GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 98, 4 May 1901, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS.

PENNY SAVINGS BANKS. Although the amount deposited at one time by the children in thol penny savings ■ banks in connection with our various • schools is invariably small, it is in some r instances surprising to note what results may bo achieved if the depositors maintain a regularity in making their deposits, says the Otago Daily Times. A case in point was quoted by an ardent supporter of the-scheme at a recent meeting. He mentioned that during the time of the maritime strike, when the .period of depression was sorely felt In Dunedin, a family in poor circumstances wore able to draw no less than los a week for some time out of the savings bank, and by this means were enabled to provide the necessaries of life for the household at a critical time. A MARVELLOUS POWER. The Galveston (U.S.) Daily Nows of 10th February, contains ail account of a boy, fourteen years old, who is alleged to possess the power of seeing through opaque objects, a power he utilises by discovering water deep down in the .earth. The boy’s name is Eeuley, and he hails from Uvalde, Texas. He has been employed to locate water, and the eute American is going to see if he can find oil as well. One or two judges testify to the lad’s powers of discovering water by sight, and the., crude experiment of putting buckets of water in places unknown to him is said to have resulted in his invariable discovery of the fluid. The so-called X rav sight, however, can only be exercised at night—so says the account. Many of the wells he lias located are said to be yielding full supplies, and he is making £ the desert blossom as the rose. <

A .] UDGE'S INTERRUPTED BATHE. The Law Times, in referring to the recent ease of a police magistrate who was stopped in a hansom cab and asked to make an order, calls attention to the fact that while a police magistrate has no jurisdiction outside his own court, a judge of the High Court has jurisdiction anywhere in England. Mr Justice Stephen was once applied to for, and granted, an injunction while driving in a cab through Piccadilly Circus, Lord Brampton, till recently known as Mr Justice Hawkins, once made an order while walking on Brighton Pier, and Mr Justice "Wright has been known to grant an injunction while travelling in a railway carriage. But the most curious ease is that of ViceChancellor Slutdwell. He was a member of the society called “ Psychrolutes,” and the condition of membership was that each of its members should bathe in the open water daily during the months from November to March. It was while bathing in the Thames near Barnes that he was applied to for an intermin injunction, which ho granted. THE OPHIII’S OFFICERS.

The following is a complete list of the Ophir’s officers: Commodore, A. L, Winsloe ; commander, Rosslyn Wcmyss ; .commander (NO, P. Nelson "Ward; lieutenants, W. Ruck Ivcene, C. M. Crichton Maitland, R. A. Norton, Hon. H. Meade, Hon. S. M. A. J. Hay; sub-lieutenants, G. A. Wells, .1. 11. Bainbridge, G. Saurin, J. B. Waterlow; major, C. Clarke, R.M. L. 1 .; lieutenants, G. L. Raikc, R.M.A., H. H. E. Stoekley, R.M.L.1.; staff paymaster, E. D. Hadley; secretary, W. Cask ; assistant paymaster, G. A. Miller ; staff-surgeon, 11. S. Macnamara ; surgeon, R. Ilill ; engineer, 8. M. G. Brycr ; chaplain, 11. S. Wood; gunner, Alfred Turton (T.); boatswain, J. Paddon; carpenter, W. Banbury; 8. boatswain, M. Allen ; bandmaster, J. Wright. The following officers are engaged from the Orient Company’s service : —Purser, J. C. Gibbons; engineers, George Grey, D« A. S. Lee, W. T. Miller, J. Anderson, George White, D. S. Nelson, and F. T. Matthews. TECHNICAL TRAINING. Education in Chicago is the best in the world for fitting a youth for the battle of life. As specialisation is practically the rule in American workshops, apprenticeship is not popular either with employers or men, for the employer wants a man to do one kind of work, and the man wants to begin earning money right away, and to earn more in proportion to his growing capacity. Tlic youth therefore learns liow to handle machinery tit a training school and when he starts real work he is able at once to earn about 15s a week. Rapid increases follow if he prove to be dexterous, as piecework is the rule, and very often he will keep to the same class of machine for the remainder of his working days. In Chicago the average ago of the workman in one of the largest engineering shops is not more than thirty-two. The fact is that very few men of forty-five retain their original speed, accuracy or sight, and the manufacturers simply will not keep on a man at an expensive machine unless it is being worked at its full ascertained capacity. Directly a man ceases to pay, out he goes. He may be willing to work, and to do his very best, but if be fall short of-tlic standard by a

mere percentage, the employer will not have him at any price. The masters there want to do all the trade they can while it can be obtained; the men want to earn all the money they can, and as a rule an American can earn as much money in twenty-five years as an English Unionist is paid in fifty years. ■