CURRENT EVENTS.
IT is claimed that in the city of Budapest there are 1 20 gypsy bands, numbering 997 performers, 32 wind bands and 21 orchestras, in which the players are women. The grand total is given as 2,000 musicians in a population of half a million.
LAST autumn the Japanese government placed an order for 13,000 tons of rails with Messrs. Carnegie uf Pittsburg, at a price said to be ю per cent, under that quoted by British makers.
NATURE now supplies the inhabitants of Boise City. Idaho, with hot water. The hot water comes to the surface of the plain at the base of the mountains two miles above the city. Seven years ago, capital ists sunk three six-inch tubes 455 feet, obtaining a steady flow under a strong subterranean pressure of about 1,800,000 gallons daily. The wells are con nected with mains, by which the hot water is led to the city, and to which service-pipes are connected, leading the water into the building, where it is made to pass through the coils, similar to steam-heaters. The natural pressure in the city is forty pounds per square inch, and the heat is regulated by waste-cocks, increase of flow increasing heat. Kates are charged on the basis of the size of waste, and are but little higher than coal. Nearly all large buildings and many dwellings use it exclusively for heating. The water leaves the wells at one hundred and seventy degrees, and loses only five degrees traveling two miles, as the mains are substantially non-conductors of heat. The waters are highly mineralized, but are unfit for table purposes, though excellent for skin diseases and bath ing. Ax interesting question has recently been decided by the supreme court of the German empire. The defendant in the case had appropriated electric power from the conduits of a company in an unlawful man ner. The charge against the defendant was larceny and embezzlement. The lower court held that the act of the defendant was neither larceny nor embezzle ment, because electricity or the electric current could not be considered movable property according to the law. The law understood by the term "object" a piece of irrational nature, the body or materialness of the thing or object was its paramount feature accord ing to (ierman civil law, with which the criminal law coincided. Bodyless things, as rights, products of the mind, mechanical power, could therefore not be objects of theft or embezzlement. The supreme court held that the lower courts had argued rightly that only a piece of matter filling space could be
415
called a "thing," hence the materialness, the body of the object, was its paramount feature. The ma terialness of the electric current not having been established, the court decided that electricity cannot be the object of theft or embezzlement under the present law. As there was no law concerning the case there could be no punishment.
THE feature of the English Budget which will be most popular is the reform of the postal rates and reg ulations. At a stroke all or nearly all the elaborate rules which distinguish between letters, books and samples are swept away. For the future there will be, with two minor exceptions, only one mail matter and that is to be conveyed at the liberal rate of a penny for a quarter of a pound; practically this means there will be no more weighing of letters. Time as well as money will be saved to the public and time and consequently money to the postoffice. So great a boon has not been conceded, says an eminent writer, since Sir Rowland Hill forced a reluctant department to consent to a penny post.
THE long-debated question of the establishment of a fast steamship service between England and Canada at last appears to be settled. The Canadian government is to be supplied with four steamers equal in equipment to the best Atlantic lines afloat. They must convey 300 first-class passengers, 200 second and 800 steerage. In summer they are to sail from Liverpool to Quebec, going on to Montreal; in winter the Canadian port is to be Halifax or St. John. The subsidy is to be ¿154,500 sterling, of which the British government supplies ¿51,000 ster ling. The boats are not to call at any foreign port or accept any supplementary subsidies.
DICKEN'S Cadshill clock, lately sold in London, was the subject of the following letter from him to Sir John Bennett : My Dear Sir : Since my hall clock was sent to your establishment to be cleaned, it has gone (as indeed it always has) perfectly well, but has struck the hours with great reluctance and, after enduring internal agonies of a most disheartening nature, it has now ceased striking altogether. Though a happy release for the clock, this is not con venient for the household. If you can send down any confidential person with whom the clock can confer, I think it may have something on its works that it would be glad to make a clean breast of. Faithfully yours,
CHARLES DICKENS.
