BREVITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 11642, 31 August 1901, Page 1

BREVITIES.

Miss Carrie Moore is bringing a suit against Mr Tyson (of Hay, N.S.W.) "for breach of promise, and will claim £5,000 as damages. • The Christchurch School Committees' Association have carried a motion asking the Government to print and supply all the necessary reading books for the whole of the Government schools of the colony. On the evening of the 23rd inst. the Mayor of Port Chalmers presented Captain and Mrs M'Kinnon with a purse of sovereigns on the occasion of then: golden wtdding. There were about 140 relatives and friends present. Captaiu Charles O'Reilly, an American citizen of Irish descent, hitherto a prisoner of war at Disatalawa camp, and a, mining expert, has obtained permission to pros" pect for gold, which ho is sanguine is to bo found in Ceylon. If clauses 55 and 56 of the Federal Postal Bill go into effect, it is estimated that the State of Tasmania will lose £14,000 a year, at present derived from the sale of Tasmanian stamps to the patrons of Tattersall's " sweeps." Governor Stanley offered a silver cup for all triplets born in Kansas (U.S.). In one month he supplied fifteen of them. He didn't expect that, and will give no more without a certificate from the doctor and sworn affidavits from the parents. The work of clearing out the Woollen Factor}'- foundations is proceeding apace. A quantity of gravel and other material is on the ground for the new foundations, and it is expected the work of re-building will be put in hand shortly.—'Bruce Herald.' The Dunedin and Kaikorai Tramway Company have decided that from Monday next their Is tickets will consist of twelve sections, instead of fourteen -as at present, which is, from the travelling public standpoint, a policy that is not likely to prove satisfactory. At the Auckland Supreme Court yeseterday Howard James Thomas sued Thomas Perham and Grace Perham for £SOO for alleged libel. His Honor very properly described the case as one that should never have come into court. Plaintiff was awarded one farthing damages. In one of the dirty second class carriages of the London District Railway there was the usual framed and glazed warning: " Passengers are requested not to put their feet on the cushions or seats of the carriages." Underneath a humorist had added: "Or they will dirty their boots." Judgment in the case brought by the Melrose Borough Council against John Moffat, under by-law No. 34, charging him with having greeted a residence within the borough without providing for its exclusive use a clear space of not less than 2,000 square feet, was given yesterday, when defendant was fined 40s and costs. The proprietor of a shooting box in the West of Ireland, having been driven home in a regular downpour, and perceiving that his Jehu was almost in rags, sympathetically saftl: "Pat, my poor fellow, you must be- wet through and through!" "Faith, then, no, your honor," replied Pat; "I'm wet only to the skin: but, plase goodness, I'll be wet inside as soon as you honor can get up the sperrits!" Claiborne F. Jackson, the once-famous Governor of Missouri, married five sisters in reasonable lapses of consecutiveness. When he asked for the hand of the last it is said that the antiquated father of ~ these girls responded slowly : " Well, yes; "Tiitf-iai lu.chci:'- Tou'vu gob ; em all now, my lad; but for goodness' sake, if : anything happens to that 'ere poor misguided gal, don't corner and ask for the old woman!" A man named David Swanson was sentenced to three months' imprisonment at Auckland yesterday for ringing the changes in four hotel bars. Accused entered a bar with a friend, called for two threepenny drinks, tendered a half-sovereign, and got 9s 6d. change. He then discovered that he, had sixpence in his pocket, and asked for the half-sovereign back, thus puzzling the barmaid, and. getting offi with the halfsovereign and 9s 6d change. The Timavu Hospital Board at their last meeting resolved to offer a fee of £1 Is for each attendance to assist, but the doctors say they must have a regular fee of £1 Is for the first hour and 10s 6d for each subsequent half-hour. ' Dr Logan, resident surgeon (acting for Dr Gabites, absent in South Africa), offered to pay any excess over £1 Is if allowed private practice. The Board accepted the offer, limiting the privilege to a, radius of two miles from the hospital. A Scotchman paying a first visit to London a few weeks back called upon a merchant who came from the same town. "Surely ye came frae Glesca?" said th« merchant. "No, mon, no; not at a'," was the answer. " But I kent ye well there long ago," said the merchant. "Weel," replied the Scot, "I'll no deny it ony longer." "Then why did ye do it at a', mon?" protested the indignant "Hoots, mon, hoots," was the yuply. "I dinna like tae swagger aboot it in London." On the occasion of his reception at the Academie Francaise, Pierre Loti boasted that he read very little, and was unacquainted with modern literature. This deliberate neglect of other writers is in M. Loti a guarantee of personality, of originality; but it is also likely to prove a danger. If he reads no other writers, if Lis mind is refreshed from no literary source, and only reads over again his own books, he must at last become too much a repetition of himself, enslaved to his own formulas, imprisoned in his own rhetoric.— 'Literature.' George Towns, writing to his parents at Newcastle (N.S.W.), says that in his trip to Canada he will be accompanied by a number of Loudon friends and by Harry Pearce, the Sydney sculler, who is at present in London. Articles for the match with Gaudaur were signed on July 10, and one of the conditions was that the whole of the money was to be m the hands of the stakeholders before he left London. Should he be successful in gaining the sculling championship of the world he will probably return to England at the expressed wish of his friends before finally leaving for his home. „ T T , h , e - Kaiser sen t this telegram to Count Waldersee on the latter's return to Europe:— " i T our appointment to be Com-mander-in-Chief of the allied troops iu Last Asia gave me the most sincere satisfaction. It affords me the greatest pleasure, my dear Field-marshal, to be able to congratulate you most warmly now that you have brought to a prosperous conclusion the tasks which were entrusted to you, and are about to return home to Europe. You have in the most exeept.onal circumstances thoroughly justified the confidence which your exalted Emperor placed in his tried and trusted soldier. I was glad to know that the detachments which were landed from my squadron in East Asia were under your command, and I thank you most cordially for all the care and comradeship which you have invariably displayed. May God continue to protect you, my dear Field-marshal, in the service of the good cause and of your most exalted Sovereign."