GENERAL NEWS.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XX, Issue 2548, 29 June 1892, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

A Sydney resident named Sampson, who visited Melbourne for the purpose of being present at the wedding of a friend, was the victim of a cowardly assault in Fitzroy Gardens at midnight recently. He had visited some friends in Richmond during the evening, and was returning through the gardens to the Grand Hotel, when he noticed two men advancing towards him in a suspicious manner. He stopped and noticed that one of them walked away in the shadow of some trees. The other man approached Mr Sampson and said, " Please, sir, give me a match." Mr Sampson was about to oblige him, when he was struck down from behind and rendered insensible. When he came to his senses he found he had been robbed of £145 in notes and a gold watch-chain valued at £16. The thieves were in too great a hurry to rifle his pockets carefully f i or they left the watch behind, the ohain having been broken by a sudden tug. Mr Sampson bore evidence of having been cruelly assaulted when he met Constable Pratt a few minutes after. The reason be had so much money on him was because he intended making some purchases next day. The detective police have the case in hand.

A correspondent's letter from America says : — The big and little cattle rancheros of Wyoming are at war with each other. This condition has been long brewing. It is a conflict of property hunger, w^ere both the large and fhe small proprietors precipitately took the law into their own hands and now see no easy way to let go of it. The small owners have for a long time claimed that the laige ranchmen, owning nearly all the stock ranges, with an army of cowboys as their agents, have at spring rounded up and gathered all Lhe cattle on the ranges, and have branded as their own all the young unmarked cattle of small stockowners, as well as their own. This year the small stockholders organised to prevent that, and arranged for a round-up and stock-marking thirty days in advance of the time provided by law. This was claimed by the large owners as merely a subterfuge to steal from themselves all the unmarked cattle on the plains. They accordingly hastily organised to prevent the sequestration, and two or three of the small owners were shot. This fired the train. There were some fifty or a hundred of the armed ranchmen, and they have been confronted by a thousand or more of armed cattle owners who vowed vengeance. In a melee like this the lawless and thieves have the best chance. Many honest und peaceable men have been warned to leave their property and go, They will have to take the ohanoe of losing their property or losing their lives. It is a bad situation,

Mr Labouohere, writing in 'Truth,' remarks: — I cannot say that I believe in i the latest Auarohist soare about laying 1 hold of public men and holding them to ransom. But it is not perhaps generally known that not many years ago there was a plot to [ kidnap the Queen at Balmoral, to carry her off to a port, and there to embafk her for parts unknown, Horses had actually been provided along the route when the faot 8 came to the knowledge of the police, and the precautions taken having made it dear to the scoundrels that their intentions had become known, they abandoned the idea. Private letters from Melbourne estimate that * there are about 20,000 out of work in that city, while a goodly number do not know where to lay their heads at night. Frequently some poor fellow is found dead from starvation in one of the parks. The police have got orders not to interfere with any of the unemployed found sleeping out at night. Before the winter is over there will be trouble, as hungry people will not starve and see plenty of food in the shops.' After the success of the Suez Canal a project was mooted to flood the desert of Sahara by letting the waters of the Mediterranean Sea upon it, the sandy plain being below that sea. It was too big an undertaking, but the same object, though on a smaller scale, has been brought about by the simpler and infinitely leas expensive method of artesian boring-. The scientific columns of a recant English journal mention that in the south of the department of Constantine, no less than 690 artesian wells have been sunk, having a depth of 29,934 metres, and yielding 490,016 cubic metres of water per day. At Et G-olea, the most southerly point where these wells have been sunk, a natural reservoir of water has been discovered about 40 metres from the surface, so copious that a column of water is thrown up from the sound hole of 200 litres per minute. All this water has been obtained in a locality where life was previously all but impossible, owiug to the sterility of the country.

A model of a non-iolling vessel, or which claims to be so, is now on view at Melbourne. Mr. White, of Williamstown, the designer of the model, makes the widest part of his ship at the upper deck instead of at the bilge, and he is of opinion that the increased flotation brought into play as the ship cants to the sea renders rolling impossible, the flotation being so much gi eater above than below the water. This is a question of some importance to the public travelling by sea, and if all that the model suggests can be realised humanity will be so much the gaiuer. The wonder is that the experiment has not been attempted long ago in the interest of the safe conveyance of cargo, and of those who suffer martyrdom from sea-sick-ness.

