News Condensed.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6325, 9 December 1891, Page 2

News Condensed.

They are also going in for rain-making experiments in South Australia. One Matthew Ejes, an engine-driver, interested in the experiment, has fixed about December loth for a trial of appliances for the artificial production of rain at Terowie, the precise place chosen being Mount Packa. At Sydney the other day a young fellow named Charles Gerard did a very foolish thing, but "love is blind." He was charged at the Police Court with having "maliciously aud violently threatened Amy Bagot." Gerard was sweet on Amy, who for a time favored his company. Then suddenly she would have nothing to do with him. So he followed her morning after morning, and wound up by presenting a revolver at her head. He was bound over to keep the peace. Florence Watson, at St. Louis, easily departed this life. She was arrested for pet'y larceny, and the following morning was found with a garter round her neck, suspended from the top of her cell. Previous to that she had attempted to take morphine, but the attempt failed. The author of that great epic poem, "The Light of Asia," Sir Edwin Arnold, editor of the London Daily Telegraph, has gone to America. He is anxious to see if what satisfied the Greeks will satisfy American people—a poet reading hia own verses. Sir Edwin likes best the third and fourth books of "The Light of Asia," which treat of the *' Great Renunciation " ; and the last two books, which describe the attainment of perfect knowledge by Budda.

" Will you kindly offer an opinion on the success of Rudyard Kipling?" was asked Sir Edwin Arnold by a New York Tribune reporter. He replied:—" Like, your poet James Whitcoinb Riley, tho magic secret of style. It is the only thing left now to distinguish a man. Everybody writes and every writes well and everybody's gets printed in the same type. The only thing left is style, and a few writers have that. When his works are winnowed ard oifted many will remain as permanent memorials in the English language."

Miss Mary Dickens, the novelist's favorite daughter, lives in a pleasant little suburb of London. She is a woman past middle age, but preserves a vivacity of manner that makes her appear much more youthful. She has stored in her memory many interesting anecdotes of her father, which will furnish very entertaining reading when given to the public. jM Under the American law which requireiflH that all executions shall occur in private beJBH tween midnight and dawn, William Rose was hanged at Minnesota on the evening of October 15. And thus ended one of the most romantic and sensational cases in the Western crime. Rose was aged thirty. He • fell in love with farmer Lufkin's daughter. The farmer drove Rose from hia farm. Rose j shot the farmer dead, the young lady committed suicide by cutting her throat with a razor, and Rose was hanged. Oscar Hardin has been committed for manslaughter in one of the Western States, under peculiar crcumstances. Hardin married a Miss Rebie Atmore. Three weeks after their marriage Mrs Hardin was killed by a pistol-shot fired by her husband. The pair had established themselves in a country home. Hardin was out in the orchard, and seeing a bird alight on the limb of a tree which shaded one of the upper windows, he shot at it. Simultaneously Mrs Hardin appeared at the window and received the ball which had missed the bird. The husband was prostrated with grief, but his wife's relatives insisted that the deed was intentional, and pushed tho case into Court. John Woods and Alexander Brown were students at Hiawasse (Ga.), a Methodißt iustitution. During the school term rivalry sprung up between the young men to such an extent that they had several encounters. In a duel Brown was nhot dead, while Woods has been committed for murder. A negro named Green, at Texas, murdered the whole family of Farmer Lowe, in order to obtain sixty "dollars that were' in the house. Green was taken from the gaol by a crowd. A traoe-chain was placed about Green's neck and fastened to a tree so as to hold him in a standing position*. Then forty-six negro men piled fagots high up around him and an old negress touahed the match to it, aud in a few minutes hia soul passed into eternity, only fifty-three hours behind those of hia victims. Three sons of the great author of " Pickwick" are still living. Charles Dickens, his father's namesake, is editor of All the Round and is known to American audiences for his readings from his father's works," Alfred Tennyson Dickens is a merchant iri Melbourne, and the youngest member of thefamily, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens; ia a sheep farmer and a member of the New South Wales Parliament. Tennyson in his old age is an incessant smoker. A large jar of tobacco stands conveniently near his elbow and his beloved pipe is rarely removed from his mouth. The pipe of Pan consoled his youth, but a brierwood comforts him now.

The report of the Imperial post office for 1890 has just been published, and shows that the colonial money order business continues to increase. In the year 1880-81 the value of inward orders received from the eolonieswas £690,000, while last year it amounted to £1,342,000. While the remittances from Australia show a substantial increase, the amount remittedfrom New Zealandinmoney orders last year was only £70,000, or nearlr £20,000 less than in ISBO-81.

The last instalment of the £110,000 which the Imperial Government undertook to pay Mr Brennan for his torpedo has baenhanded over to that gentleman. He still receives a salary of £1500 a year, in return for which he superintends the installation of tV« weapon wherever the Admiralty der;-' "*•? shall be placed. ' ' - de »t

With regard to the gold fmA ;„ w„ i Australia, Mr Peterkin, We rf Z Y:T * viiu c fr hi r« 8^ m > *& srs Ibou e t£2o 0 6 0 g Q H^' £ btaiDed th ™ ' * about He says tha*; he has dollied out of the. stone over 40oz in one day. £ three days he once got 98oz. He dbnfinra 917 received with «ga"d to the wonderful richness of tho reefs.

At the sitting of the Australasian Conferenco on Charity at Melbourne, Miss Sutherland, of the District Nursing Sooietv in a paper on " Slum Life in Melbourne," stated tnat the poverty and vice in the slums grew worse year by year. The present dens should be destroyed. It -was a question for consideration whether houses for the poor, established on commercial pnnciples, would not be moro profitable in every way to the community than many ordinary channels of charity.

Walt Whitman in his declining years has escaped the fate that Dean S;vift feared, that of ' dying at the top " fir- it . Though his bodily powers fnil, the old poet's mini remains clear and vigorous.

Mr Henry Savage Landor, a grandson of the poet and esaayist, who was the originar ot Boythornm Dickens's "Bleak Houee.'* iei visiting Melbourne en route for England, after spending three years in Eastern Asia* from whence he has brought a number o! sketches in oils and water-colors, made in regions rarely penetrated by tho foot of an European. ~*

™ «V temper, P cc mee t'Dg at Melbourne one of the speakers on the drink question (Mrs Harrison Lee) said if she had the power she could "makfl it all right" by "one simple beautiful law." All it needed was one simple little clause, and it would read this way:-"Any person hereafter caught making, selling, importing*, or giving that which destroys his fellow-creature! shall be hung up by the heels till he leariu better. " Yon see," said Mrs Lee, " it's , so short, and so simple. There ara no amendments about that law; and it is theamendments that always puzzle us."

WToDnyMii's "sea-blue bird of March has long since been identified, on the authority of the poet himself, as neither the swallow nor the wheat-ear nor the blue ti traouse, as various readers have but amply the kingfisher. It has beea already pointed out that the phrase bears a close resemblance to "the sea-purple bird of spring by which the Spartnn lyric poet refers to the halcyon ; but Lord Tennyson states that he derived the phr«se directly from his own remembrance of the kingfishers, who were wont to make their first appearance about the Lincolnshire rivers in the month of March. In answer to a correspondent, tho poet has lately confirmed this solution of a much-discussed question »i!h the interesting addition that were he rewriting the poem he would substitute •'darts for "flits by," and "sea-shining"" for " sea-blue " a