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! CURRENT NO 1'35. Reports from the continent indicate that t the Unionist triumph in the general elec- tionsin the United Kingdom is viewed with satisfaction in Germany, Austria and Italy, but with not a little misgiving .‘n France. No doubt the, growing change of English public opinion in favor of join- .ng the Triple Alliance,in order to neutral- ize the persistent unfriendliness of France, ind the fact that the Conservative party, has inclined most to that policy, ac~ g counts for much of the French apprehen- sion. But there is good reason to believe that, apart from the fear lest Britishi influence may be thrown on the side of the , Triple Alliance. the French dread a de-{ mand for the settlement of a part at least of the long list of diplomatic injuriesi inflicted upon Great Britain. Confirmation x, of this belief, it is claimed, has been given ‘ in the meagre publicity accorded by thel French press and government to the for--l mal opening a few weeks ago of the great military port and naval arsenal constructed by France at Bizsrta, in Tunis, though its ‘ importance to the republic is scarcely less than that of the Kiel Canal to Germany. For by cutting a canal from the sea to Lake Bizerta, the French have secured an inland harbor capable of holding their entire fleet, and as absolutely protected from attack by a hostile squadron as the German fleet would be if massed in the middle reaches of the Kiel waterway. I Moreover, a naval base at Bizerta more than doubles the strength of France in the Mediterranean, giving her, with Toulon, a great naval stronghold on either side of sea, thus enabling her to safely divide her fleet and to harass an enemy on both lanks. Yet the only celebration of the opening of this great port was a parade of the French Mediterranean fleet, conducted so quietly thatit was hardly known outside of France, and due, no doubt, to the fact that in opening it at all, the republic violated a direct promise made to Great Britain. For in the correspondence between the two governments which accompanied the French occupation of Tunis in 1881, France not only repeatedly promised not to permanently occupy the country, but at England’s request. gave special assurances that Bizerta would not be converted into a military and naval port. In view of these pledges, it is not unnatural that the Paris government should carefully refrain from advertising the completion of the port, and dread the return to power of a British premier likely to demand compensation for the injury done to British interests in the :onstruction of a naval stronghold on the British route to India, and if refused, to add it to the list of Injuries for which pay- ment will some day be exacted. It is true, of course, that the breaches of faith are, by no means all on the French side, but it is, unfortunately, equally true that England can show the longer list of diplomatic grievances, and so is in better position to demand an accounting. HOW TO TEST A THERMOMETER. Turn it on lind. rind if the Mercury Sill! l-‘Ills the Tube You Can net It's a Good One. To tell whether a thermometer accurately does its work invert the instrument. If ‘he mercury does not fall to the end, or if it breaks into several small columns, the thermometer contains air,and is inaccurate. If perfectly made,the slender thread should fill the tube, or should break offat the bulb and fall to the end of the tube. There is another interesting fact about thermometers. Nine persons out of ten think the mercurial column round, but that is not the case. The thread of mercury in thermometers is flat. If it were round, the column could hardly be seen, for the open- ing of the tube is as fine as the finest thread, Some eight or ten years ago a manufacturer introduced the scheme of coating the back of the tube with white sizing. That makes the column of mercury stand out plain and distinct Thermometers are cheaper and better than ever before. You can now buy a heat marker for twenty-five cents, but a first- class instrument will cost you 32. A cheap instrument is like a cheap watchâ€"it is unreliable. The reason for this is theta rfect thermometer has a scale of its own. ‘he chea thcruiometer is made on guess- work. llhnce, you see a difference of two, three or five degrees between thermometers in the same locality on the same day. The most sensitive heat marker is the radiometer. It consists of four arms sus- pended on a steel pivot, rotating like a miniature windgauge, and the whole adair a enclosed in a glass tube from which the air has been exhausted. The light of a candle one or two feet away causes the