TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1902, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

More Boer captures. City Council meets to-night. A major and 18 men killed at Amerspoort. ' Fifty small pox cases reported in Loncton on Tuesday. H.-M.s. Venus wail shortly join the Australian squadron. "The Tyranny of Tears" at the Opera House to-night. ±Jritish trade totals show an improvement for December. A sensational snooting affray is reported from Christchurch. The population of tne united State* and dependencies is 84,233,609. The Union Waihi G.M.Co. s last return (clean-up) is £575, raaking a total to date of £36,179. Lord George liamilton declares that the reported Doycott of German goods is a fabrication. The British Government horse bill for the South African war has up to the present been £13,000,000. The Dowager Empress of China is described as Deing "smiling and confident" on the return to Pekin. Sir Eobert GifEen anticipates a de- ; fieiency of ten millions in the British revenue, and increased taxation. The Minister for Public Works has not the slightest doubt but that the North Island Trunk line can be opened through by 1904. The Exchange . Telegraph Company^ Chirnside correspondent stated that Mr. xVndrew Carnegie, previous to his leaving Scotland, was offered a baronetcy, but declined the honour. A wonderful family has been discovered in Verona, in which all the males possess the faculty of rumination, and chew the cud just like cows. ; This is a refreshing variant on the "big gooseberry/ It is believed that the newly-ap-I pointed Commandant of the New Zealand Forces, Major-General Babington, will spend a few weeks in Australia, where he is at present, before coming on to this colony. Mrs. Babington has relatives in New; South Wales. A pathetic story of shipwreck comes from Dunkirk, A derelict waterlogged smack was towed in by a fisherman, and in the cabin was found the body of a boy, about 12 years old, the son of the captain, clasping- in his arms a small white dog, also dead. A Wellington solicitor has been retained by the Maoris of Wairoa, effort which they are making to bring about a restoration of effort to bring about a restoration of the land which was confiscated at the .end of the war, including the Wairoa township. As bearing on the controversy as to the position of the boot manufacturing industry in New Zealand, it may be mentioned that in Christchurch one firm of boot manufacturers is building- a factory to accommodate 500 hands, and another to accommodate 300. A Hindoo baker's assistant in Bombay, on setting up in business for himself, bethought him of catering for the English community as well as for the native ones. With this end in view, accordingly, he had the following notification painted over his doorway: "Ram Bux solicits respectful patronage. He is a first-class British loafer." At Naseby a few days ago a young man, by way of a joke, attempted to throw some liquid ammonia aiit of a bottle on to the coat of a friend, says a Southern exchange. The latter,, turning at that instant, received the liquid directly in the eyes, and the injuries are of/ so serious a nature that the sight of one of the man's eyes will probably be permanentlyimpaired. Since the Ducal visit there has been (says the "Hot Lakes Chronicle") unprecedented demand for the kiwi mat. Dealers are buying all that are offering, and at the present time there are larger stocks of kiwi mats and kits in Rotorua than were ever, known before to the oldest inhabitant. Owing to the demand the* Taupo natives are slaughtering the kiwi in the ranges, and before another decade, what between the na^ tives, the wild dogs and the stoat, the North Island kiwi will have become as extinct as the dodo. The humours of vaccination are' not yet quite over, though the sufferers are less plaintively in evidence, says the "Manchester Guardian." One delightful retort courteous wag overheard the other day as a result of a little homily on the point of not being vaccinated. "I suppose, Mrs. » said the speaker, turning to a 1 charming personage whose frieze costume showed no sign of a sling— I suppose you were 'done' long ago?" "Not I," said the lady. "I made all. mv friends be done instead. So T live secure in a sort of amiably island, 'sans peur et sans reproche!' " Miss Shrewsbury and Mr. Selby had a "little wordy encounter at the Saturday evening session of the New. Zealand Educational Institute, on the subject of what Miss Shrewsbury: had said (or meant), says the "Taranaki Herald"). The lady, in a few crisp sentences, got • distinctly the better of the Southland delegate, who, however, availed himself of the world-old masculine advantage — "can't hit a woman"—by remarking that "as he'd been knocked down by a lady he'd stay down." The goodhumoured thrust and parry lit up the "thick educational gloom" for a few seconds.