LOCAL AND GENERAL

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 216, 1 November 1888, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The cricket match set down for next Saturday is Town v. Country. The Borough Council have decided to blind the metal on Read s Quay to a width of twelve feet. To-night will be the last evening of the limelight exhibition in the Theatre Royal, but there will be a children’s matinee on Saturday evening. Mr S. Doleman has a business advertisement in this issue. He is prepared to supply bricks, garden tiles, etc., or to undertake orders for carting. The rise in the price of meat at Home is already being felt in this district, one settler having sold for forward delivery 200 head of cattie at a good figure. It will soon be no uncommon thing to see stock being regularly driven overland to Napier. This morning we publish the programme of the en e tainment to be given by the Hussar Minstrel Troupe on thq evening of the 9th November. A glance at the programme will show that something good may be anticipated. Last night the Gisborne School Committee had a conference with Mr Hill, concerning the increased accommodation required at the school. Mr Hill acknowledged the necessity, but could not give any definite answer, owing to the Board’s finances being incompatible with requirements. Mr Woodward, we understand, takes charge of the Patutahi School to-day. Yesterday he was made the recipient of a suitable present from the teaching staff of the Gisborne school. If Mr Woodward makes himself as popular at Patutahi as he has done in Gisborne—and there is nu reason why he should not—he will get along smoothly in the country. A country correspondent writes in reference to our paragraph about that dirty pool at Matawhero, and states that it is disgusting that it should be allowed to remain there for passing cows to halt aud wallow in, probably much to the injury of the milk. He thinks that it is the duty of the County Council to see that the danger is removed. The Maitai arrives from north this afternoon. She goes on south in the evening, the last launch leaving at 5, The Wairarapa is due here to-morrow from Sydney via Auckland. The outward passengers leave the wha>f at 5. The Australia will arrive in the bay at an early hour on Friday morning. After discharging cargo the steamer proceeds on north.

The adjourned meeting of the Hospital Sports Committee takes place to night, when the programme will be arranged and prizes allotted. The Prize Committee have been very successful in their canvass, and good prizes are likely to be given for the various events. The ground is in fair condition, and with the usual preparation ought to ba got into excellent order this year. The All Star Company make their first appearance in Gisborne to-morrow night for a season of only two nights. The Southern papers refer t> the company in terms of much praise, all the actors and actresses having made good names for themselves in the varied characters which they play. The Company open in McFarlane’s Hall to-mor-row eight. The schooner Waiapu arrived in the Bay on Tuesday afternoon from Auckland via way ports. She brought the following cargo : 12,000 ft of timber, Skeet; 8000 ft of timber, Harding ; 13 bales wool, 1 bale skins, Johnston ; I4oft of timber, order; 10 tons of coal, 15 cases of stout, Kennedy and Evans; 14 cases of stout, order ; 10 cases of beer, 1 case whisky, order. Mr Bailey, host of the Gisborne Hotel, is intent on making th it house more popular even than it is at present. He has initiated a system of having first-class one o’clock, dinners every day, for which the charge is only one shilling, and with which is included a tankard of Crawford’s best. The moderate charge and substantial meal served up in return should be sufficient to satisfy both the fastidious and the economical.