arms to rotate. Quite as sensitive is the tnermopile, which is used to detect the faint rays of heat transmitted from the moon and stars to this cold world. Eye for Style. , Tramp (interviewing Herr Gathers at the front deanâ€"Excuse metâ€"yesterday you gave me this hat and light ~pop coat I am new wearing : couldn’t you l’st me have i walking stick to match 1 â€"-~â€"â€" Satisfied With Horrors. Mabelâ€"I am beginning to have a horror of man. - Estelle (sighiug"â€"Indeedl Ishould be grateful for even a chance towork ups good substantial horror just new. His EARNED E18 SPUR3.!m.a. LORD weifsstsr TAKES cusses or THE BRITISH ARMY. The Appointment Causes Great Saturat- Flghlerâ€"Whlle of Irish nlrth. He Has no Sympathy With Ilse Present Leader â€"56me or Ills Battles- The announcement that General Lord Wolseley has been chosen to succeed the Duke of Cambridge as commander-in- chief of the British army causes the great- i ilen In Englandâ€"lie Is a Renowned! ___...______.¢ lassistant general at the war ofice in for a long time he was compelled to live in When the Ashantee war 3 began in August. lb73, he was chosen to command the British troops,with g the local rank of major general. The Afri- i can campaign was a brilliant one,thenatives , being defeated atevery turn,Genersl Wolse- ' ley entering (Yonmassie on Feb. 5, 1874,and receiving the submission of the king. His return to England was a great popular triumph. Like a second Scipio Africanns, he was the hero of the day. Parliament passed a resolution thanking him for his services to the British crown and granting him $125,000 as a partial reward for his ' “ courage,energy and perseverance.” The lQueen made him a Knight Commander of y the Bath, while the City of London, not to es: possible granficgtion among the govern. { be outdone in favoring the popular hero, ment’s friends and supporters, says a Lon-l don letter. been to many minds the ideal soldierâ€"the greatest living master of the art of war. General Lord Roberts, for many years commander~in-chief of the forces in India, and who for the past two years has‘been' in Great Britain receiving the administration to which hisprowess in Asia entitled him, is his only rival, but he has never filled the public mind as has the man who boldly satin judgment on the deeds of Wellington and Bonaparte and on the campaigns of General Ulysses S. Grant. His popularity is due almost entirely to his military prowess. There is nothing imposing or niagneti cabout his appearance. He has not the fine physique of Lord “Bobs.” Slim, small statured. with a ruddy face, firmly lined, searching blue eyes and a drooping mustache, his general bearing is by no means that of the typ ical Soldier of romance. Although 62 years of age, he looks at least a decade younger,and his Irish birth shows itself in a marked brogue, which he would be glad to remove from his voice, as he has no sympathy whatever with the cause ofJZarnell, Red- mond and McCarthy. The Irishman in l presented him with the freedom of the city , and a splendid sword valued at 100 guineas. PM man? 5’93” “'Olfieleb' h” l He was shortly afterward made commander 'of the auxiliary forces, but it being felt that his services were needed in Africa, where success had previously met him at every turn, be was dispatchedto Natal to colonial office of the bestforni of government for the natives, and to arrange for suitable military organization and defenses in the : event of another outbreak. HONORS CAME VERY FAST. Upon his return to London he was again made commander of the auxiliary forces, and then a member of the owned for India. His next appointment was as Governor of Cyprus, and commander in chief of the army, in that newly acquired important military point. African warfare again de- manded his services in June, 1879, and he was made governor and high commissioner of Natal, the whole of the Zulu war being left in his hands. In‘this venture he was successful, as always,succeeding in destroy- ing the strongholds of Sikukuni. At the close of the campaign he held successively the offices of quartermaster general and adjutant general of the army,but when the expeditionary force was sent to Egypt, in 1882, he was chosen as its leader. His services there gained him again the thanks of Parliament, as well as the title of Baron Wolseley of Cairo, and of Wolseley in the County of Stafford. He also obtained the rank of full general, while both THE FAMOUS SOLDIER WHO HAS BEEN CHOSEN T0 SUCCEED THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE AS COMMANDER-IN-OHIEF OF BRITAIN’S ARMIES. his constitution also shows itself in a suave manner and a not altogether suppressed tendency