CHRISTCHURCH NEWS NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2722, 16 May 1906, Page 49

CHRISTCHURCH NEWS NOTES

April 26.

The Gothic left for London 10-day. Amongst her cargo were 12,000 boxes of butter.

The Government is being asked to acquire the Waimarama, Waipuke, and Okehau blocks in Hawke's Bay, which will afford 35,000 acres for settlement. A Government valuer is at present assessing the Pukekura block near Te Auto, and a block of 4400 acres near Waipawa. The Government is also likely to acquire the estate of the Hon. Randal Johnston in the Hawke's Bay district. The owner is an absentee.

April 28.

Mr Arthur Adams leaves here in October next to join the staff of the Sydney Bulletin, to the columns of which journal he has often contributed.

There is a fhortage of railway trucks here, and business men are beginning to complain. Complaints are also made about the early closing of the raihvav goods sheds. '*. May 4. This week 22^ exhausted and discouraged liens concluded the appalling job of laying 30.170 eggs at Lincoln. It took them a year to do it, and no wonder come of those hens got disgusted and gave un laying. Even a. hen can have too much of a good thing, and for the last week or two .half of them went out on strike — not a solitary egg die 1 , over 100 of them lay. Another unsuspecting batch of long-suffering pullets is being incarcerated at Lincoln, and has started c.t on the same dull, dreary, and eternal ordeal.

That Mr T. E. Taylor is not rasing out of the public mind becau?e of his temporary retirement from the political arena goes without faying. Last night his frien Is crowded the Canterbury Hall to take part in a presentation to him ami to show by their enthusiasm that l.c is still the political force he has always beon in this country. His chief failing is his impulsiveness, and he said himself la-t nierht that he had never got angry without fooling sorry the moment afterwards. N"o <!oubt that is the case. His unconquerable imprcssiveness lands him in niany a difficulty, from which ha is unable to escape. But Mr Taylor is gotiing older, and he may !earn the lesson of last December as he reaches sober middle age, and become the force his high intelligence fits him to be in \>he councils of iho colony. Last evening Mr Taylor wa« presented with a substantial cheque and a marble by.st of himself.

— Black and white giapos aie sometime* grown on the ?amo vino m Soutl er'i France. The mtth'il of pioduction ia to take a brand. f:Om a b'.ack g'aj-*' \ 'no r-iiii one from a vlnl" gfiape vine rub the two ends togolher unti! they ait- fiat, bind tos-'.ther, and plant them*