Local and General.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XVII, Issue 4106, 1 February 1897, Page 2

Local and General.

Miss Bessie Doyle, the clever young Australian violinist, who visited New Zealand three years ago, is said to have married, and will not again appear as a professional player. The Hon. R. J. Seddon arrived in Hobart on Saturday morning after a rather rough passage, and during the day had interviews with Sir E. 0. Braddon and Sir P. Fysh. The Premiere' Conference will open tomorrow. At the Magistrates Court at Palmerston recently a settler from Woodville was convicted on a charge of chasing the train and boarding it after it had proceeded a quarter of a mile on its journey! Fast train that. A splendid line of 115 head of cattle was being driven through the Rakaia gorge on Thursday, m route for Westland. They had been gathered in various parts of the Ashburton distriot by Mr Adam Jackson, of Ealing, for Mr T. W. Bruce, of Inchbonoy, and were in charge of Willie Jackson, who, with a couple of dogs and a horse, had undertaken to land every hoof in sound condition. The Chairman of the Dromore School Committee has received a letter from the Board of Education to the effect that Miss ' J. E. Maxwell, pupil teacher of the Dromore School, who sat for the fourth year, has passed the examination and is now expected to come to the Normal School. Miss Maxwell's name was omitted by mistake when the list of successful candidates was published. We regret to learn that the Ashburton Court is shortly to lose the services of Mr J. R. Colyer, clerk of the District and Magistrates' Courts. The regret is only because his removal will be a loss, for any regretful feeling about the matter is tempered by the fact that it will be attended with gain to Mr Colyer, whose destination is Invercargill, a much more important centre. Mr Colyer will carry with him the best wishes of all with whom he has had any business relations. It is a coincidence that the last clerk of Court at Ashburton is the gentleman whom Mr Colyer is succeeding at Invercargill—Mr Walter Martin—and whom Mr Colyer succeeded at Ashburton. The death of Mr W. G. Walker at Christchurch made a vacancy in the chief clerkship of the Courts in that city, and Mr Walter Martin has been appointed. The vacancy caused by his appointment to Christchurch is the one Mr Colyer has been asked to fill, and is another step up the ladder, Mr Colyer haß been ten years in his present position. Thus " Civis" in the Otago Witness, in a note on the weather :—The streets are everything that is bad. The material with which they are covered is of such a nature that it turns to mud or dust on the slightest provocation, and when it is hot and dusty as well you are reminded of the Yankee who said that if he owned Burke and the place whioh shall be unmentionable, he guessed he'd lease Bourke. If Mr Paulin's prophecies were invariably correct we should say the same of Dunedin, The drainage into wells is often very bad, with the result of typhoid fever and many other g.rm diseases. On account of this danger, Dr Koch suggests that an iron tube 2in or Sin in diameter—with its lower end perforated—be placed in the centre of the well, and the surrounding space filled with fine gravel up to the highest point of water level. This is then covered with sand to the top of the well, and a pump attached to the end of the tube makes a very effective tube well All water in passing through the layers of sand and gravel is effectively filtered, and the nitrifying organisms change the filth into harmless nitrates. A filter bed like this removes, too, from 80 to 90 per cent, of the bacteria, and greatly, very greatly, lessens the danger to which all are subjected who drink shallow well water. A correspondent of the Auckland Herald, after reporting that a young lady named Miss Bailey bad been thrown from her horse and had a limb broken, continues—One remarkable incident connected with the accident, as showing an extraordinary amount of intelligence in a dog, is I think worth recording. Miss Bailey was thrown from her horse immediately opposite the house of Mr Deed. His dog heard the young lady screaming, and also saw her on the road. Tfte dog judged that something was wrong, as he ran down to the milkingshed, some 500 yards away, howling and making plaintive sounds to draw his master's attention to the state of matters up at the 1 house. Mr Deed, who was at the milking shed, rightly thought that the dog meant him to ioilow, ran up after the animal and found Miss Bailey aB described. A correspondent of the Times draws attention to the opening up of a new, or rather a revived, industry for ladies. "If mothers of small families," she