is of a private character, and it is not yet known how long he will stay in England. THE POPE'S DAILY LIFE.-The Figaro gives the following details of the daily life of the Pope :-In winter as in summer the Pope rises at 6 A.M. He then spends his time in prayer until 8 A.M., when mass is celebrated in his private chapel. At nine o'clock he breakfasts, and afterwards opens his correspondence and transacts business with his secretary, Cardinal Simeoni. He then gives private receptions in his library until about half-past twelve, when the semi-public audiences begin. At these deputations are received and addresses are read. These concluded, the Pope, attended by those among the cardinals who are more intimate with him, walks in the galleries, or sometimes in the garden, until half-past one, when he dismisses his suite and, attended by Monsignor Ricci, his major-domo, reads the office for the day. At 2 P.M. the Pope dines, afterwards taking a siesta for half an hour. The recital of the breviary occupies him until half-past four, when he visits the Holy Sacrament in his chapel, and afterwards walks again in the galleries or, when the weather is hot, is carried into the garden. On returning he is again occupied reading his correspondence until sunset, when the private receptions recommence and are continued until nine o'clock. Afterwards a circle is formed by the inmates of the Vatican and general conversation is carried on for a short time, when the Pope partakes of a frugal supper and retires to his chamber. 10. CARRIER-PIGEONS.-A German paper gives some details of the extraordinary development of the breeding and training of carrier-pigeons in Germany since the late war. During the siege of Paris, as is well known, pigeons afforded the only means of communication between the outside world and the inhabitants of the beleaguered city. In order that similar messengers might be available in the hour of need, pigeon-houses were established, after the conclusion of the war, in most of the larger garrison towns of North and South Germany, and now pigeon-flying has rapidly become a favourite pastime and sport throughout the country. The increased attention thus given to the subject has resulted in the observation of many peculiarities in the birds. Carrier-pigeons of good breed, it is noticed, although they may be started in company and bound for the same place, fly quite independently of one another. Each one selects its own course, some taking a higher, others a lower flight, and speeds on its way without taking any heed of its neighbours. The birds, in fact, seem to know that they are racing, and each one exerts itself to the utmost to arrive first at the goal. In the neighbourhood of every pigeon-house there are always certain places, trees, &c., which are usually favourite resorts of the birds, but when coming in in a race the well-bred pigeon never stops for a moment at any of these haunts, but flies straight to his own particular house, frequently arriving there in so exhausted a state es to be unable to eat the food it is most fond of. Birds which are sitting, or which have lately hatched young, are generally taken in preference to others for racing; but instances have been known in which carrier-pigeons of good breed which have been taken to a fresh home, and which have hatched young there, have deserted their brood and flown away to their original home at the first opportunity they had of escaping. 11. FATAL FIRE.-At St. Just, near Penzance, five boys, the youngest aged eight months and the eldest about nine years, the children of Henry Angwin, miner, were put to bed in an upstairs room in their father's cottage, and left alone in the house for a few minutes, while the mother looked for her eldest son, a boy of eleven years. On returning she found the cottage in flames, and notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the neighbours and of Angwin, the father of the children, who came home at this crisis, the five brothers were burnt to death, and, with the exception of the youngest child, nothing but charred remains were found. The agony of the mother, who made desperate attempts to enter the burning house, was pitiable. 14. GALLANT RESCUE.-As a Mrs. Phipps and her daughter, at Southsea, this morning, were returning to their bathing machine on the beach somewhat exhausted, after a long swim out to sea, they heard screams proceeding from a young lady some little distance off. Thinking she was amusing herself, no notice was at first taken of her, but, finding that she was really struggling for life, Miss Phipps swam to her assistance and reached her just as she sank for the second time. The drowning lady, however, who was afterwards ascertained to be Miss Johnstone, of Southsea, clutched hold of her rescuer so firmly that both were almost drowning, when Mrs. Phipps swam to their assistance. She in her turn was seized round the neck, and for a time all the three seemed in imminent danger of drowning, as the tide was running out very strongly. A machine man then swam out, and laying hold of Miss Johnstone's hair, swam back with her to shore. In the meantime, a gentleman went to their aid, and a boat from a yacht reaching them at the same time, the ladies were rescued. This is the second life which Mrs. Phipps has been the means of saving. 15. THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION for the Advancement of Science, commenced its sittings at Plymouth this afternoon, and in the evening the President for the year, Professor Allen Thomson, delivered his inaugural address to "a large and brilliant assemblage in the Guildhall. There were, of course, on subsequent days the usual separate Meetings of Sections, with what we may venture to describe as the usual or average fare. There were excursions by land and by sea. There were conversaziones and aggregate gatherings. There were all the stimulating pleasures of social intercourse to relieve the labours of high intellectual exercise. There were papers read before crowded and scanty audiences--those which had proved most attractive not being always the best. There was the ordinary intermixture of wheat and chaff, of solid instruction and speculative rubbish. The session could hardly be described as specially distinguished above those of preceding years. No great discovery, except the Telephone, was recorded and illustrated. The latest reports from Plymouth announce that "some dissatisfaction has been expressed at the almost entire silence of the ladies in the different sections during the present meeting of the British Association." A rumour had got abroad that Mrs. Crawshay had prepared a paper giving some account of the progress of her scheme of "Lady Helps," and "such indeed was the fact; but it was understood that the Committee of Sections declined to receive it, as not sufficiently of a scientific character." -ANIMAL RAILWAY SUFFERING.Notwithstanding all the praiseworthy efforts that have been made to lessen the horrors of the journeys of cattle to the shambles, the suffering endured by the unhappy beasts is still at times so unendurable that they cut the matter short by dying before they are slaughtered. Some remarkable evidence on this point was given in the Preston County Court, when a cattle dealer of Kinross sued the London and North Western Railway Company for 50l. loss, alleged to have been incurred owing to delay in delivery of ninety-eight calves forwarded on five different occasions from Preston to Perth. The calves, it appeared, were despatched from Preston by a train leaving that town at 11.25 A.M., and which ought to have reached Perth at four o'clock in the morning of the next day. The train, however, being ten or twelve hours late, the market was missed, and the calves were all so greatly deteriorated from exhaustion for want of food that of one lot five of the animals died immediately after arrival at Perth, and six of another three days after plaintiff received them. A large number that might have been sold at from 488. to 558. each, if they had come to hand in time, were sold at 10s. each on the day after their arrival. The distance from Preston to Perth is 240 miles, and the calves, when they did not come in time for the market, were sent on to the plaintiff at Kinross, thirty-five miles farther. A calf, it was stated, ought to be fed twice a day at least, and a veterinary surgeon stated for the company that he did not think it right to send calves three weeks old a journey of eighteen or nineteen hours. "Under such treatment, if threefourths of them survived the journey, they would do well." It was also urged on behalf of the company that calves should not be sent by goods trains, but in horse-boxes. The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff for 317. and costs. -PONGO. A few days since the young gorilla, of whose receptions in Berlin we have already spoken, arrived in England by the Hamburg steamer, and was taken to the Westminster Aquarium. Pongo is the first gorilla that has been safely brought to Europe, and he has now been thirteen months an inhabitant of the temperate zone. Even in Africa the gorilla rarely lives long in captivity. M. Du Chaillu had three at different times, which were all taken young, but he did not keep any one of them more than a few days or weeks. Pongo (whose name is that by which Battel, an early traveller in 1629, called the gorilla species) was found by the Russian Natural History Expedition to Africa chained up in a village on the Gaboon. De Falkenstein brought him to Berlin, and sold him for 20,000 marks to the Berlin Aquarium. He is about three years and ten months old, and is believed to have about eighteen months before him before the dangerous period of teething will begin. He is 33 feet in height. 18. THE STRIKE IN THE BUILDING TRADE.