BRIEF MENTION.

Evening Star, Issue 10400, 23 August 1897, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

A report was circulated this afternoon that a mishap had occurred to the Talune, now on her way from Melbourne. As the steamer only left Hobart at 1 p.tn. on Friday, and is not due at the Bluff yet, there is not likely to be any foundation for the rumor. Certainly the Union Company have po tidings of any accident to the steamer. John Robertson, aged fifty-seven years, dropped down dead while wo:king at Waitahuna Gully to-day, A miner has arrived at Victoria, British Columbia, from Yokon River, with 100,000 dollars’ worth of gold dust. Mr Robert Gemmell Gibson, manager of the Wellington branch of the Bank of Australasia, died ou Saturday morning after a brief illness. The deceased, who was highly esteemed, had been suffering from bronchial asthma and an affection of the heart. He only took to his bed last week. He leaves a widow and family. A fire broke out at about nine o’clock last evening in an outhouse at the rear of Mrs James’s boarding establishment in King street. The fire brigade turned out with their usual promptitude, but the building was pretty well destroyed before they arrived. The fire originated through a tin of hot ashes being placed near the shed. The admissions to the Dunedin Hospital last week numbered eighteen, and seventeen were discharged, leaving 109 inmates in the institution on Saturday. Arthur Pass and the Otira Gorge are still blocked with snow.

Mr J. Sawers, for many years chief dairy expert in New Zealand, has been appointed the New Zealand representative of Messrs Oetzes and Gerritsur, dairy produce importers, of London. Owing to a bolt about 12 30 10-day, a delivery cart belonging to Mr J. Gow, baker, smashed into the water trough outaido the Southern Hotel, over-setting the trough and capsizing and breaking the cart. The horse was knocked down, and badly cut about the knee. A youth who was driving jumped out of the vehicle before the collision occurred. It is the intention of the Admiralty to recall the third class cruisers Pylades, Rapid, and Royalist from the Australian station, and to replace them by more modern vessels. The Caversham Council started to-day to construct a small filter-bed at St. Clair. The Natives at Ohaki (Taupo) have quietened down, and agreed to refer their dispute to the Native Land Court. _ Tno ‘ Prohibitionist ’ gives an authoritative denial to the statement which has been going the rounds of the colonial Press, that “ for the first time in sixteen years a publichouse has been publicly opened in Kansas, which has been running on Prohibition lines since 1881.” It alleges that greater excitement could not have resulted from an outbreak of cholera than was provoked by the recent attempt to set up a hotel in the main street of Topeka, the capital of Kansas State. The citizens rose immediately, and in a great public gathering demanded that the civic authorities should at once do their duty, with the result that within four-and-tweaty hours the scoundrels who sought to poison the morals and bodies of their fellowcitizens were lodged in gaol. Judge Welsh, of Topeka, who dealt with these fellows, declared that “all the talk of Prohibition and its enforcement being. abandoned in Kansas is false. Kansas is a sober State, and she will never again tolerate'the saloon.” Madame Nansen, wife of the famous explorer, will make her dehut in London as a vocalist.

The following story is told by a lady who was playing Rosalind in Boston, and playing it, as she fancied, rather acceptably. As she entered her dressing room at tho theatre one night a note was handed to her which read in this wise“ Dere lady I work for a dentist but I have spoiled so' many of his teeth saying over your part in the play co w that I can say it just as well as you do, and I want you to let me try it to-night and see if I can’t for tho dentist says ho cannot have mo any more and I must pay for his teeth, and so I must go on tho stage and I will be here at seven o’clock.”