TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 94, 22 April 1902, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

; Railway collision in Ofcago. Boers* discussing peace ter;ms. A general rising of New Britain n&* tives is feared,. , To-day is a Jewish festival, the Feast of the Passover.. The Transvaalers are expected to welcome the peace proposals. "The Gondoliers" will be .perfdcm•d again at the Opera House tonight. Seventy-five lives have been lost through the burning of an American river-steamer. The Victorian Labour Commissioners left for Sydney, by'the s.s. Mararda last evening.* > •To-morrow the, Governor will lay, fche'ioundation stone of St. Matthew's new stone churdh. An Auckland trooper named Letts, of the Sixth Contingent, is reported as dead in South Africa. An old Highland settler, ~.vho had attained the ■ .eat age of 97 years, lied at Waip'vi yesterday. A Russian soldier has been sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment for printing a Socialist manifesto. The German Antarctic Exploring Expedition has returned to Kerguelen [sland from the South Polar regions. The Pacific cable, from "Oouhrlcss Bay to Australia via Norfolk Island, will b> open for public use on May W ■Forty-eight years ago to-day " the English and French Steam Squadron. bombarded Odessa, in the Black Sea. . Pastor James Fussell, late of-Ota-huhu, is at present supplying .the Paeroa and Karangahake Presbyterian church. 'i ■.■■■-■■ j Lord Ranfurly^goes up to iJlctorua on May 1 to present +he Arawa Maoris with a Union flag {-cut out by the Prince of Wales. <•/ . . >'.;■,■ The Hon. J. McGowan is visiting Napier, and the Hon. J. Carroll (Native Minister) has gone to Gisborne. Mr. Carroll is expected up in Auckland shortly. " ' Mr. I£. H. Hooper, of the New Zealand Agricultural Department, - accompanied by Mrs. Hooper and family, left for! Sydney by the Mararoa last night, en route to England.; One hundred and iifty-nve passengers left for Sydney by the s.s. Mara- . roa last evening. The steamer took-; away from Auckland bullion valued at £17,250, in transit for London. Dr. Pomare, Native Health .Officery says the Maoris in many of the villages in this island have taken a particular interest in the injunction to destroy rats, which they catch, kill* and incinerate. Travellers from Gisborne to Wairoa (Hawke's Bay) last week experienced very cold weather. One day; the snow was six inches deep on ParikUnapr;, at which elevation it was intensely cold. , :. Yet another Nihilist student's ' shooting case is reported from Russia. The students there seem to spend most of their time now bowling over governors and officials with, their revolvers instead of studying. A total, eclipse of the moon will take place to-morrow morning, the first contact with the shadow beginning at 3.30 a.m. The middle of the:eclipse will be at twenty minutes to seven, and the moon will set totally; eclipsed. The Telegraph Department in Auckland now have a good stock of telephone wire, and the telephone . connections applied for are being made as rapidly as possible. The number of local subscribers to the Exchange now numbers 1372. ■ ".[ In thR present House of Commons. there are no fewer than 27 members under 30 years of age—a- record which, a contemporary says, cannot be paralleled. In one of. the Parlia- . ments of James 1., however, there were 40 members who were under 20 years of age. A painful accident happened on Sunday at the Thames to Mr. J. Lang, of Pollen-street. He was riding a bicycle, and approached close to a horse, which became frightened, aiid kicked out. Mr. Lang was thrown from his machine, and had the misfortune to break his shoulder-blade. The labour recruiting barquentine S3"dney Belle, Captain Gray, arrived at Brisbane the other day with 80 re-. emits from the islands. During the voyage one of the crew, Andrew Graham, died from island fever, while the rest of the crew suffered terribly. While in the Solomon Is-, lands she spoke the recruiting schooner Clahsnian (formerly of Auckland) . "Trout are cannibals" (says "Nature Notes"), "and it is a moot question whether in some waters large" trout should not be systematically destroyed. Many English fishermen are in favour of killing them. They say that fish in their streams of lib to 2lb weight are hardly ever caught by ordinary means, and live entirely on their own brethren. A 21b Devon trout is probably responsible for the death of several stones' weight of his own kind." In the Rotorua streams trout up to 161bs weight and over are sometimes taken. The natives say they eat the crayfish, etc., in the lake, and it is highly probable that they, eat the smaller trout.