to blarney his friends, although during‘i'ehe last score years of his life he has succeeded in getting rid of that Irish trait. His beast is that he always says exactly what he thinks of friend or foe and to their faces. Often he excoriates his consemporaries in quite unprofessional style in the magazines and reviews, paying no more respect toliving generalsv such as Lord Roberts than he does to hapolecn, Wellington, Grant, Caesar or Hannibal. IS AN ACTUAL FIGHTER. It must not be supposed, however, that Lord Wolseley is one of those soldiers wno do most of their fighting with pen and ink. He has had many more than his share of hard campaigns since he entered the army as ensign in March,.185‘2. From-that time he has been in the mogt notable battles in which the British army has been engaged. He Was an ensign during the second Bur- mese war. At the siege of Sebastopol he was a lieutenant, and rose on that field to the rank of captain in the first month of 1555. On his way to China in 1857 he endured the hardships of theses, being wrecked near Singapore. He took part in the suppression of the Indian mutiny in that year, receiving a commission as major in March, 1858, and the next year gaining a lieutenant colonelcy at the age of ‘26 years. In 1800 he served on the staE of the quartermaster general throughout the Chinese campaign. for which he received the honor of a medal with two clasps. He was appointed deputy quartermaster general in Canada in October, 1867, and commanded the expedition to the Red serviasasan executive'oiiicer woln‘him a nomination as Knight Commander of the Order of 8.8. Michael and George in 1870, and upon his return to England be was River. His gallantry on the field‘ond his ‘ lthe great English universities con- ferred upon him their highest de- grees. Almost before he had thoroughly l rested himself from the Egyptian campaign f,he was sent back to that country to the [relief of General Gordon. This was the only failure in his career, and even for this only his enemies hold him accountable. Through a combination- of circumstances his steamer arrived at Khartoum forty- eiqht hours too late,-rendering the expédié tion abortive. To console him for ihis idisappoiutment, the popular; hero was lthanked for his services by both houses of 'parliament, and was, ’made Viscount Wolseley. In 1890 he retired from being adjutsnt general to the forces and became commander in chief of the forces in Ireland, which position he; has since lieldl'bis con- lduct winning the approval of the English ltories and the hatred of the Irish, who lwould almost as soon see further ‘hon‘ors lheaped upon the Duke of Cambridge him- 'self‘as upon their enemy. This, of course, {is another thing which gives the conserve» e tives great satisfaction. COVERED “‘ITE SEARS. , Wounds as well as honors have been 1 Lord Wolseley’s lot since he first donned a lred uniform. In leading a storming party gwhile ensign during England’s war with ;Rurmah in 1854 both he and his brother :officer were shot down as they entered the 'Ienemy's works. The other bled to death ,in five minutes and it was only as if by a ,miracle and after intense suffering that the life of the future commander-in-chief rof the British army was saved. During lthew‘s‘iege of sebastob'dl ‘he’ was wounded ‘three times and on one occasion while ,working in the trenches be was bowled ' over by a solid shot- striking him. He was picked up for dead hardly recognizable from thenumber of woundsrm his face. The surgeons declared that there was no possi. b'liiy of ,hisv recovery but he took a ii icreut view of the matter and lived to see all of the'n'in their graves, although I a dark room, total blindness being threat~ cued. While not engaged in fighting with the sword, Loni Wolesley has been wielding the pen with almost as good effect. In his essays he has not hesits ted to criticise almost every great general of ancient and modern times. To complete the picture of the English hero there is need only to add that he is s. confirmd prohibitiouiat and an inveterate smoker. He has an only daugh- ter of marriageable age, who will inherit his viscountcy. SOMEWHAT CURIOUS. â€"â€" There are 13,000 distinct varieties of postage stamps. ' A French railroad company has ordered clocks placed on the outside of evsry loco. motive. The native dog of Australia, the Egypt- ian dog and the Persian desert dog never act as governor of that colouy,to advise the ; bark. May their tribe increase. The German army is to spend 100,000 marks for bicycles. Two wheels are as- signed to each battalion for work formerly done by mounted orderlies. A snake fourteen feet long has, accord- ing