BREVITIES

Evening Star, Issue 11678, 10 February 1902, Page 1

BREVITIES

The capture of Commandant Marais la reported. Two fresh cases of plague have occurred in Sydney. Patrick Foley, who died at Mißthorpe (N.S.W.) on January 26, was 101 years of age. Colonel Wing, in a brush at Burgsprult, killed three of the enemy and captoed thirteen.

The United States is supporting Britain and Japan in endeavoring to secure an open door in Manchuria.

The naval expenditure of Germany on new ships after 1906 is to be at the rate of three millions a year. ( Lord Milner will be associated with Lord Kitchener in considering any peace overtures from the Boers.

It was De Wet, not Hears, who escaped from Garrett’s column at Uebenbergsvlei with a small personal escort. Germany intends strengthening her squadron in Chinese waters by four battleships, besides cruisers and gunboats. Mr Cecil Rhodes has bought the estate of Dalham, near Newmarket, for £107,000, and become an English squire. Varmiekerk’s commando made a fruitless attempt to wreck the Brakpan collieries, but were repulsed with two killed. The House of Commons defeated by 250' to 160 “G.-B.’s” amendment to the Procedure Bill, which then passed its second reading. Lord Ranfurly left ■ Christchurch for Southbridge to-day in Adams’s motor car, and goes on to Cheviot, where the earthquakes still continue. Sir J. G. Ward has had to postpone his intended visit to Invercargill thjs week, and returned to Wellington on departmental business on Saturday night. Kruger is represented as being “ calm, hopeful, and confident” tthat the leaders in fhe .u-.u, will not solicit peace. He is still hopeful of Divine intercession. Dr Mason, bead of the Public Health Department, and Dr Hudson, of Nelson, left by the Talnne yesterday to attend the International Medical Conference at Hobart.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, by a* large majority, affirmed the desirability of tbcir election by the ratepayers, instead of by the borough councils, as now.

It is stated that the father of the young man Crawford, who wae shot at the Feliding volunteer camp of instruction, intends to claim £I,OOO damages from Thompson, who fired the ball cartridge. Two Boer officers sent to interview Kruger at The Hague have reached Marseilles. They say that their countrymen still have implicit confidence in Com Paul, and if he savs the word they will lay down their arms.

The National Scouts (Boers who have surrendered and are now taking the field against their compatriots) are giving good accounts of themselves. Their latest captures included Comet Yaazye and nine others.

Leyds, on the other hand, says that ths news from South Africa is reassuring, and that war will last a decade, if necessary. He hints at the despatch of special emissaries to tell the Boer generals all about recent peace chatter. Messrs F. Lawry and G. Fowids, M-HJR.s, have received delegates appointed by a number of workmen who were discharged from railway works at Ongarue, and have promised to call a meeting of Auckland members to thoroughly thrash the matter out. Domestic reasons are the cause for Mr Pi rani's retirement from the political arena. Messrs Jellicoe and have been retained to watch the inter#ts of the respective parties. The matter will shortly engage the attention of the Wellington law courts. The referendum of the Adelaide ratepayers re tramway construction resulted in the confirmation % a majority of 6,000 of the legislative proposal to construe 4 ’ the work by private enterprise. Noyes Bros, have the contract with the Adelaide Corporation for the work of electrification. A novel “strike” is in progress atßokewood (S.A.), where, in consequence of the refusal of the local hotel licensees to reduce pare beer from 6d to 4d per pint and 3d per glass, forty or fifty residents at an open-air meeting on Saturday resolved to do without their Saturday beer. The New Zealanders were conspicuous at the Liebenbcrgsvlei affair. One hundred Snd twenty of them charged the enemy's rearguard, and sixty of them headed off a Boer convoy. They also repulsed an attempt by J)e Wet to capture our pi unpoms. The contingent lost one man killed and had two wounded.

A man named Jade Trarnor, a p:sp:rmaker, had remarkable experiences at Melbourne recently. He fell from a second storey of a building, crashed ou the verandah, and rebounded into the roadway, where he was found by a constable, who locked him rip on a charge of drunkenness. After sleeping off the eSecta of bis libations he awoke, and merely complained of feeling a bit stiff. He had received no more than a slight shock to the system. Mr M'Hugh, M.P., received a cordial welcome from Ms constituents on his return to Sligo, mid in a snort speech he g stye the lesson which he had learnt by bis American tour. It was simply that the Irish people should stay at home. This was the advice of one who had seen the! dark as weQ as the bright side of life in the great American cities. Mr M‘Hngh also observed that the thing that had impressed him abont the reception of the returned delegates to Dublin was the frequency of the cheers for De Wet. An extraordinary bicycle race is said to have taken place at New Brunswick, America. The competitors were two factory girls, the race being for the possession of a certain young man. The race was, over a coarse of two miles, before a great i crowd, and the racers were followed; by a great nnmber of cyclists. After a keen; struggle the race was won by Nellie Don- ; nely in four and a-half minutes. Tbeyonng ! man was waiting at the end of the course,. and as soon as the race was over he and the victor were made man and wife by the' minister in waiting. Most of our public men have lost their early teachers, though the old lady who faugbt Mr Chamberlain Mb alphabet is still iving. King Edward, who had more tutors, perhaps, than any other schoolboy of his time, reigns over very few of them, if over any at all, as King. The first real grief of the King’s fife was the parting with his teacher—ihe Rev. Henry Mildred Birch—who, on leaving his Royal pupil after four years; became Vicar of Prestwick, near Manchester, and then Canon of Bipon. As a tutor he stood high among his colleagues in the teaching profession. He became captain of the school at Eton, won high honors at Cambridge, anff went back to Eton as assistant master.

Pathetic evidence to given at an inquest at Melbourne by the husband of Mrs Emily Blackmore, who died from the effects of excessive drinking. Questioned by the coroner, Blackmore said he often got his tv if j pint bottles of whisky. The Coroner: '‘Was that the proper way of coring her of drinkf* Witness: “No,” The Coroner.: “Then, why did you do it?” Witness; “Well, we have been real good chnms all our lives, and we might have helped one another to drink.” Medical evidence was that death waa due to chronic inflammation of the kidneys, accelerated by alcohoGem, and a verdict was returned accordingly- The Orcoer remarked that however wrong the husband** conduct was it <fid nob amount to » aria#*