says, "realised that girls from 15 upwards can with ease earn from 15s to £1, or even more per week in the artistic occupation of silk weaving, they would assuredly be relieved of much of the anxiety which they now feel as to what to do with their daughters. The idea that the power loom has entirely super Kcded the old hand loom is erroneous, ai.d I may passingly observe, as a curious coin, cidence, that the resuscitation of handweaving in England seems to be contemporaneous with the use of power looms on the Continent. For rich silks hand-weaving is cheaper, and. strange as it may seem, a quicker mode of weaving than power-loom work. At all events, whatever may be the cause of this revival of our old English trade, the fact is that silk manufacturers, country firms at least, cannot obtain the requisite number of weavers. It is no longer orders that are wanting, but hands. The general appreciation of hand woven materials is rapidly on the increase The many beautiful creations, impossible except at a great price when woven by machinery, can, with profit to the hand weaver, be woven in a lady's own home in silk or otljer materials. Beautiful draperies may be had for the same price as the inartistic productions now woven by power, and altogether the possibilities of hand weaving are uot limited to the expen» give luxuries of Buskin linen por to the glut of woollen goods now manufactured in so many oountry villages in Ireland and Scotland.'* The Rev. Mr Inglis can be pleasantly sarcastic on occasion. A joke in a Presbyterian pulpit is one of those things people value because of their rarity, and there are some people, even Presbyterians, who are sceptical as to a joke ever having come from J a pulpit! But then most Presbyterians are f Scotch, and joke wi' de^fioulty, Some of I them have deeficulty in seeing what was at all out of the ordinary in the conduct of a certain Rev. Dr, Kidd, of Aberdeen awa\ who, seeing a man asleep in the pew, and wearing a red waistcoat, picked up the bible of the pulpit, and shied it with a great crash at the offender, remarking at the same time " Wanken up, ye reid-breasted sinner; if ye winna heai* the wir^o'Cod, J'se gar ye feel it.'' But jokes come sometimes in spite of such scepticism. The Rev. Mr Inglis had occasion to appeal for aid to the Maori mission, and incidentally mentioned that to tbe one missionary now laboring there had been Bent a bicycle and a magic lantern and slides, both of which presents j the missionary had found abundantly useful. I The Rev. George delivered a stirring appeal I in the interests of the mission, but in the I course of it put in the delicate little prod, jj that it did not say much for presbyteriah I missionary spirit that all that could be I afforded for the work among the Maoris was J —«' a bike and a magic lantern." We fancy I ;lie njjse \vay of puttirig it ought to draw out | —«.* 6_ iwo w g»Won 'th' 6 work—eves I ' •--**_« _ a $ | pow gtQg § ' ■• |> »P»°pitTofdryff.»w^ *

_he reopening of the High School has been postponed until Wednesday next owing to the paiuting not being finished. The Forth Bridge is constantly being repainted. This is no light undertaking. So vast is the structure that it takes fifty tons of paint to give it one coat, and the area dealt with is something like 120 acres. hiatal case of sunstroke is reported from Nelson. Misß Trower, & young girl who was brought from the Marchison suffering J from an attack ot sunstroke, died on Tuesday last at the Hospital in Nelson. We are indebted to Mr Ward for the following vital statistics for Ashburton for January 1897, viz., Births 23, deaths 6, marriages 2. The figures for January 1896 were births 24, deaths 5, marriages 1. At Timaru on Saturday Mr D. Maclean passed under the hammer the Temuka Dairy Factory property, about two acres of land, with the buildings and fittings. These additions to the freehold were stated to have cost £2000. Bidding started at £200, and at £370 the property was sold to Mr H. Lee, of Temuka. Mr D. McKillop hat tendered his resignation as bandmaster of the Stanmore Band. He will sever his connection with the band in three months' time, as he intends caking up his quarters in Inveroargill. Mr McKillop has had fifteen years active service in the band, about three hundred bandsmen having been taught by Mr McKillop in that time. At Lancaster Park on Saturday evening there was the first publio appearanoe in this colony of a cycle to carry four riders, and known aB a quadruplet. The maohine was manned by Messrs Shorland, Archer, Benson, and Dumerque, and it successfully negotiated the corners of the track at a pace of under two minutes to the mile, and ran with perfect smoothness from the start. There was also