councillors
cot down their own salaries so per cent. Had
we previously known of the existence of these
patriotic Officials, 80 worthy to bs made eco
nomical over greater things. we fancy that any
consideration of what New York would do
without city government would not have
been suffered to weigh much, if at all, with
the court which quashed the Alderm anic in
dictments.
More than 9 year ago an exploration was
made across the Isthmus of Darien by an ex-
pediton under Lieutensnt Wyse of the French
Navy, with Q view to an interoceanio canal
The prof CT originated with company hav.
ing its seat in France, and after careful explo
ration Wyse reported in favor of line from
the point of Grandi on the Atlantic, along the
valleys of the Tupisa sed Tisti, to the river
Tuyra, near where it discharges in the Gulf of
San Miguel. Recently he went to Bogota to
negotiate with the Colombian Government |
and news has been received that q contract has |
been concluded The canal will be neutaal, |
and free to the commerce of the world. The |
company is 10 receive grant of the land for |
GOO feet each side of the canal, and mil |
lion cores in any part of tie country they |
choose. The work is to be completed before |
1895.
A fashionably dressed man went into Hunt |
G. RoskelPs large jewelry store in Bond street.
London, selected articles worth 81 900, and
rendered q thousand pound note in payment.
Mr.. Roskell ascertained that the note was q
forgery. just as he was about TO summon as.
5istance, a cab was driven rapidly up and two
men in police uniform hurriedIy entered, say
ing that the man was an old offender of whom