District and General.

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 2

District and General.

A private member's Bill, the Dog Registration Amendment, a measure of ten lines eliminating the short title and schedule, and a few local Bills represent th« eight weeks' labors of. the present session. Ministers do not propose to introduce legislation to give effect to the vote of the House, lately made on Sir John- Hall's thotiion, in favor of female suffrage. They will, however, shortly be dealing with a Bill to slightly amend the 'electoral laws, and the supporters of the fair sex will probably make an attempt t& attach to it a clause giving the ladies the right to ' exercise the franchise at future elections. •'Mr Bierre advertises the property lately in possession of Mr, J. W. Baker for saile or to let. There was a close content between Messrs . Fraser and Athy, for the, vacancy in the Danevirke. Town Board. The polling took place on Thuraday, and as will be seen in another column resulted in the return of Mr Fraser. ] Mr A.' M. Miller notifies that poison ; for 'dogs will be laid on his property at Mangatera after this date. We have been shown a certificate of merit of the second order from, the Melbourne Exhibition, 1 awarded to Mr Henry Smith, of Smith's siding, Makotuku, for an exhibit of New Zealand timber in the rough. It is by such meins as this that outside markets are created for our surplus timber, and Mr Smith certainly deserves very great credit for the enterprise shown. '; 'The adjourned meeting of the Ormondville School Committee was held last night, but there was not a sufficient number of the members present to deal with the matter under consideration, and no business was transacted. A valuable draught horse, the pro-> perty of Mr 'J. F. Wells, was severely injured by being jammed between two logs, in which position ha remained all night, .and in struggling to free himself some of his ribs were broken. While being led through the town last evening his strength gave way, and he fell on the road opposite Fraser and Co.'s store. A crowd gathered round, and assisted to lift the hqrse on to his feet as he could not rise without asssitanoe, and he wad taikeh' back to li is stable. While trying to raise the horse with block and tackle, the scantling on which the tacklewas fixed gays way, and some of those around narrowly escaped injury. It is stated, wires the Leeds Mercury London correspondent, that Mr Stanley has received £1,000 for the sole right of taking and publishing his photograph. A famous artist once painted an angel with six toes. " Who ever saw an angel with six toes?" people enquired. "Who ever saw one with lass V was; the counter answer. One i of .the freak* 'of fashion in Paris is to ; give dinners in the Eiffel tower. A lift is hired for the evening, for the exclusive use of the party, amid adorned inside with flowers and elegant draperies. . • We- hear that a considerable number of cattle have been killed in the Oringi district through eating tutu. One settler lost five head. The parish gathering to be held on Saturday next at the Danevh'ke Town Hall in aid of St. John's Church funds promises to be a, ereat success.; Ihe entertainment which is to commence at 7 o'clock, will consist of vocal and instrumental music, to be followed by an driginal drama, performed by our local amateurs. Refreshments will be, provided. There will be a gift auction during the evening Considering the great paucity of amusements fdr the public in our little town, this will be an opportunity for everyone to enjoy an evening's diversion at a small -cost, and at the same time to, Assist a worthy cause. ■ • The new proprietors of the Wellington tramway are considering the advisableness' of getting electric motors in place of horses. A discovery of silvet' and gold is reported at Whangamata, on the East Coast, ami assays of ,ore have yielded an average of £80 per ton. The driver of the engine on the train which met with an accident at .John'sonvilje on Tuesday has been suspended by the .company. None of the Australian colonies have suffered such heavy losses through drought as New Soutli Wales In a recent document the Government .statist showed that during a term of fifteen years their losses in sheep alone amounting to a total of 55,000,000. In 1884, when there were some 37,C00,000 in the colony, the losses amounted to 12,000,000 in round numbers. During these 15' years there were only 5 that were free from losses. During these calamitious droughts it was found that in some districts small stores of fodder saved immense numbers of stock. Hundreds of tons of hay were brought from the Hunter river to Riverina. New Zealand and Tasmania!) chaff were used in many of the Western districts of the colany.

Since 1851 tho value of the gold raised in the Australasian colonies has reached the stupendous amount of £2 1,600,000.

