The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-05-19
BRIEF MENTION.

Remington rifles. Service is obligatory.
Christianity is protected as the state re-
ligion in Madagascar. The best author
tiles place the number Of Protestants
there at $50, 600, and Roman Catholics
$4,000 Education is compulsory. One
district alone makes a return of 100, 600
pupils in the schools
Among the present English ministers
there is only one ex-journalist, Sir Will
liam Harcourt Mr.. Courtney, who re-
Gently retired, was leader writer on
the London Times. Nearly every mem
Der of the French Ministry, on other
hand, has been a journalist
The reinstallation of the Prince Of
Wales as grand master of English Free
Masons, which occurred on Wednesday
Of last week, took place in the New Tenn
pie in London, built on the site of
building destroyed by fire one week af-
ter a similar ceremony two years ago.
There is an immense rocking stone in
the woods about seven miles from Hall
fax n. S, which can be rocked almost
as easily as a cradle. It has but few Wis
itors, not any.Haligonians even having
seen this natural curiosity, although sit
uated in their immediate vicinity.
il will have been fifty years on June
is next since Allen G. Thurman was adj
mitted to the bar at Washington Court
House. o, and there is still on file there
signed by ex-Gov. William Allen, a GER
tifieate to the effect that ''AllenG. Thur
man is a person of good moral character
= and of sufficient legal knowl-
edge and ability to discharge the duties
Of an attorney and counsellor at law"
According to Prof. Tay lor, of the De-
partment of Agriculture, the simplest
test of pure butter is sulphuric acid. A
few drops combined with the butter will
turn it first whitish yellow and in ten
minutes a brick red. Oleomargarine
treated in the same way turns at first to
a clear amber and in twenty minutes a
deep crimson. Use a glass rod in mixing
the acid with the butter
Mr. Charles Villiers, member for VOL
verhampton. the colleague of Peel and
Bright and Golden in the anti-Corn Law
struggles, is now eighty-three years old,
with snowy whiskers aud hair, but hale
and vigorous. He has represented VOL
verhampton in Parliament for half a cen
fury without a break. But he seldom is
seen in the House now, except on the
most important occasions, and still more
rarely does he speak One evening re-
Gently he made speech on the reform
BILL and it was his first after eight years
of silence.
The Emperor of Germany enjoys the
best OF health. A Herald correspon-
dent saw the Emperor Saturday at the
wedding of the widowed daughter Of
Prince Frederick Charles aud Prince Al
bert of Sachsen Altenburg He looked
in splendid health. The bride who. is at
present thirty years old, was for five
months the wife of Prince Henry Of the
Netherlands, who was her senior by 80
years. The Prince died in 1879, leaving
a fortune of 100,0O0,000 forms, which
went to his brother, the King of Hol-
land while his young widow received
bat dowry Of 10000 FORMS
It is a very curious circumstance that
some Roman statues were fitted with
movable marble wigs, but for what reas-
on is not clear, unless the fastidous mat
rons of antiquity desired to have the
hair on their sculptured portraits always
arranged in the latest fashion. The
statue OF Lucilla, wife of the Emperor
Lucius Verus, in the museum of the
Capitol at Rome. has wig Of black
marble that can be taken off; and in the
Vatican a Venus is believed to represent
Julia Soemias, the mother Of the EN-
peror Elagabalus, with hair that may be
removed. There was also a bald bust of
a woman, with marble wig attached, in
the palace Of Sans -Souci at Pottsdam.
A pension which had been regularly
paid for SOP years has just come to an
FlAI III oNiiZSIlti1Nis anu TIE NttltAittl
government of Soleure, the paymasters,
somuch regret its extinction that they
are advertising for an heir. In 1882
Count Rudolph of Kibourg marched to
the assault of the town of Soleure,
against which his ancestors had long en-
tertained reasonable designs. But one
Hans Roth. a peasant living in neigh
boring village, was on the alert and car
ried to the townspeople intelligence of
what was brewing, and Soleure was
saved. For this very substantial service
Hans was rewarded with an annuity to
himself and his heirs forever. The last
inheritor, the JUICE de paix Roth, has
lately died. and all the Roths in Switzer-
land are now looking up their pedigrees.