The little town of East Moulsey is now lighted, so far as its public lamps are concerned, by paraffin instead of gas, as heretofore. The reason of this apparent retrogression is found in the excessive demands of the Gas Company, who required the local board to pay at the rate of four guineas per annum for each lamp. This the local board refused to do, and provided the district under their care with paraffin lamps. They are rewarded for their pluck by finding that the cost of the oil-lamps is but one half of the charge demanded by the Gas Company, and by hearing the generally expressed opinion of the people that the place had never before been so well lighted. The recent earthquakes, which have caused such fearful havoc and loss of life both in Southern Europe and in America, remind us that our knowledge of the causes of such terrible phenomena is very meagre, and that science has not yet discovered any means by which their occurrence may be predicted. But, in spite of these admitted facts, there are not wanting on occasions of earthquake self-styled prophets, who will boldly declare what the morrow will bring forth. Such mischievous charlatans do much harm, for they terrify the ignorant at a time when men’s nerves have been already unstrung by recent calamities. In the year 1750, when London felt a sharp earthquake shock, a prophet announced the immediate coming of the judgment day. Another predicted a terrible earthquake for a certain night, with the result that the people encamped in thousands in Hyde Park. Coming nearer to present times, we may note the destructive earthquake in 1881 in the island of Ischia. Here, again, there was a prophecy that there would not be another visitation of the kind for eighty years. But only two years after this the beautiful island was shaken to its foundations, and many lives were lost. During the late disaster at Charleston, a prediction was made that upon the 29th of September a fearful catastrophe was to take place. The originator of this mischievous statement should be severely punished. We have lately received from Messrs Burton Brothers of Dunedin, New Zealand, a set of most interesting photographs, taken in the neighbourhood of Tarawera and Rotomahana, immediately after the late volcanic eruption. Were we not aware of the terrible facts, we should suppose that these were winter scenes, for the trees are stripped of their foliage, and everything is covered with a white ash, which in the photographs looks likes snow. The ruins of M‘Rae’s hotel at Wairoa, of which there are front and back views, exhibit such a mass of broken masonry and twisted iron-work, that one can hardly believe that the place has not been bombarded.