NEWS OF THE DAY.

Bush Advocate, Volume I, Issue 16, 12 June 1888, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

4 . Mr Danielson has 250 fat ewes for sale. An engine driver is wanted at Matamau. Mr Squire, of Woodville, has a business announcement in another column. Messrs Reisima and Jacobsen (of Norsewood) were the successful tenderers for logging and cross-cutting at Mr H. Smith's Premier Mills. There are 500 miles of railroad already laid in Japan, and 500 more will shortly be built. The American system of rail-^ roading has been adopted. Oscar Wilde has had his dining room and all the furniture in it painted white, for the reason that " dead white is the only back-ground against what a man looks picturesque in evening dress." The Hon. Mr Mantell says the Episcopalian cemetery in Wellington is so crowded that in digging new graves the remains of those previously buried were thrown out, and he did not know what became of them. The Emperor William during his lifetime saw disappear from the scene six Popes, eight Emperors, fifty-two Kings, six Sultans, and twenty-one Presidents. Four of these are still alive, but the remaining eighty-nine are dead. Messrs T. Kennedy Macdonald and Co., the eminent land auctioneers of Wellington, will hold another sale of Manawatu Railway Company's lands shortly, details of which may be seen in our window. We have plans to give away to those interested. The largest vessel in the world — excepting that useless leviathan, the Great Eastern — was launched at Glasgow recently. The City of New York — a name given to her by Lady Randolph Churchill — has five decks, is 10,500 tons, will carry 2000 passengers, and will travel at the rate of 20 knots an hour. In our. report of the Danevirke Licensing Court last Saturday, we omitted to point out that Mr A. Mackay's absence was owing to his attending at Woodville as a member of the licensing bench for the Woodville district. A written apology was received by the Danevirke Bench and accepted. The Berliner Tagblatt relates an anecdote of the late Emperor of Germany, which illustrates the frugality of his character. His last wishes were that he should be buried with his military helmet on. When the officials came to examine those, he had worn, they could not find one in good condition ; and therefore were obliged to buy a new one for the purpose. A speaker stated at a recent meeting in Dunedin, in favour of the Shop Hours Bill, that the committees had communicated with mistresses, nearly all of whom say they would prefer their servants to take a half-day to do their shopping, believing they would do better for themselves. The girls, however, preferred to have time allowed after dark. The latter statement tickled the atidience immensely, and they indulged in a hearty fit of laughter at the expense of the " servant girls." Messrs Dickey and Co., butchers, Danevirke, sold their business yesterday to Mr John Sebley of Waipawa, late of Porangahau. Mr Sebley has had twenty years experience on Mr Hunter's station, as stockman and butcher, and has a name for being a good tradesman and a good judge of beef and mutton. He will take over the purchase and commence business on the Ist of July. It has not transpired that the former proprietors will leave us. While thus keeping with us two of our old settlers we gain a new and desirable townsman in Mr Sebley whom we shall welcome to our rising settlement. Football, as played under some circumstances, must be very interesting, as may be judged from the following paragraph, which is taken from the fashionable London journal, the Morning Post : — Yesterday, being Easter Tuesday, the people of Workington witnessed the annual football match between the colliers, sailors, and ironworkers. About 300 men were engaged on eaoh side. The game is played at Workingfcon every Easter Tuesday, and is probably unique. There are no rules, but the men try to throw their rivals into the stream or over the wooden fences which cross the field of play. The sheep • returns for 1886-87 shew that on the 31st May, 1887, there were 16,155,626 sheep in the colony, which was a decrease of 16,837 as against the previous year, there being an increase in all the provinces except Canterbury, which showed a decrease of 801,729 sheep. In the Marlborough Distriot there were on the 31st March, 1887, 64,743 infected sheep. The last winter was very severe on the sheep, as was shown by the short shearings, but in the North Island there was a large increase of aheep, which may be expected to continue, The colony is now declared to be free from scab, The question k eagerly asked in F>anoe who is financing the Boulanger move, ment ? On the showing of the Boulangerists themselves the election expenses reached 220,000 for nearly £10,000. Pending any explanation from the Boulangerists themselves, the Opportunist Republique Francaiie has started a theory of its own, and declares that the man who has really set the whole thing afloat is Mr Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald, " the man who invented Stanley, and lias enabled him to pose on tho Congo as the