TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 186, 7 August 1900, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

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Allies divided. March on Pekin begun. Big Chinese army near Tientsin. Pekin Europeans ordered to Tientsin. Botha has 3000 Boers south-east of Pretoria. British, Americans, and Japanese have started for Pekin. Russians have captured a Chinese post on the banks of the Amur. Italian Anarchists are said to be plotting1 further murders of crowned heads. Commandant De la Key and hia Boers are retiring before General Hamilton. -V-V It is proposed to form a. mounted I'ifle volunteer corps at Kawhia, on the West Coast. At the beginning of this week there were 143 male ahd 9 female prisoners in Mt. Eden Gaol. i Captain Hutson, of the New Zealand Second Contingent, has been slightly, wounded in the Transvaal. , The flag at the Richmond Road Public School, Ponsonby, is to be un- . furled to-morrow afternoon. Terrible, boating fatality near'Opotiki. Sixteen school children and two adults drowned. * The Premier hints at trying the Gothenburg system in regard tc liquor in the King- Country. Harrismith has been occupied by the British, blocking the Boers' re- , treat to the Dralcensberg Mountains. '■ The Premier and the deputation of . Waikato Maori chiefs had a korero last evening on the question-of Native land f legislation. Gold to. the value of £7,400 was shipped hence for Sydney by the s.s. Tarawera last evening, for transhipment to London. .■'.; The ratepayers of Devonport have approved of the proposed further loan of £ 10,000 for drainage and ' other, works in the borough. Nurse Bell has resigned from the nursing staff of the Auckland H.ospi-, * tal owing to ill-health. The Hospital t Board has decided to allow he.r to re- • sume her training at the cad of 12; ■ months. At the weekly [rehearsal of the Choral Society this evening the orchestra of the Society (\vith Mr It. Leslie Hunt at the orga;u) will play a the "Dead March" in "Saul, 1' out of : . respect to the memovy of the late Duke of Edinburgh^president, of the Choral Society. T , . / 1 Arrangements ax.c now being made \ for a suitabl.e pVace of "residence fot 1 ' a police conjstab'xe at Mt. Eden. Thif is the res alt of the recent petition of Mt. F^'den. and Mt. Roskill resi-. dents for a police constable to bt? stationed there owing to the preva>, lence of larrikinism in those idis< tricte. Vir. A. W. Craned of Sydney, the pre* : sejit-owier of the 20ft. rater Mercian has given Chas. Bailey, jun.; of Auck* iand, an order for a 30ft. yacht, .which. :. is to ; be delivered in October next, Mr. , .. Bailey is tp design as well^s rr jßyi4_____ r Tsoriipiii^T^^ has evefry reason to hope that'his new venture will be able to Mold her own aanong' the other fliers. ."" ~r-Ti«^-"e-»^t]ii i a.nd^T;nr^s"-states that. ,i • a beautiful Maori axe, or adze, rather, ' had been found by Mr William Wilson , , (engineer at the Ocean. Beach 3?reez-, ; in>g Works), on. the low hills adjoin- ■ ing the works. The relic weighs 71b;. : ; and is as perfect as; the day it left '■ 4ts patient maker's hands. There. -\ a ' , ~ not a blemish on it, and the edge is . almost as fine and keen.as (a razor's.s >It is not greenstone. :■•)•■ .' , ■ ; The Savaii, the little steam trawler ,!.•: , which is just now at Nelson, has an . • r intei*esting personality. She wasor- ■ iginally built as a schooner put of the wreckage of the xinfortunatei vessels ' which suffered in the .disastrous hur- ~ ricane at Apia when the fainou3 achievenient of H.M.s. Calliope with. ■Westport coal was niadei. She was : subsequently converted into a fast steam trawler with sa< horse-power en- I • gines. ■At tie meeting of Devonport ; rate-' -__ payers last jgvening' re the further [ drainage loa?n| -, some discussicn took . place on the question of the adyisat bility or otherwise of cutting down ■ certain pinus insignus trees near Mt. Victoria. The Mayor, Mr. J. C. Macky, read a letter which lie had received . from, the secretary of the Scenery Conservation Society strongly approving ■' of cutting down- these pines where,.' •;• they were unsightly or in too close proximity to footpaths. Captain Gale, a prominent South Af- j, j .rican, was killed, on the 7th jTune; at \ • R/henosterspruit, while bravely leading his company of the Railway Pipn- - _ eer Regiment against overwhelming ) ; odds. A Lincolnshire man, he migrat-•;' ; , ed in the early nineties to Mashonaland, and thence to theßand in 1895. There his abilities as a mining eugin- ' ' eer soon gained for him the management of the Glen Deep, and. that post ■he held up to the outbreak of the war,. - having in th meantime successfully ; ■-. brought the mine into the front rank -; i of deep level properties on the Rand. The Union S.S. Company's hulk Don , '. Juan, which was sold by auction at Dunedin last week, has quite a roman- ; tic history, as in her day she has been a peaceful merchantman, a . bloc&pjS^.';iunner in the Peruvian service, aiict fl, jeoolie ship between China and Vfc&e • , Chincha Islands, to which group she took some thousands of Chinese peons ; for the guano tradet She finally pass • ed into the timber trade,, and .Ttf%Sv : • brought to ■Port Chalmers some 26 years ago by the'late Captain John Veal. She was afterwards purchased by the well-known ship chandler .at V; Port Cha;lmers, the late Captain Char- '•■ les Clark. Corporal Acton, of the Imperial Yeomanry, was recently taken prisoner by, the Boers at Lindley. . -Christian de Wet, with a bevy of other Boers, rough- : Jy questioned him1 as to his business anad his position. 'Without the slightest hesitation, Acton declared himself to be a doctor connected with thfe Army Medical Corps. Thei^e remain- . ing apparently a lingering doubt, Ac^ * ton produced vfrom his pocket the card of a friend, who described him* , self as a medical electrician, and handing it to De Wet indignantly exclaimed, "There is my card." General B« : Wetexpressed himself as being perfect- i ly satisfied, told Acton to fetch his '".'-, ambulance, and then gave him a safe conduct throug-h the Boer lines to Lord /, Methuen's oamp.