to report, been stealing ducks, geese, chickens, peacocks and other delicacies from a farm at Cold Spring Harbor, L.I. It was stated sortie time ago by one of the heads of departments of the London and Northwestern Railway ti at that company issues yearly fivs tons of railway tickets. A contested claim to a yearling calf caused Joseph Hamilton and Clarence Chapman, of Lonoke 00., Ark., to kill each other in a duel. It Wasn’t the calf so much as it was the principle of the thing and somehow the law can’t settle that. The perpendicularity of a monument is visibly affected by the rays of the sun. On every sunny day a tall monument has a regular lean from the sun. This phenom- enon is due to the greatest expansion of the side on which the rays of the sun fall. Bucharest is known to-day as the greatest den of swindlers in the world. Even the great American crime centers cannot hold a candle to Bucharest. It is the exit, so to speak, the initiative station for the criminals of the Balkan states. whence they travel westward to Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London, Rome and New York. In the manufacture of watch glasses balls are usually blown to a size of about two feet in diameter, and at the exhibition of 1839 there was shown a ball of considerably over a yard in diameter. arrived at by a system in which compressed air is em- ployed. No less than 3,000 watch glasses were obtained from this bubble. Boy battalions have sprung up all over Spain since the little king has begun to grow up. They drill after school hours, and try to imitate their elders in all things. At Grenade the school battalion mutinied recently because it did not receive its pay, went in a body to the newspaper offices and proclaimed its grievance, then marched through the city streets smashing all the lanterns. A Heavy Burden. The history of labor strikes, if fully written, would contain some odd incidents. None could be more so, perhaps, than the story of a recent strike in Omaha among the brewery workmen. An agreement had been made between the brewers and their employee which was acceptable in every point but one, and upon this one point they held out. It had been provided that beer should be furnished the workmen to drink without charge at nine, eleven, two, three, four and six o’clock, but the men insisted upon having it free at every hour of the day ! Here is oppression of labor by capital with a vengeance i In point of fact, there are no two things more at odds than efiicient labor and excessive drinking. About a thousand million dollars a year are spent in the United States for liq-tors. Wines and ales. The prc portion of this enormous sum that comes from the pockets .of the working people of small means is quite out of proportion to their number. The loss is not only direct, but indirect. lndoience and incapacity always follow in the train of excess. A manufacturer has lately been quoted as saying that he had many men in his employ to whom he used to pay five dollars a day, but who could now with difficulty earn a dollar and a quarter; and thatsolely because they would drink. And the circumstance is not excep- tional, but typical. ' Waste and idleness are of the nearest kin to vice and excess. , .___â€"..-â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€"â€" Health on' a Mountain-Top. _ A striking indication of the comparative freedom of the higher regions of the at- mosphere from floating germs has been noticed in Scotland. During the past twelve years a meteorological observatory has been maintained on the summit of Ben Nevis. Members of the observatory stafi who have resided on the uiauntaiiiatop have been remarkably free from sickness, although they are exposed to very inclement weather. In particular, it has been noted that they do not suffer from catarr'n, and other affections of the "111000! membrane and air- passages, as long as they remain on the mountain; but when they return to live at a low level they are especially subject to attacks of influenzal catarrh. The explanation offered is that the freedom from disease during residence on the mountain is due to the comparative absence of deleterious organisms in the air there, while the liability to influenzal affections on descending into the lowlands arises from the peculiar susceptibility of the mucous surfacesâ€"so long accustomed to pure airâ€"to the attacks of the germs that swarm at the bottom of theatmospheric ocean. 