TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 69, 20 March 1908, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

Douma rejected the vote for battleships. Admiralty expects to finish the Kosyth base in seven years. English North-Eastern engineers rejected the proposals for a settlement. Several ladies were present at the duel between Generals Fock and Smirnoff. It is claimed that a, pigeon brought over by a Brisbane boy to Gisborne has found its way back. An English mail via Snez is due to irrive here per Victoria from Sydney on Monday next, 23rd inst. A Labour member's motion in favour of a general eigut-hour day was talked out in the House of Commons. At the Te Oranga Inquiry, the matrons of the Auckland and Caversham Industrial Schools defended corporal punishment in certain cases. Mr. Larke calculated in a speech at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday that Australasia was saving about £300,000 by the Pacific cable. Crowded meeting of brewery shareholders in London condemned the Licensing Bill as not promoting temperance, but the confiscation of properties. Regulations under the IPublic Service Superannuation Act are published in detail in the Gazette. All meetings of the Board are to be held in "Wellington. The Nelson Hospital and Charitable Aid Board has decided to erect a new home for the aged and needy. The new building, which is estimated to cost £4000, will be situated about a mile out of town. Sir Joseph Ward has replied to Earl Grey, regretting that he trill personally be unable to attend the Canadian - Tercentenary celebrations, but that he hopes to have New Zealand suitably represented. The Hayward's-heath (Sussex) Horticultural Society have decided to offer a penny for every queen wasp brought to the summer show, the object being to prevent a plague of wasps, which do immense damage to the fruit. Away back in 1894 the Government of New Zealand, solicitous for the welfare of the seals which used to exist about our coasts, proclaimed a close season for these animals. This close season should expire on the 30th June this year, but the Government has now decided to further extend it for another year.' Great as have been the triumphs of surgery during the past twenty years, all else that it has-done will be eclipsed if it can provide a cure for consumption. If it can grapple with the root of the evil which steals away so many precious .lives, surgery will have made itself, beyond all question, the greatest of the healing arts. —"Pall Mall Gazette." , A correspondent of the "Wanganui Herald," after a general criticism of the Mayoral policy,. concludes -with the fok