rival of our brave d^ B azza. " The story js at any rate well invented. To run a dictator- in a foreign country is a crowning instance of nowspapoi 1 pntgrpnge, The Hawke's Bay delegate (Mr Hallett) who attended ft meeting of Authorised Surveyors at Wellington on Monday last, informs us that the meeting was well attended, two hundred surveyors in all parts of the colony being represented by delegates or correspondence. Resolutions vyoi'i} unanimously passed affirming the desirability pf foi/nilng a Sui'ycyors. Jnfitj. tute for the colony, and a coinmittce ap r pointed to draH rules, etc., which will be rvinfcort and circulated to all surveyors in the colony for fholr (B«»nfjitlorn,t;ioi} ft.n<l venvu'kfi, antl another mooting will be held in August next to revise and adopt the rules, etc. The meeting was very cordial, and a strong feeling was manifested in the movement. By the amendments made in the Chinese Immigrants Act Amendment Bill in the Legislative Coun. il, the term " Chinese '• dgjßff not include natural born, or naturalised subjects of Her Majesty; and tho term " naturalised " means"nauralisGid in the colony of New Zealand. The section Hunting the number of Chinese per tannage of vessel is added to so that it does not apply to Chinese passengers who shall prove to the jUustoms that they have left China or Hongkpng for New Zealand before the 10th day of June, "]BBB. Further th« B{U is amended ngt fco apply tQ the officers or crews of any vessel or vessels of war of H.M. the Emperor of China ; and the Act is not to remain in force beyond the end of the next session of thy General Assembly. Mr Seddon's additional clauses, referring to. Chinese in the goldiields, have all been atruok out,

There are four ' Taranaki butter shops ' in Wellington. The Timaru Borough Council are thinking about lighting their town by electricity. The installation of W.M. of the Buahina Masonic Lodge, Woodville, will take place on Tuesday the 19th inst. A very large eel, which weighed about 291 b, was caught near Christchurch recently. It was 4ft long and 6in in girth. At Pahiatua, says the Star, pigeons are becoming more plentiful, having left the cold of the hilly country for the more sheltered valleys. The Lyttelton Times, the leading Opposition journal, says that Sir Harry Atkinson's latest Financial Statement is the | best he has ever delivered. The Auckland Star says the New Zealand telegraph staff is probably amongst the best in the world, and is yet one of the most poorly paid m the Civil Service. The Dunedin Orchestral Society a"t their last smoke concert issued their programme printed on common sugar-bag paper, headed as under :— " Hard Times— lt has come to this." The manager of Mr H. Reynolds' creamery at Pukerimu, Auckland, Btates that in the past season he has been making a pound of butter from 221 b loz of milk, a feat to be only beaten by Jersey stock. During 1887 there were 4,718,761 lb of tea imported into New Zealand, on which duty was paid amounting to £80,2-34. The value of- the tea averaged about 11 5-6 th pence or .a small fraction under Is per lb. The proprietors of the Columbia Skating Eink have now fourteen establishments in full swing throughout Australasia and several more will be opened shortly. The largest rink is at Adelaide, where the takings are said to average £150 a day. The next rink to be opened in New Zealand will be at Timaru. A sewing machine man came to signal grief up Mar ton way a few days ago. He was leading a horse and trap laden with sewing machines down the Wangaehu hill, when the horse swerved and went over the embankment, some thirty or forty feet — trap, machines, driver and all. The horse and driver escaped unhurt, but the trap and machines were smashed to smithereens. All farmers .know the difficulty of protecting a crop of turnip seed from the ravages of the birds. We present them with the following as most effective : — Put three or four carcases of some valueless sheep, or a few rabbits, about the field. These will attract hawks in largo numbers, which will so scare the small birds as to keep them perpetually on the wing. — Bruce Herald. The necessity of a few loads of gravel in the street near Mr Baddeley's corner was forgotten at the last sitting of the Board. Could not this trifling work be done at the same time as Mr Dennehy's corner is metalled. The water and mire gathered in this hole are a disgrace to the town, and a constant source of annoyance to the great number of foot passengers who go round that corner to and from the railway station. An unusual and unpleasant scene was, says the Post, witnessed at Lyttelton on Saturday evening. The Penguin was leaving for' Wellington, and a crowd colleoted on the wharf, attracted by the appeals of the wife of a man who was going away with another woman. She appealed to him in vain on behalf of her children, but having no warrant out she could not put the law in motion. The steamer left the wharf with her husband and the other women on board. A return laid on the table of the House shows the expenditure and liabilities on the North Island Trunk Railway up to