It is related of a certain divine, whose matrimonial relations are supposed not to have been of the most agreeable kind, that one Sabbath morning, while reading to his congregation the parable of the supper, in which occurs the passage, "And another said, I have bought five yofco of oxen, and I go to prove them : I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore cannot come," he aud^ denly paused at the end of the verse, drew off his spectacles, and, looking on his hearers, said with emphasis, " rhe fact is, my brethren, one woman can draw a man .farther away from the kingdom of |ieaven than 50 yoke oftfxeti;"

An American congregation raised the salary of the minister from five hundred dollars to six hundred dollars. He objected for the following reasons :—" First, you cannot afford to give me more than five hundred dollars. Secend, because. my prsaching is not worth more than five hundred dollars. And third, I have to collect the salary myself, which has been the hardest part of my labours among you, and I had to collect the additional hundred it would kill me." The blast furnaoe at the Onehunga Ironworks, says the Auckland Herald, is in full arid successful operation, and is increasing its output every' week. During the month since it was started it has produced 350 tons of pig iron. Since the decease of the Hon. J. White there has been some anxiety to know what would become of his famous Kirkham stud farm. Word comes from Sydney that Mrs White will retain the stud and carry it on. Our Norsewood readers will notibe from an advertisement, in another column that Mr J. Martin, watchmakjer, of Danevirke, will visit j;heir towhsnip on Thursday next, 21st inst. Orders or work may be left with Mr fetenberg or Messrs Hawkins and Co Some correspondence has of late been appearing in the Wairarapa Standard with reference to fruiterers trading on Sunday. The following £em appeared in a recent issue : — Sir, ■—Me no know you letter. I savee, clean shop, selim cheap ; good lot customer. I want you. make more letter, I makee more customer. Me no selim Sunday. I open, my visitor come, . You see him the hand f rill of good things. I give him present, all same nothing ; no chargee money. Me no flighted put. name. Other fellow flightened put name.— l am, etc., Kow Kee. , Mr Julian Thomas "The Vagabond," in concluding a lengthy and favourable notice on H. M. Stanley, with whom at one time he was closely intimate, says :— " H. M. Stanley returned to Africa to be war correspondent in the Ashantee war, to cross Africa from east to west and to beconi6 Governor-General of the Congo Free State and the , trusted friend of King Leopold of Belgium : to disappear into 'Darkest Africa, to, achieve a. higher triumph than Lord Wolseley, who failed to save Gordon. Stanley succeeded in saving the wretched German, Emm Pasha, who has so ungenerously repaid him for having passed through' the most horrible trials and dangers to reach and release him from bondage. And now Stanley, has returned to civilisation from the sceues of all his triumphs. The other clay he was married in Westminster Abbey, where a few years ago he followed Livingstone's body to the grave. To my mind there is no more heroic figure in this century than that of Henry M. Stanley, the young journalist who was discovered by James Gordon Bennet. As a journalist, I ani proud to, think that his success is due in the first place to his connection with journalism. He has fought the good fight, and deserves his well earned rest. May the remainder of his life be passed midst honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." In the event of a European outbreak, Great Britain would be' able to send to sea at a month's notice 44, modern battle-ships and belted cruisers to cope, in case, of necessity, with France's 23, Russia's 16, Germany's 12, or Italy's 10 ; so that no possible combination of any two of the Great Powers would place England at a disadvantage. . The Yeoman of recent date has the following with reference to the redoubtable " feather weight "champion of the world :— " Billy Murphy, radiant and robust, arrived from 'Frisco by the last mail boat, and he declares it. to be the finest- place in ths world. As everybody knows, ' Bily ' was born in Auckland, and was first instructed in the noble art of self-defence, by P. Barry of that city. To come back with the champion belt of the world is no small honor. The trophy is a most magnificent one. It is composed of solid silver embossed with gold, and enriched with precious stones. The construction is massive and handsome. It consists of a number of broad silver plaques on which, are embossed the flowers of England, Ireland, America, and Scotland. In the middle is an immense plate of silver heavily embossed in gold, and bearing the flags of the countries mentioned before. In the centre ia a portrait of Mr Fox, the donor of the belt* The trqphy needs a strong man to carry it, and is worth upwards of i,500. Besides the belt, Murphy niade, during the six months he spent in the States, the huge sum of 10,000 dollars. He thinks, and with reason, that America is the finest place in the world for men of his profession. Passing through Honolulu, Murphy and his brother were presented by public subscription with a magnificent gold mounted walking-stick each, and i a comfortably fat purse of sovereigns. They boxed four rounds to the rapturous delight of the inhabitants. The King presented Billy with his I own >val king-stick as a memento of his visit." The Victorian railway are responible for a loss of ,£210,000 for the year. The working expenses reached G8 per cent. A few evenings ago a poor old man of 65 years of age crawled into the police station at Auckland, on' two sticks, and demanded shelter there in the Queen's name. The lock-up keeper had to inform him that he could not incarcerate kirn, as he had committed no offence. The old man explained to the office that he would then be under the painful neceashy of smashing some windowns, as he must have shelter for the night, and considerately asked the constable whether he would have them smashed i_n the passage, at the office of the Charitable Aid Board, or the front window of the guardroom. The Office gave an "official utterance" worthy of an R.M., by exhorting the old man to refrain from either experiment, 1 and to "move on." The old man moved on to High street, where he lay flown on the asphalt pavement to await what might turn up. Detective Hughes turned up, and appeared to be deeply interested in the old man's logic, for, in the Queen's name, he " ran Mm in." Judge Dennipton, of N.Z., lately refused his discharge to a workman, who had gone broke in a humble way for £oo,on the ground that the bank-, rupt was still in possession: of "the I only asset he ever wtd-^hfc taVgw" •

