Local & General News.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 9, 1 July 1884, Page 2

Local & General News.

The District Court will be held at Palmerston on Wednesday, the 23rd inst. Meisrs Halcombe and Sherwill's next stock sale will take place on Thursday the 3rd inst. The entries, which are very numerous, appear in our advertising columns. A meeting of the Manchester Rifles is called for Thursday next at the Town Hall, for the purpose of electing a Capt. vice F. Y. Lethbrige, Esq., resigned. Members will note that they are requested to parade in plain clothes. In view of the match with Palmerston on Saturday next, our local footballers should roll up to the Oral every afternoon where practice Till be held, so that they may wipe out the defeat they sustained at the last contest. On Thursday evening in the Town Hall a tea meeting and sale of work "will be held in aid of St. John's Sunday School Building Fund, 'ome of the. work, which, will be offered to intending purchases, is said to be highly ornamental, and the remainder most useful for all ages and sexes. As the object is a most praiseworthy one, we hope to see a large assemblage of " all sorts and conditions ot men," able and willing to aid and assist in the good work.

It is estimated that 2,000,000 acres in South Australia are under wheat crop this year. In New South Wales the question of religious education in public schools is again coming prominently to the front. The language used in the streets of Syduey by the scum of the unemployed is described as obscene and disgusting. The Victorian Postmaster-General has decided to make a (rial of the tricycle postal delivery system. We request the attention of our readers to tLo intimation, published in another column, inviting the attendance of the public at the Foresters' Hall on this and to-morrow evening, when Mr Hinman will preach the Gospel. An uncomfortable solution of the great " sunset mystery" is given by a Persian astrologer, who predicts thai the blood-red appearance of the sky is a forewarning of a war such as the world has never yet beheld. There is to be blood-shed on an unexampled scale in all parts of the globe. At a political meeting in Christchurch a few days ago an elector asked the following question: — "Are you in favor of the members only receiving one harmonium? Whnt this meant seemed for a whiile to puzzle the member, but at last he grasped the idea that the question had reference to the honorarium. On Saturday afternoon a man named William Pitcairn attempted to commit suicide at the Grosvenor Hotel, Christchurch, by taking strychnine. He did not take enough to kill himself, and is now out of danger. A letter found in his room stated that he had resolved to kill himself because he was hard up. Two slight alterations are made in the advertisement of Mr Kendrick, of the brick and pipe works, Marton. The sizes of the pipes arc from 2 to 12 inches, instead of 1 inch, as previously advertised, and the 2 inch pipes are 7s per 100 instead of ss. The smaller pipes are suitable for field work and all small drains generally, where the larger ones would be insufficient. The Wairarapa, with excursionists arrived at Russell last Sunday afternoon from Tongatabu. Between Fiji and Samoa one of the crew was found suffering from measles, in consequence of which the passengers were not allowed to land at either the Samoan or Tongan Groups. The ship ia now clear of the complaint, no other case having developed, so is not likely to be quarantined at Auckland, which port she leaves for to-morrow evening. The evening of one's days may be as happy as, and often a good deal happier than, the mom or the noon- But then it must be spent in the mariner suitable to it. Thackeray could sit " alone and merry, at 40 years, dippine his nose in Gascon wine." There is no reason why those who have exceeded Thackeray's age of wisdom by a couple of decades should net display the same spectacle of equable and philosophical content. There is as much amusement in a quiet way to be got out of looking on at the game as out of playing it. The tranquility which years ought to bring is in itself a delight. —World. " I say," said an irate gentleman at the St. Kilda baths, to the attendant, " bow is it 1 can't find ray trousers ?" " Don't know, sir," said the attendant. "Perhaps you have forjjotton where you left 'em sir." A search all through the different compartments failed to reveal the missing garments. Somebody had evidently annexed them. " They've gone," said the gentleman, after delivering himself of as much profanity as would supply a Collingwood boot factory employe for a week. " What the devil am Ito do ? They've been stolen." " Are you quite sure you brought them with you, sir P" We came away without hearing the whole of the answer. Having been brought up by pious parents we dare not wait for the conclusion. A woman named Ellen Adams, who has very frequently been before the Police Court for vagrancy, and who was a constant inmate of the gaol, was found dead on the Dunedin railway line on last Saturday within two or three hundred yards of the main Btation. She was so fearfully mangled as to be quite unrecognisable, but a female, friend identified her by her clothing. It is surmised that she was lying about the line during the night, and that one of the late trains killed her. Traces of flesh and blood were found on one of the engines, but the driver or guard knew nothing of the accident, and the engine-cleaner thought a sheep or a dog had been run over. It was not till a little boy discovered the remains on the line about 10 on Saturday morning that anything was known of the occurrence. The husband of the deceased woman is at present under trial for housebreaking. The word "Batting" is certainly not an honorific word. Why it should be thought in any way discreditable to the rats that they desert, as they are said to do, a ship about to sink, or a house about to fall, we cannot imagine. It is clearly very creditable to their sagacity uor can it be imagined that they owe any loyalty to the ship or to the house which renders it in any way dishonorable in them to desert it. Men always apply the term "ratting" however, to cases in which they hol.l that there is a certain reproach in the use of it, in which they hold that loyalty required some other course ; that is, they take a metaphor from the action of creatures quite free from any sort of tie to stand by a cause, and use it as a term of reproach for the action of those who unhlushingly desert a cause which they had deliberately ad >p!ed. This is very hard upon Lbf rats. — spectator.

A proposal is on foot in Australia for the federation of all trade societies. There are twelve Presbyterian Churches in Japan. In 1882 the emigrants from England to the Australasian colonies were 26,000 ; in 1883, 71,000. Mr Ellery Gilbert has decided to reside in Wanganui instead of New Plymouth, as he finds the former place more central. The Dunedin Herald says that things in Otago are taking a turn, and that there will soon be a revival. Mr Donald Fraser's address to the electors of Manawatu appears in our columns to-day. His itenerary of places where he will address the electors will appear in our next issue. The Otago Daily Times says :--" We heartily trust that Sir Julius Yogel may be able to find a worthier constituency than one which cannot make up its mind as to whether it prefers him to Bees or the local candidates*" Two hundred years ago Alderman Smith left £1000, the income of which was to be expended for any needy kinsman of his by the name of Smith. The fund now yields £12000 a year, and the kinsmen number several hundred. The sheep on Messrs Lethbridge and Downes' run have been so much driven by dogs lately that these gentlemen have been unwillingly compelled to lay poison on their land. The owners of sporting dogs, will therefore take special notice of the advertisement which appears in another column. At the inquest held in Wanganui on Saturday last on the body of James Harper, who was drowned at the Heads protection works on Tuesday, 24th June, the jury found the following verdict : — That James Harper was accidentally drowned. A rider was added, that necessary life-saving apparatus should be provided in future at the works at the Wanganui Heads. Mr Theodore Watts has recently written an article entitled " The New Hero," showing how the irrepressible bady has invaded and conquered literature. The fact is unmistakable. From Victor Hugo and Air Swinburne downwards, the poets of to-day, liko Raphael in his Sistine altar-piece, make ideal childhood the central point of rest in their picture of life. Some even go the length of writing not only about children ; but,, to all appearance, exclusively for them, and their is no little dangor that the poetry of the next generation may be a mere arabesque of babies playing among birds and flowers. Strange to say, the stage is, in this respect, fully 1 abreast of the times. " The New Hero " has invaded the drama, and promises soon to rule supreme. — World.