March 31st. The expenditure is shewn to be £478,000 made up as follows:— Construction, £320,913; surveys, £14,664; purchase of native lands, £94,508 ; roads and bridges, £37,154 ; Wanganui Eiver improvements, £2989 ; departmental, £7772. The liabilities amount to £75,904, viz. : — on construction, £68,918 ; surveys, £1157 ; purchase of native lands, £4280 ; roads ana bridges, £1549. Here you are! Just figure out this little sum, and see how long it will take : " If a hen and a half lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs will six hens lay in seven days?" This is not original. We got it from the Evening Press, where it was given for solution in the puzzle column. We observed that a great many answers had been sent in — all incorrect, so we started to " solute " the thing on our own account, We shan't say how long we have been over it, but we should be glad of a little assistance from some of our readers. If more energy were displayed in developing the natural resources of this Colony there would bo no necessity for the cry of depression being raised. One item comes, under our notice, allowing how our colonists are allowing strangers to reap benefits out of this country whioh should be kept here. American druggists are exporting to New Zealand kowmiko cordial, a proprietary medicine for the relief and cure of dysentr'y, As it is well known that the koriiniko is a valuable plant indigenious to New Zealand, it ia to be regretted that foreign enterprise has to step in, to the detriment of local producers.— ]$.Z. Times. The Norsewood Licensing Committee held their sitting last Saturday to hear application for two new licenses, Mr A. Wright for the Junction Hotel, and Mr E. Olsen for the Crown Hotel. The police lodged an objection against the granting of a license to the last named house, on the grounds that it had not the accommodation required by the Act, and consequently was not in existence. The Bench granted a license to Mr Wright for the Junction Hotel to take effect from Ist July next, and agreed to issue a certificate of a license to the ■ Crown Hotel as soon as the improvements for the extra accommodation had been ■ completed, on condition that this was efI fected bif ore the next quarterly meeting. | A plucky action is reported from I^ftrpre. It appears" that a 'i'ew* days ' ago Mia i H. ; McEwen was driving some cows through a paddock when one of the animals charged hei\ Mrs MoEwen was oarrying her baby and lending a little boy by the hand, and the cow endeavored to gore the latter. Mrs McEwen put down the baby to enable her the better to defend the boy, when the (!o,\y Uimod jts altenjjiqn to t.he baby, In this ppedioi*mQnt Mrs MoEwe'n called for assistance, when her daughter ' Agnes, aged about 1-1 years, arrived on the scene anncd with a pitchfork w-itli w.]}ioh. sjie pinned the noso qt the infuyiated animal, and held it till the others had reached a plage of safety, The. iinm.inen.co of the danger may be judge 1 from the fact that a considerable portion of the little boy's clothing was torn by the cow's horns, though, thanks to the oourago of the gh>), no serious injuries resulted. —PalnwxtoH Times. It will surprise many people to learn that in t]n's colony, which contains little more than half a million inhabitants, no ; less than 170 newspapers are published. Such is the number of New Zealand papers comprised in a collection which has just been made by the Minister of Education— ranging from the voluminous weekly of 20 or 3Q pages to tho subtantial daily edition qf the }arge towns, or the modest Ijttle rustic bi-weekly, Tho CoU lection, which is intended for an interesting exhibition of the journalistic literature of the world, which will shortly take place at Aix-le-Chapel!e, has been forwarded to its destination through Mr F. Krull, of Wangauui, German Oonsu], '

According to a southern paper, gold is being unearthed in very considerable quantities at the Shotover (Otago), in places in whiich its existence was not hitherto expected, and money being plentiful, of course things have been lively. A pitiful case of filial ingratitude and cruelty was brought under the notice of the Footscray Bench yesterday (says the Argus of the 29th ultimo), when Mary Lynch was charged with vagrancy. The poor old creature, who had seen her 80th year, as she sat in the Court was a picture of helplessness and misery. Sergeant Rutledge stated that she had been found wandering aimlessly about some old quarries. She was quite childish, and could not be left alone. She had married sons and daughters living in different suburbs around Melbourne, but not one would trouble about her. One daughter, however, had gone to the trouble of recommending that her mother should receive a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment for vagrancy, although the poor old woman, the sergeant said, was very respectable and well conducted. The sergeant added that she had no covering for her feet, and that her clothing generally was insufficient. She was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in order that she might be properly cared for.