3en Nevis is only forty-four hundred feet in height, but in the rigorous climate of Scotland this elevation is sufficient to bring about a sharp distinction in the condition of the air between the mountain-top and the valleys. “ Where there is no hope there can be nn' endeavor. â€"Johnsou. ~ PURELY (landfills INTERESTING ITEMS ABOUT OUR OWN COUNTRY. Gathered from Various Points from m Atlantle to the Pacific. Quebec is talking of a winter carnival. Typhoid fever is prevalent in London. The Oddi‘ellows of Ayr have a new ball. Sneak. thieves pillaged Ridgstown gab dens, An Aldborough man has a pair of tune eagles. This season 1,000 persons settled in Algoma. The C. M. B. A. will have a branch at Uptergrove. Kent county has a fine barley crop this season. Port Rowan has ing for gas. a Robert Steed, of Serum, has arrived at South Africa. Meaiord‘s water powar throws a stream 150 feet high. Some farmers are refusing $20 a ten for their bay. The M. C. R. impounds all cattle found on its property. In ten minutes Barry Lynn, of Lobe killed 63 snakes. A convent is to be built at Montreal costing $60,000. Hamilton bicyclists are obliged to carry bell and lamps. Woodstock will spend 816,000 units schools this year. The bloomer craze has invested tht Maritime Provinces. Chatham has assumed control of its water- works. system. In June 2,328 cars of stock passed through St. Thomas._ Chatliam’s assessment has been reduced $64,000 by appeals. Some Sarnia citizens allow their horses to wonder at night. Midland will soon vote on a $4,000 by- law to improve itself. A fine Indian axe was recently dug up in linniskillen township. A new German Lutheran church has been opened at Lisbon. Byron burk was fatally hurt by falling from a barn at Rondeau. It is proposed to teach German in the Public scools of Creditor). Orillia promptly fines any one using profane language on the streets. Rev. Dr. Jeifers. Belleville, recently celebrated his Slat birthday. The late Joseph Hoodlcss, of Hamilton, left an estate worth $76,000. Stratford has a midget, weighing 45 pounds, who is '24 years old. Knox church, London, will spend $3,500 for enlarging the building. The Indians of Walpole Island will have a Christian Endeavour Society. Louis Foster, of Zurich, nearly asphyxi- ated himself in a London hotel. The St. Thomas radial railway will be amalgamated with the city road. _ A fine hotel is to arise from the ruins of the Mansion House at Simcce. The Oxford Mining Company, Norwich, is declared exempt from taxation. A London thief was sent to the peniten- tiary four years for stealing $10. _ Two London boys, aged only 12 and 13, were found drunk the other day. The creditors of the Manitoba Comâ€" mercial Bank will get 37 per cent. The M. C. R, will illuminate Niagara Falls with two powerful search lights. Achurch is being built on the Muncey Reserve for the Bear Creek lndians. Alex. Wilson, arrested for robbery at Chatham,has been found to be insane. A fine crystallized limestone quarry has been discovcred near Sprucedale station. San Francisco capitalists are trying to lease the Revelstoke smelting works. An almanac 101 years old, the oldest in Canada, is owned by a Biddulph man. The corner stone of the new Methodist church at \Vestmount has just been laid. Three hundred varieties of Canadian weeds will be exhibited at the Stratford Fair. Six Brockville hotel men were recently summoned for selling liquor during the prescribed hours. Three boys, aged 8, 11 and 13 recently committed robberies in lngersoll on Sunday afternoon. The tower of Sudbury's new Catholic church is being raised, and a new bell will be hung in it. It is proposed to introduce singing and the kindergarten system into the Public schools of “'oodstock. Little Inne Towers, of Hamilton,pcon- tracted scarlet fever from a stray kitten and she died of it. A large live tarantula was found by a Strntford merchant in some fruit he re- ceivtd from San Francisco. Peter McArthur, a former student of the Strathroy Collegiate, has been appointed editor of the New York Truth. A. Wherry, formerly principal of the Forest Public school, has been appointed inspector of the l’eterboro' Public schools. Mr. \Villiain Brick, principal of St. stock company bprv Mary's school, Kingston, has been appoint- ’ ed to a position in the Ottawa ormal School. Two huge sticks of timber, 70 feet long and 3 feet s uare, reached Kingston last week from astingl, B. C. The freight was $68. The T., H. and B. railway aid $1,000 to the family of Thomas Davis, mllton, who was killed by an explosion while working on the road. The ministers of Regina severely criticiz- ed the fair directors for keeping the ex- hibition open on Sunday. A Shoal Lake hotelkeeper was recently fined $175 and costs, at Portage la Prairie, for selling liquor without alienate. 1" .“W‘ MM’Ar-W v“ «--.-....-.. M... MW.....__ e -_. .._...-e..n . ..s..........-._ .