J. C. H. Williams, pan Adelaide policeman has fallen heir to a fortune of £85,000 left by his father, a merchant in Brazil. The bush in the vicinity of where Mr Wftlton was missed has been searched without avail during the past two days, and it is now feared he met with foul play. An amusing story comes from the Wairarapa. The farriers of, that Valley formed an union recently, but their new scale of charges did not quit.the farmers of the district, who formed a company with, the object of becoming their own village blacksmiths and saving money. A breach, wide as the poles asunder, ensuad ; a labor difficulty of the worst kind loomed, in the dim but pregnant future 1 , 'and both side? sternly r'asolved that the right cause should triumph. The* farmer -farriers required a 'manager, and .advertised accordingly, (as wise men invariably do). Tw«nty-six applications were received, and among them, strange to say, was one from the chairman of the FarrieW Union. It is not anticipated that he will be unanimously elected. . t . • ' l'he Wapeka Times reports itjiat David Armstrong, , a phep^cd dri Ormaglade station, Miller's Flat, had a rather frying experience. While out in. the back country after shecip he dismounted from ,his horse to; examine a gully,' when lie slipped and rolled to the bottom, breaking his leg just below the knee. Aa he did not return that eyening v Mr MD, onald the ., manager, set Ou^ ip search the next morning .and, guided; ,fry, $he barking of tne : shepherdls' dogs, he discovered Armstrong lying at the bottom of the gully, helpless and aim ost unconscious from long exposure ; but still attended' by his faithful dogs. Indeed, had it not been for , the fidelity with which liis dogs stood by him, and the distressful signals they sent up 6u£ of the lonely gully, the chances are the unfortunate mail would have succumbed toexhaustion before his' whereabouts were discovered. The wonder is that he- was found alive after lying; helpless, without even ;hiscoat on, for 24 hburis <at the bottom of a wet gully* in weather almost cold' enough to freeze one's blood. Armstrong is at present in the Lawrence' Hospital. . The trades' unionists of Broken Hill, (N.S.W.) cautjqri: unskilled labourers from seeking "work, on the field, as there are 300 uheinploye4 there just how,! barring (policemen. v The great Eiffel Tower at Paris was struck lay lightning one day lately no less tnan six times, but no apparent injuay followed The vast structure vibrated for a long time.