TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 17, 20 January 1905, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

Sensational suicide. i -" Complications in China feared. The Newcastle strike may end by com* promise. ( Reported that Baltic fleet is to adze a Chinese port. t Terrible disaster to the Great North* era Scotch express. The search for the missing yacht Shamrock continues. An English mail, via Suez, is due to ar« rive here on Sunday next per Manuka. Dr. Frengley made complaints as t(J the sanitary service to the City Council. No less than four ladies fainted during the evening service at St. Mary' 3, New. Plymouth, on Sunday. The Bank of England employs about 1000 people, pays £250,000 yearly in wages, and £35,000 yearly in pensions. The United States Government has addressed a special Note to Russia in regard to the maintenance of Chinese neutrality. Mr. W. Stephen Hutchina committed suicide by shooting himself in one of the bathrooms of the Central Hotel lat* yesterday afternoon. The Cobden Club alleges inconsistency between Australia's advocacy of preferential trade and her taxation of imported advertising matter. Advice has been received in Christchurch that the lambs shipped from Australia for the season ending December 31. 1904, amounted to 543,467. "If I may offer you Primitive Methodists a bit of advice, it is to stick te your old tunes," remarked the Mayor of Christehureh to the Conference the other evening. Irrigation Committee has published its report on the Murray waters question. It advises irrigation developments, but full consideration of the rights of South Australia. A Japanese theatrical company 'have employed as stage "Russians" a number of Europeans stranded at Nagasaki. They receive £ 1 2/ per month and many; insults from the audience. In a dispute between Senator Dawson and General Hutton respecting the trial of a new pistol, the War Office has supported the attitude of Senator Dawson. The oldest inhabitant—a crocodile, familiarly known as "Jim"—died at the London Zoological Gardens last month. Jim had spent forty years at the "Zoo." The number persons who arrived in New Zealand during last month was 3531, and the departures totalled 1764. The figures for December, 1903, are:— Arrivals, 3658; departures, 1662. On Mr. John Borgfeldt's property at' Papanui there are some oats which have been measured, and are eight feet high. These high oats are in patches, and were sown amongst grass, and not as an out crop. "There £tre two occasions when ft drunken man pulls himself together— when he sees a constable and when he goes to a public house for a drink/ was the pronouncement of a London magistrate the other day. The hospital ward now being erected at the Government Sanatorium at Rotorua will be ready for occupation in a fortnight. The ward is intended to take in emergency cases for treatment, as the nearest hospital is at Hamilton, some distance away. According to a Balclutha gentleman (says the "North Otago Times"), who has just returned from a visit to the Roxburgh district, with which he is well acquanited, the f crops are thisyear a great success, and some of the yields will be quite abnormal. The other evening a cricket ball was hit from the Basin Reserve, Wellington, over the fence and on to the top. of a double-decker tramcar. where it lodged among the people of the upper storey. After the car had gone a short distance up Adelaide-road the ball was duly "re-, turned." The new regulation restricting the trolling area on Lake Rotorua and other, waters in that vicinity has been well received by all trout-fishers. The regulation prevents any trolling I for trout within three hundred yards of the shore, thus leaving the entire shore-line free to fly-fishers. A deputation representing the Young New Zealanders' Land Settlement Association waited on the Minister of Lands the other day', and. urged the subdivision and settlement of some two hundjred thousand acres of pastoral country, chiefly Crown lands, in the South Marlborough district. Mr Duncan promised to give the matter careful consideration. Comparatively few people are aware that' preferential trade was a "live" question in the days of Disraeli, who was an ardent advocate of the principle. On a certain historic Whit Monday, Disraeli, speaking on colonial matters at a Crystal Palace dinner, anticipated Mr Chamberlain and Mr Balfour by declaring that, when our dependencies beyqjiA the seas .received - Hrhey should have Been' United 1 to the Mother Country in the links of an Imperial tariff. iH+ijT, a *L 1 Our premises will be closed all day Saturday, down for sale on Monday. Milne and Chovce. Ad. J. A. Bradstreet's great drapery sale commences Monday, January 23rd; doors open- at 9 o'clock; bargains in "all departments: see big advertisement last' page Supplement. J. A. Bradstreet, Draper. Karangahape-road.— (Ad.) "Marion" Millinery Studio.—Sale of trimmed hats, toques, and bonnets, at greatly reduced prices, s- H.M. Arcade Queen-street.—(Ad.) Boys and girls, come to Milne and Choyce's at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday and secure one of their toy balloons. 3500 given away.— (Ad.)