Owing to the depression in all parts of the colonies a number of seamen are offering for engagement at Melbourne at nominal wages for the purpose of getting a passage to other countries, in the hopa of bettering' their condition. The Melbourne Collector of Customs has had brought under his notice the fact that vessels are arriving with men to be discharged who shipped at Is per month. Dr. Wollaston, in view of the distress existing has given instrucrions to the Shipping Master not to permit the discharge of these men unless provision is made against their becoming distressed.

The recent discovery of Bathurst burr in Tasmania, a colony which, before this year, was quite free from Australia's most troublesome weed, should be regarded as another remarkable instance of the necessity there is for constant watchfulness in guarding the soil. Weeds are carried about from country to country in ways which are never suspected by ordinary observers. As an instance of this, recently a botanical correspondent in the United States drew the attention of Mr, Maiden to the faot that a number of introduced species of plants, chiefly from the Western States, were found nbout the winter quarters ( 1890 ) of Sells Brothers' circus, at Sellsvilie, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. The actual plants are noted in a printed list sent to Mr. Maiden, of the Sydney Technological Museum, and it is worthy of note that this cirous caused the acclimatisation of a large number of weeds (chiefly composites ) in a distant part of the j United States. The entourage of the circus in Australia was a particularly large one, and it is very possible that through it agency som&omerican weeds may gee a footing there. The subject is interesting to the farmer, pastoralist, and botanist, in ordsr that new plants may be looked for during ih j coming spring around the various sites which were used by the oircus as encampments.

The Rev. F. Willett, a Sussex clergyman, resident at Lindfield, has, it is stated announced his intention of establishing- a model public- house. Being* the freeholder of the only inn at Scaynes Hill, which the tenant gives «p after thirty-five years' occupancy, the reverend, gentleman proposes to enter into possession himself and to work it on hie own lines, i

Mr. Pritchard Morgan, MJP. t writing to the Welsh newspapers, states that ho has found in Cainarthen several lamps of quartz containing gold. Samples of quartz from reefs have assayed 11 and 13 pennyweights of gold to tho ton. Mr. ?ri tchard Morgan sta'ea that he is prep »red to point out lccalities in Carmarthenshire and elsewhere where gold raiDing operations may be carried on with prospects of success. I Mr David L>wis, who died in 1835, psI queathed a sum of £200,000; which "ultimately increased to £350,000, to Mr G. J. Cohen, of Sydney, and Mr B. W. Coy, to use for the bepefic of the working classes of Liverpool nnd Manchester. Mr Coy, with the approval of Mr Cohen, has requested Sir W. H. Houldsworth, M.P* for Manchester, and Sir A. B. Forwood, M.P. for Orinsls'rk Division of Lancashire, to act as trustees and administer the bequest. These gentlemen have consented. Committees are beiug formed to utilise the Lewis bequest. Probably a Peabody Home for the use of the j working classes will be built with the money i in the cities specified. The officer administering the (xovernment of Mauritius reported that he had received this statement from the chief medical officer with regard to the victims of the

cyclone : — ' The number of patients attended is 1,260, of whom 944 have been wounded in town and 316 in the districts. The number of deaths registered at the Civil Status office amounts to 1090, out of which 598 are for the town and the remainder for the districts. A correspondent, of the Times of India mentions some odd instances of difficulties in the worbiug of the Factory Law which came into force in India at the commencement of the present year. The limit of age for • full-timers ' in factories is fixed at 14 years, and as very few native operatives know their children's age 3, or even their own. the medical officer ha?, in passing lads and girls for work, to judge the age as best he can — generally, as in the case of horses, by examining their teeth. If he concludes that they are under 14 he reduces them to ' half-timers.' In one Bombay mill recently a number of girls were thus sent back as under age who were actually mothers, and several boys who were fathers were also reduced; and one of the latter was the father, it is said, of three children. The case of these lads is particularly hard, for, with a wife and child, or perhaps children, to support, life, on the pay of a ' half-timer,' must be a terrible struggle.