Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1881-11-26 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

OOO. The North Wales Methodists have responded to the offer by promptly collecting £20,000.  It is announced that the French Railway Companies have agreed to issue circular tickets for the use el commercial travellers; they are, however, to be circumscribed to a radius of about•severity miles from Paris. ticket will allow the bearer to transport a hundredw= of luggage free of charge.  An exhibition of heraldry, seals, and genealogical records, under the patronage of his Royal Highness Prince Charles of Prague, is to be inaugurated at Berlin on the lit of April next, and to remain open for two months. On Its behalf the participation and support of all perion interested In heraldic art are invited. .t? A very prosperous inancial condition was shown In the New South Wales budget just introduced, the revenue being estimated at k. 6,210,000, and the expenditure at £5,960,000. The current year has shown an excess of abote £900,000 over the estimates, all sources of national inooine having shown a remarkable increase.  Th; additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens, Regent's-park, London, during the past week include two Vtilpine phalangers, a Rufous rat kangaroo, from Austral* presented by Mr. P. J. Horniman, F.Z.S. ; a ring-necked parrakeet from India, presented by the Countess Dowager of Lonsdale ; two long-eared owls, British, presented by the Rev. J. A. Wiz; two grey wagtails, British, presented by Mr. Swaysland ; a Dufresne's amazon, from south-east Br a yellow-cheeked amazon, from Honduras, an orange-wing amazon, from South AmPrica, deposited; a Pluto monkey, a S/kes's monkey, from West Africa, a Darwin's rhea, from Patagonia, a Picazuro pigeon, from South America' two spotted Zenlida doves, from La Plata, two Dominican gulls, from Antarctic America, purchased. . .  In Rome on Tuesday- the King of Italy visited the Pantheon and knelt for a quarter of an hour before his father's tomb; then, after some conversation with an officer and a private (a veteran) who were on duty at that spot, he proceeded to visit the excavation and demolitions in progress for isolating the Pantheon and the ancient remains behind it.  At a temperance conference held at Darlington, a letter was read from Mr. Elerbert Gladstone, M.P., in which he said that, in his opinion, the time had now come when the temperance reformers should make their voices heard above all the rest.  There were 2,623 births and 1,434 deaths registered in London last week Allowing for increase of population, the births were 21 and the deaths 302 below the average numbers in the corresponding week of the last ten years. The annual death-rate from all causes, which had been equal to 22-4 and 22-3 per 1,060 in the two preceding weeks, declined to 195,  On Friday, in last weer, at the meeting of the Met?opolitan Board of \S'orks, Colonel Sir J. M`Garel Hogg, was elected Chairman for the ensuing year, at a saly of two thousand pounds. In thanking the Board for this renewal of their confidence, he. said they had done good work in the past and union was now especially neceisary in view of coming changes. The,,Board had improved the health of the inhabitants of thelletropolis, had facilitated Its communications, and had added to its beauty. Last week's receipts of cotton at all United States ports have been 218,000 bales, and Mace Ist September, 1,785,500 bales. Exports to Great Britain, 66,000 ,ales, and to the Continent and Channel, 49,000 bales; total since lit September, 836,300 bales. Stock at all ports, 826 000 ba!es. The Channel tunnel experimental works at the Shakespeare Cliffs Shaft still continue to progress very satisfactorily. Up to the present time there has been no change in the nature of the soil, and there is a remarkable absence of springs or water courses through the sides of the heading. The boring averages about 28 feet per day of ge hours. The drilling machine is advanced at intervals of three feet six inches, when the precaution la taken to gauge the gradient at which the heading is.  The late Mr. Robert Nicholson' of Lochbank, Dumfries, has left handsome bequests to Mr. Spurgeon's Orphanages. Mr. Nicholson was a member of the United Presbyterian Church, emu has bequeathed three sums of £2OO each to objects connected with that denomination, besides numerous charitable bequests, but having in his latter years been unable through deafness to attend church he has left the residue of his estate. amounting. to about £2,000, to the Orphanages, in acknowledgment of the advantages he has derived from reading Mr. Spurgeon's  The Paris Correspondent of the Daily News says that Ophelie, daughter of Gladiatenr, on Saturday last, swam across the Seine between St. Cloud and Suresnes, with a jockey on her back, thus winning a wager of her proprietor, the Vicomte de Civry, with the Marquis of Pnyflitz. The current was 'very strong, and the filly after deviating 200 yards from her course, landed on the Suresnes bank with some difficulty, amidst the applause of numerous spectators. Speaking at Whalley, Mr. Richard Fort, M.P. for Clitheroe, said the question in some minds was not quite decided as to how far education was good for the working men of England. There was only one answer to that question, and that was that the more they were educated the better it would be for them. Politically speaking, education was our greatest safeguard. As nations progressed, so their Instruction must progress: but he was in favour of changing things gradually, without hurting existing institutions. The way to do that was to have educaced people.  The weather is so exceptionally mild that primroses are growing in the open and spring flowers are blossoming plentifully at Chester.  An official circular has been issued to the South Wales and Monmouthshire colliers, calling upon them to contribute what they each can towards founding a memorial to the late Mr. Alexander Macdonald, M.P. The members of the National !diners' Union Central Board have, It is remarked, been constlt4ted a memorial committee. The circular concludes with the remark that Mr. Macdonald's was a self-sacrificing life; devoted to the social emancipation of the working chases. In London last Saturday an inquest was held relative to the death of Thomas Cole, aged ferty-nine, who was found on Wednesday night in a first-class carriage in the Aldgate Railway Station, shot through the head. Mr. Byron Cole said that the deceased, his imother, had been. a eashier on the Grand Trunk Railway, in Canada, but had been out of employment for six months. Witness itati received a letter from the deceased, saying that he was about to destroy himself, and asking witness to take care of his two children. The jury returned a verdict of "Suicide while in a state of temporary insanity."