The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1881-05-04
NEWS NOTES.

The last two steamers from China to San
Francisco brought nearly thousand Chin
ese each.
The autograph fan is the latest invention.
1t is made of parchment, and distinguished
personages can write their names on it.
The Chicago Inter Ocean says that the
market in that city is glutted with wild
duck of every kind and name Single
sportsmen bag eighty to one hundred day,
and, unless the law steps in, there viii in
few years be none left.
At the launch of the new Cunarder Ser
via, built by Messrs. Thomson, Clydebank,
Mr.. ]. r. Thomson said that the first YES
sci they built for the Cunard Company
measured 12S feet long, so feet beam, and
10 feet deep, with gross tonnage of 175
tons. That vessel was still working, and
likely to work for long time.
The inhabitants of that part of Chester,
England, near the Cathedral Church at St.
Johns were reused about o'clock in the
morning of April II by terrible crash of
falling masonry and the clangor of bells.
Half of the tower of St. Johns Church,
which rose to a height of $50 feet, and was
a landmark for the surrounding country,
had fallen, and with it several of the bells.
Five hundred acres Of land around York
town have been purchased by the COM
mittee association formed to celebrate the
centennial anniversary of Lord Corn
wallis's surrender The land will be beau
tifully laid off as a parade and camp
ground for the French and American sol
diers The new buildings will be erected
near the site of the village. Virginia is
anticipating lively celebration of this an
niversary.
AT mass meeting held in Zurich, Switz-
erland, to protest against Russian and Ger
man threats, and to vindicate the right of
asylum to political offenders, one of the
speakers said that Germany would doubt
less seize the first opprtunity, such as
might be offered by European war, to
take possession of Switzerland and en-
deavor to annex it, and he suggested as the
best remedy for this danger IAN applica-
ton for admission to the American Union
as the fOrtieth State in the great Repub-
lie"
Mr.. John Pender, NJ. P, is the Chair
man of six submarine cable companies and
director of three. He is, besides this,
Chairman of the Isle of Man Railroad
Company, of the Dude and Rohil Kund
Railroad Company, and of the Panulcitto
Copper Company, and he is director
of the Fore Sheet Warehouse Company,
and of a paritine oil company-that is to
say, he is either Chairman or director of
fourteen companies, and may be supposed
to make a comfortable income of about
915,000 per annum from his directoral
functions.
Prince Oscar of Sweden, who is engaged
to the Princess Victoria, has an income of
100000 Swedish crowns and 60 900 crowns
of Norway, constituting capital which
Yields $40, 000 Besides this he has inher-
tied from his grandmother Josephine, the
daughter of Eugene de Beauharnais, the
sum of one million of francs. His mother
a daughter of the Duke of Nassau, though
acknowledging her husbands decent from
one of Bonaparte's rude soldiers, is any
thing but proud of the reminiscence. 1t
has been very difficult task for Queen
Victoria, too, to induce Ter daughter r-in-law
to show any kindness to the Empress Eu-
genie or interest in her.
An English writer, referring to the mel
ancholy atmosphere of st. Petersburg as
cribes it to the fact that the city is nothing
more nor less than huge prison, with
about $50, 900 jailers in civil and military
uniform to look after about 100000 pris-
oners, of whom 1.-THE, perhaps, may be