The oldest New South Wales pensioner of any grade is the perennial F. L. S. Mere* wether, ex-clerk of the Executive Council, who since January 6, 1856, has annually drawn £900. Forty yean on 6th January next, at £900 a year, is just £36,000. About the shortest Act on record was that reducing the salary of the S.A. Governor to £4,000. It read: "The Governor's Salary, Act, 1866, is hereby repealed." "Is there any necessity for me to live with the woman ?" asked a wife-beater of Mr Keogh, P.M., at Fitzroy, the' other morning. " Not for the ensuing quarter, at any rate," promptly replied Mr Keogh, as he save him three months' bard. W. R. Wilson, of Broken Hill, who has returned from another visit to Hannan's (Coolgardie), says that if the formations there go down for another 100 ft, and con tinue as rich as at present, the field will astonish the world. Two men have been working a cement claim, and have dollied l,loooz of gold. Their claim was only 50ft by 50f t. As a means of showing how far the world is from being over-populated, economists assert that the entire population of the United States could live comfortably in the single State of Texas. The municipal authorities of Paris are taking steps to consider the best method of lighting that city with the acetylene gas, which the highest scientific authorities in France pronounce to be superior to the electric light and to that of the incandescent burners. The calcium can be produced at £3 per ton, and one ton of this material will supply 225 cubic metres of acetylene, being at the rate of a fraction over 3d per cubic metre. It can be manufactured with the greatest ease in every household. We recently gave a full description of this newly-manufactured product, which bids fair to eclipse the electric light. The • Sydney Daily Telegraph ' states that the Premier, in answer to a question in the Assembly as to the return of railway passes by ex-members of Parliament, said all had been returned but one, which had been dis covered in a pawn shop in Melbourne. 