CLIPPINGS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8483, 15 May 1893, Page 4

CLIPPINGS.

There are now over 2000 foreigners— principally Austrians —on the Northern gum-fields.

The case of Dr. Lindo Ferguson v George Mondy, to determine the amount of fee payable for an operation, which was to have been heard at the Dunedin Resident Magistrate's Court, was adjourned, on the application of the solicitor for the plaintiff, until the 19th, in order to admit of evidence being taken in Wellington. Mr Solomon, who appeared for the defendant, stated that a further adjournment would probably be required, as evidence had to be taken in several different parts of the world.— Otayo Daily Times.

The Pope recently gave a private audience to Mr Stephen Moriarty, who brought a phonograph with congratulations for the Pope from the late Cardinal Manning and from Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore. His holiness was deeply touched when he heard Cardinal Manning's voice. He promised that he would pronounce a blessing upon all Catholics in America by means of the phonograph, and kept his word next day.

The news that the Committee of the Children's Hospital at Glebe Point, Sydney, which is composed almost entirely of ladies, has refused the nomination of a duly qualified lady graduate in medicine as resident medical officer, will be a surprise and a perplexity to most people. The nomination (says the Daily Telegraph) was made on the responsibility of Professor Anderson Stuart, whose competence to appraise her qualifications no one will question. It is to be concluded, therefore, that her rejection by the Committee did not turn upon any question of capacity; and as the Hospital is subsidised by the Government out of the national exchequer, the public will be interested to know—they have certainly an undoubted right to ask—on what grounds her nomination has been refused. At present the matter is surrounded with mystery. The highest authority in our medical schools has testified to the special qualifications of the woman doctor who has been rejected by the Committee, and the public have a right to know if her nomination has been declined solely because she is a woman.

A novel postal experiment h*a been tried in Huddersfield, and apparently with coraIdete success. It consists in attaching etter-boxes to the tramoars, in which letters can be posted as these vehicles are traversing the suburbs, the boxes being cleared by the post-office officials on the arrival of the cars in town. As an example of the convenience to residents in the outside districts it is noted that the boxes cleared at 8.30 p.m. included letters posted at Lindley, Bradley, Almondbury, and Crpsland Moor after eight o'clock, all in time for the London, Midland, Scotch and Irish mails, for which the box at the central office closes at 8.45. If a person desires to stop the car for tho purpose of posting a letter, a penny has to be paid, which is placed by the conductor in the fare box. The public, however, seem to have eagerly availed themselves of the privilege. On the opening day the number of letters dropped into these travelling boxes exceeded 500.

The ship that cannot founder or go to Eiecea on the rocks has yet to be built) ut we are making way in this direction. Lord Bavensworth, in his address to the Institute of Naval Architects, declared his belief that in the whole range of scientific industry there is nothing in which we have made greater progress than in the materials of whioh ships are built. He specially referred to the case of the Apollo. No ship, in his belief, has ever been known to sustain such injuries to her hull aa she did and live to tell the tale. The length of the damage was about 100 ft, of which soma 60ft or more consisted of one great rent. She was shown to have struck on three different rocks, but such was the toughness and strength of the steel employed in her plates that in many cases they were bent upwards without breaking, and such was the elasticity of her frame, and particularly the connections between her two skins, that,

notwithstanding the tremendous amount tM. injury, the Inner skin wasnoVer penetrate! It is believed that not a single drop #t water ever got into the ship. Sha \f k fj taken back safely into Queenstowii. ' R

When Mr "Ablogton" dropped U;, Scotch name of Mr George Ablngton Bshwfj he also forsook his Scotch notions; for u*j ever he has crossed the Tweed of reosmß years (says a Homo papor), it has beoaf* as camp-follower to a touring thoatrj.fi cal company, and never by any chases Ql reside on any of the enormous estates he! owned in Scotland. His regard for hhf landed inheritance may bo gauged front Wt : remark ou au introduction to a gentlem*,!? whom he was told had come from Aberdew}, i Ho informed his now acquaintance, witji| tho addition of a full-flavonrod adjectiv* 1 that he had " a yard or two of up there." This " yard or two of peat" wajf his collective description of the CBtatca oil Strichen and Auchineddon, tho former ojl which his father bought in 1855 from the! then Lord Lovat for £146,000, whilo he lu-l heritod the latter from his uncle, Mr Jamal Baird, the founder of the Baird Trust of thai Church of Scotland. The Roxburgh estate 1 of Stichel, at which Mr "Abingtou" waai born, came to his father in 1860 from hjj 1 brother, Mr David Baird, who had puf- I chased it seven years before for £160,000.1 Originally the family wealth came from Ufo 1 iron-smelting workß at Gartsherrio, jjj f Lanarkshire, where, early in tho century, f Mr Alexander Baird laid tho foundationo| \ the enormous fortune which was eventualW f to be responsible for the cares* of tttt f deceased "sportsman." j'