are by no means wanting in the newspapers. A surprising telegram
from Vienna announces that:--

"A large shark has been captured close to the harbour of Fiume. It
is four and a half metres long, and weighs 1,460 kilogrammes. The
stomach contained a pair of human feet with the boots on."

The shark with two feet, and boots inside of it to boot, beats JERROLD'S
"San Domingo Billy," in _Black Eyed Susan_, with a watch in his
maw--whereby hung a yarn. Provincial journals, please copy, and report a
jack that was so big as to have swallowed jack-boots. You may calculate
that they will go down with some of your readers too. Nothing like
leather.

The gooseberry season is over, but if this were the height of it, the
prodigious fruit of that family would be unmentionable to any scientific
assembly. Nevertheless, Dr. C. FALBERG read a paper to an audience at
the British Association upon "Saccharine, the New Sweet Product of Coal
Tar," which, in connection with the John Hopkins' University (U.S.) he
discovered in 1879. Coal tar has been brought to a pretty pitch. He
averred this saccharine to be 250 times sweeter than sugar. Must have
used nice means to calculate that quantity of the quality of sweetness.
Said it had become an article of commerce--had a large sale in Germany,
was perfectly harmless, he had himself used it for nine years, and it
produced no injurious effect upon him. Apparently, then, he used to eat
it, and if he didn't might have invited his hearers likewise to eat him.
This "Saccharine" bears a somewhat long name, which, as it is a
commercial article, might perhaps be compendiously replaced with
"Sugarine."

The sea-serpent, _Python marinus--Python Ambulatoris_, or _Python
Walkerii_--seems not just yet to have been satisfactorily sighted either
by sailors or marines. However, he may be expected to turn up again very
soon, this time probably coiled in constrictor fashion, as an oceanic
ophidian, around a Laocoon or leviathan of a species very like a whale.

* * * * *

The Duke's Motto.

MR. DUKE, Secretary to the Liberal-Unionists, says that they consider
Liberal reunion as desirable, but "with one opinion" they decline to do
anything until publicly authorised to do so by Lord HARTINGTON and the
Liberal-Unionist leaders. This DUKE'S motto is evidently "Ditto to Lord
HARTINGTON." DUKE'S "Dittos" may in future pair off with GLADSTONE'S
"Items."

* *