NEW-SOUTH WALES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 40, 16 February 1907, Page 9

NEW-SOUTH WALES.

;, A cable message from Auckland to Sydney stated that tho fireman on the Sonoma "included jockeys and carpenters." Tho statement is emphatically denied. The manager of the Oceanic Steamship Company says that oyery man who was engaged had, :a discharge, which was oxammed before he was sigipd <fii the ship's articles. While the positions, were-Doing filled numbers of applicant's for omployment called at the office, and only those who appeared likely to be suitable were sent to tho steamer, where, before being engaged, they had to-satisfy • tho ship's officers. As a matter,of fact, there was an abundance of labour, and many men had to be sent ashore bofore the steamer left. The fact that the steamer made excellent timo frqpi' Sydney' to Auckland, Mr. Hodson added, afforded conclusive proof that, thero was nothing wrong with tho way in which 'the firemen worked. A telegram from Berridale, dated Bth February, reports that the arrangements in connection with the Kosciusko -road been badly bungled. • Two hundred men wero-dumped on the mountain without adequate provisions and* tonts, and any provisions available selling at famine prices. Should it rain a stampede was inevitable. , The men were deserting daily, and fifty were expected to leavo after the firat pay. There has been a notion that rats obtained access to houses by means of tho sewers. Tho city authorities state that all the connections known to the doparttoefit aro securely trapped and that passago of rats by that means is impossible. A systematic inspection has been instituted, to make 1 it certain that all sanitary fittings arc in working order. Thero is no doubt that many old sowers exist in tho city of which no records exist. When theso are found in, carrying out now sewers, they are cut ,off and stopped up. By Buch means, all. connoction with premises is 'cut off. A drover, who arrived recently in; Newcastle from Queensland, was seized with a mania for glass destruction. About midnight on Tuesday, sth inst., armed with a brick, ho promenaded Hunt-sfcreet, and smashed shop windows indiscrimatcly. Eleven large panes ot glass wero destroyed. Somo 'of theso wero valued,ab £25. The total damage is estimated at £180. When vGollumv Gollum was arrested he, had the brick jn his possession. He was committed for trial. \ young woman, returning from a danco at Bundanoon, New South Wales, jumped off tho mail train on to tho Exeter platform, a> the train was travelling at the rate of twenty miles an hour. On arrival of the train at Mobs Vale, the occupants of tho" carriage reported tho occurrence, and officials from Moss Valo made a search, but to no avail. Afterwards it was- discovered (hat the girl had reached homo safely, none tho worso -for hoy adventurfl. Her escape.i? regarded as.mitatuloait

An exciting experience befell a T£atoomba party who were picnicking on one of the bends of the Cascades, at the top of Leura Falls, New South Wales, during tho progress of an unusually heavy'thunderstorm. The party were enjoying afternoon tea when the .storm broke, and so heavy was the rain that the water rose four feet in twenty s minutes. Great difficulty was found in .getting away from the swirling waters, ahd one young lady was washed right off her feet. A gentleman who was near by plunged in after her, but so strong was the current that he, too, was carried down the Cascades. They had an exceedingly narrow escape from being washed down the Bridal Veil Falls. „ Mr, Car^uthers, the New South Wale 3 Premier, commenting on , the fighting platform of. the State Labour party, said: —"Considering that the platform adopts so much of what the Liberal party has done and proposes to do, it deserves some credit. But it is not original, except where yit is weal;. ' In my, judgment it is •a' programme of scissors —a bit cut out here and there from,.the programmes of other parties and elsewhere —and it gives evidenco ofpoverty of political originality.*' The vengeance of the "push" (says the Sydney Telegraph) is still something to stand in fear of, if the evidence of a prisoner at the Quarter Sessions may bo believed. . This man gave as a reaspn for carrying a loaded ievolver, that he had been threatened by a "push," and kicked and beaten by . members of it. On several occasions he 'had shifted ;his quarters, butfalwaysthe ruthless hoodlum-had tracked him down arid filled his life with fear. In ofesEeration ho had purchased 'a revolver, ut instead of enlisting the sympathy of his fellows by "filling up with lead" some of his cowardly assailants, he turned the weapon against a couple of defenceless, women, who' were trying ifi prevent him committing a robbery, judge Backhouse asked the police if they could give any reason for the evil desires of tho "push" in regard to theprisoner, and two officers answered, that the ire of the "push" had been raised because of certain work that the prisoner had donß for the police Jr connection with sly-grog prosecutions. The oxperijnccs at the twenty-fifth annual show of the Wollongong Agricultural, Horticultural, and Industrial Society were unfortunate. There was a fine exhibition, and the day opened with threatening black clouds behind rhe ranges.' All went well till 3 p.m., A tropical downpour, was expected, and. it camc-rTpbut^ accompanied by a violent windstorm, which carried pretty well everything before it. One by one the tea tents, the fruit stalls, the publican's booth, and all the' rest of the temporary structures fluttered in, the gale, and finally collapsed' in a 'bedraggled heap on the grass, while those who happened to be inside at the time lay prostrate, under, the benches, tables and chairs which had been overturned in Ihc,melee. ."Then -when the heavens opened ahd the rain came down, in torrents somo of the women, terrified by the vivid lightning, the roar of thunder, and the general confusion, rushed for the pavilion, while ono or two promptly fainted, or went into hysterics, but the storm had by this time attacked the pavilion with hurricane force; the windward side of this struc"turc v.;as partially unprotected, except -for a strip'of thin-hessian tacked up, more to keep "out the' sun than the rain, and the wind entering thero nearly lifted tho roof off. Had it not been that the skylights went at the critical moment the roof could hardly have held —as it was, the rain poured through tho skylights on to tho exhibits, while tho wind topplod over the pilsd-up trophies-like ninepins. The show-ground in the course of a- few minutes wes converted into a swamp. The storm lasted, with slight intermissions, fdr the rest of the afternoon,' letting up" just in time to allow the wot people to got home and dry themselves.