a triplet, or oyole for three riders, A beautifully executed illuminated address to Mr J. H. Twentyman, Bigned by the Tioar and officers of St Stephen's Church, is on view in the shop of the Ashburton Drug Company, East Street. The work was entrusted to Mr G. W. Wade, of Christchurch, and does him great credit. The whole of the address as well as the illuminated border is done by band and the finish of the minutest details is elegant and admirable. This afternoon there will be an annular eclipse of the sun, visible as a partial eclipse in the south-east of Australia, New Zealand, the south Pacific, the south-east of the United States, Central America (except the south-eastern portion). The line of central eclipse passes from the north of New Zealand across the Pacific and over South America from Buenaventura to the Gulf of Paria. The eclipse begins on the earth generally at 5h 23m p.m. in long. 176^deg W. andlat. 28deg. S. ; ends at llh. Bm. p.m. in long. 78deg. W. and lat. 15deg N. Sheep worrying is complained of at Fairlie Creek, and has been for some months. i hree dogs, after destroying forty ewes and lambs on the Ailandaie estate were traced home, and the owners of the dogs admitted their liability, destroyed the dogs, and accepted (with some demur at its total) an account for the sheep killed based upon an independent assessment of their value. The incident had the effect of causing owners of other dogs to consider their risk., and the registrar will lose a good many fees in the township this year. A most distressing accident happened on Sunday morning at the Chertsey Hotel. It seems that a bucket of boiling water had just been drawn from the boiler and was left standing on the kitchen floor for a moment or two, when Allan, the little two-year-old son of Mr W. Lewis, the licensee, while playing near fell backwards into it, capsizing the contents over his back- The poor little fellow was very severely burned, almost the whole of his back being quite raw. Dr Cordner, from Rakaia, w;as sent for, and did all he could for the little sufferer. On enquiring this morning our correspondent learned that the little fellow's condition is such aB to cause great anxiety. However, as he is a sturdy little fellow he may pull through. The area of pastoral runs to be offered for lease by the Lands and Survey Department this month comprises 1,370,116 acres, and of small grazing runs there will be 45,522 acres, making a total of 1,415,638 acres. The pastoral runs are in Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago and Southland. Two runs in the Mackenzie Country have an area of 48,887 acres, one of thorn forming part of the Haldon Station, while the other is the Gray's Hill Station. Five runs in the Mackenzie, Waitaki and Vincent counties aggregate an area of 201,300 acres. The Lobu n and Bloomfield runs, in Ashley County, will be put up for a lease of three years. There is also a large area in Otago. The largest area is in Marlborough, 587,598 acres, including the Patriarch, Raglan and Birch Hill runs. Since the establishment of the plumbers' classes at the Wellington Technical School in 1894 the total cost to the City Council has been £127 7s 3d, exclusive of the cost of the workshop and fittings, on which the Council expended £210. During the three years the number of certificates issued has been 73. The classes are now attended principally by apprentices and young men learning their trade. The Plumbers' Class Committee recommends the City Council (says the Post) that the classes should be continued till June 30 next under the same conditions as heretofore, but at a cost not exceeding £30 for the half-year. The committee further recommends that, so far as the Council is concerned, the classes should be absolutely discontinued on June 30, and that other arrangements will have to be made if those attending or benefiting by the classes are desirous of their continuance. Six weeks ago I suffered from a very severe cold j was almost unable to speak. My friends alt advised me to consult a physician. Noticing Chamberlain's Cough Remedy advertised in the St Paul Yolks Zeitung I procured a bottle, and after taking it a short while was entirely well. I now most heartily recommend this remedy to anyone suffering from a cold. Wm Keil, 678 Selby Aye., St Paul, Minn. For sale by Ashburton Dferra Company. Keating's Powder aescroys bugs, fless, moths, beetles, and all other insects, whilst gui c h rmless to domestic animals. In exterminating beetles the sucoess of tbis powder is extraordinary. It is perfectly olean in application. See the article yon purchase is Keating's, as imi ations are noxious and ineffectual, Sold in tine, 6d, Is and 2a 6d eaoh, by al ohemisfcs I