-For some weeks past a contest has been going on between the master builders and the masons, which has resulted in the strike of the latter. The men demanded an additional penny per hour, and that they should be permitted to commence half an hour later in the morning— that is to say, instead of 6 o'clock, at half-past that hour. At a meeting held on Saturday at Clerkenwell Green several employers and workmen explained the circumstances of the contention in the trade, and it was alleged on the part of the workmen that, inasmuch as a large number of them were obliged to reside in the suburbs of London for want of house accommodation, they could not easily get trains so as to get to their work before half-past six. That was not considered to be an exorbitant demand, because the men did not object to work half an hour later in the evening. The demand of one penny per hour was thought to be inconsistent with the employers' interest, considering that their contracts had been entered into without any idea of such an increase of wages being asked. No solution of the present difficulty was arrived at, and the meeting broke up. ISAAC PRIDE, one of the Tynewydd colliers, has sent the following letter to the Times:-"I wish to thank her Majesty the Queen for the first-class Albert Medal which Lord Aberdare was commissioned to present. And next, I thank Major Duncan for presenting me with the medal of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Then I wish to thank the Lord Mayor and the subscribers to the Mansion House Fund and others for the money I have received from them; and I wish to thank the members of Parliament for their kindness in presenting me with a watch and chain. I wish to say I am very proud of the rewards that I have received, and little did I think the public would take as much interest in it as they did when we were working to rescue the men." THE COLORADO BEETLE.-When the Glasgow Post Office authorities were this week sorting the mail from America, they came upon a sample parcel containing a tin canister perforated at the top. Upon examination the canister was found teeming with living and dead Colorado beetles and locusts. They put the living to death and despatched the whole parcel to the London postal authorities. It is believed that the Colorado beetle discovered in the mail carriage between Plymouth and Bristol was a specimen in course. of transit by post, portions of a perforated cardboard box having been found in the van; and the Post Office authorities have accordingly given instructions that the American mails shall be carefully watched on arrival, with a view to prevent the transmission of such dangerous insects alive. -CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.-The report of the committee of inquiry into the circumstances of the death of William Arthur Gibbs, a scholar in Christ's Hospital, and into the general management of the hospital, has just been published.— The Committee find that the allegations as to the conduct of the deceased boy have been substantially proved, and exonerate the authorities of the school and the monitor under whom Gibbs was placed. They find many serious causes of complaint in the general management of the school, but these, they say, are due not to the shortcomings of individuals, but to faults inherent in the system. The Committee recommend the removal of the school. -ROMAN REMAINS IN PARIS.-An interesting discovery has been made by some workmen who are pulling down the old houses which are to make room for the new boulevard connecting the National Opera House and the Théâtre Français. In the courtyard of a house in the Rue d'Argenteuil, at a depth of about five feet from the surface, they came upon two skeletons laid side by side, but placed obliquely. The chest of one of these skeletons was still prominent, and the ribs seemed to be in a good state of preservation. A third skeleton was found at right angles to the two others. At their head and at their feet were several vases and medals, one of which was so much oxydated that the inscriptions upon it were illegible. The other medals, which date from Constantine and his son Crispus, are of bronze and in an excellent state of preservation. The Constantine medal is 0-6698 of an inch in diameter, with the laurelled head of Constantine and the inscription "Constantinus Aug." on one side, while upon the reverse is a star between two globes placed upon a temple, with the inscription "Providentia Aug." The Crispus medal is 0.7092 of an inch in diameter, with the laurelled head of Crispus, and the inscription "Crispus Nobilic.," while upon the reverse is a globe surmounted by three stars, and placed upon the summit of the façade of a temple, upon which is the inscription "Vot.-TS.XX." Upon the two sides of the temple are the letters F and B, with the words "Beata Tranquillitas." 20. PIRACY IN THE NORTH SEA.-The Copenhagen Dags Telegraph contains the following particulars of an attempt at piracy in the North Sea. The English ship "Mexican," Captain J. Griffith, having a few days ago gone ashore near the Swedish village of Onsala, the captain arranged with the fishermen to assist him to get the ship off for the sum of 10l. sterling, and, after having thrown overboard part of the cargo, consisting of coals, and got an anchor out, the ship was eventually floated. The money was paid, but the Swedes would not, leave the ship, and prepared to take it F |