Sir George Whitmore, though a bitter opponent of Mr Bees, is an ardent advocate of that gentleman’s Crofter emigration scheme. Why? It’s too easily seen, Sir George, but why not come forward with a subsidy to support Mr Rees for the increased value he may give to the Whitmore squattocracy. If Sir George had an interest in the moon he wouldn’t mind getting some one to colonise it for him, but bless us if he would give a red cent to his benefactor, Our local racehorse owners are bestirring themselves and the activity shown promises well for the coming meetings. At Matawhero an excellent training track is being formed on Mr W. O. Walsh’s land opposite the old cheese factory, which will be well adapted for working the cracks in that neighbourhood, and at Lavenham, Mr G. L. Sunderland is preparing another. These additions to the other tracks now io use will greatly assist owners desirous of giving their horses thorough preparations. A carter had a novel experience on Tuesday. He was driving past the Turanganui Hotel, with a dray-load of hay, when the hay capsized, blocking up the front door of the hotel. After much trouble things were again righted, and a move on was made, when over went the hay again, entailing a great deal more trouble and making the driver desperate. It is a common supposition that hay is “ dry,” but this is perhaps the firdt time that it has attempted to go through the subsequent process which is common to man when suffering from that corqpiaiqt. Referring to the threatened libel action by Mr Law against the Bank of N. Z. Investigation Committee, a Southern paper remarks :— The fact of a Judge being sued for libel is, we should imagine, unique in legal history, and that it should be possible affords an interesting commentary on the intricacies of the law of libel. It can scarcely be wondered at that poor journalists sometimes get involved in the meshes of that law when even a Judge is unable to steer quite clear of them at all times, If the action proceeds, we shall expect a very learned and exhaustive treatise on the law of libel from the Judge whose lot it may be to try the case against his brother of the Bench. An exciting incident occurred at the wharf on Tuesday, A horse belonging to Mr Arthur Sawyer were in charge of a youth, who was backing the horse abreast of the lighter Rosina, when the wheels went right over and the cart caught on the deck of the Rosina, while the horse was left with his fore feet on the wharf and his hind, quarters having only the harness for a support, the hind legs dangling in the air. Fortunately the horse was a quiet one or Mr Sawyer would probably have lost both the valuab.e animal and the cart and trappings. With the assistance of the wharf hands the animal was freed from his encumbrances and the Rosina being shoved further out, the horse was allowed to drop into the river. He was then led round to the cattle yard and got out all safe.

The spectacle of the Premier, Colonia! Secretary, and Minister of lands sitting in Cabinet settling the reorganisation and reduction of the Public Works Department while the Minister of Public Works is on his way*to the Melbourne races, is a somewhat striking one. Ordinary people wquld have supposed that the counsel of the Minister specially in charge of the department and therefore moat familiar with its operations and officers, would have been indispen&able on such an occasion, but this it appears would have been a mistake, That is not at all how things are managed in the Government of this colony. Mr Muchelson will probably return to find his department turned topsyturvy and reorganised beyond recognition, and then of course he will set to work quietly to put things right Again in accordance with his own views aS to how they should bei Aud the public will have to pay for all the loss resulting from the constant changes and chronic disorganisation.—Post»

Over £3OOO has been already guaranteed for the proposed Exhibition at Dunedin. The sculling match between Kemp and Mattersbn at Sydney on Monday was won easily by the former. No fewer than seven deaths from cancer and nine from consumption occurred in the four chief towns of New Zealand during the month of September, both being a very large increase on previous months.

An Indiana judge did not know what a cartoon was. A lawyer sketched the body of a jackass with the judge’s head and face attached as a specimen, and was promptly fined for contempt ofcourt. The question “ Is marriage a failure ?” is being much discussed in certain English papers. Some of the reasons against marriage are only too true, but a good deal of the correspondence can be termed nothing else than silly twaddle. On Monday morning a stevedore named Charles de Michali was found lying in the hold of the Arawa, at Christchurch, with his skull fractured, having evidently fallen into the hold. He was unconscious when picked up, and expired in the afternoon. Wanganui juries have peculiarities. At a sitting of the Supreme Court in that town, a man was found guilty of breaking into a house and stealing £9 19s 3d from a box therein. The prisoner was recommended to mercy “ because the temptation was gieat to a man without money 1 ” Rumor says th it Mr George Lewis, the London solicitor whose name appears in all celebrated cases, will not go ur o a police court under a fee of a hundred guineas. He is said to make more out of the law than any other man living, and the income of the most successful barrister is insignificant compared to his. In a discussion at a meeting of the British Association, on the question of tight-lacing, several ladies spoke, the one who had the last word saying :—I stand up for stays and tight lacing. To be well and comfortably dressed (which of course in her opinion must include a fair corset squeeze) gives a sensational delight which religion is incapable of affording 1 A fearful crime is reported from Pesth (Hungary). A tailor named Gnading poured through a funnel melted lead into the right ear of his sleeping wife; and, finding that she was not dead, the wretch proceeded to strangle her, but was interrupted by the arrival of neighbors, who found the woman alive, but in a desperate condition. The would-be murderer was not captured. In a case at Home, for selling beer without a license, the justices who heard the case insisted on tasting the liquor. The Sergeant of police considered this unnecessary, as he himself had tasted two or three bottles, and he thought he (the Sergeant) was a good judge of beer. However, a bottle of beer had to be placed before each justice and the Bench tested it. There are likely to be more beer-sellers brought before that court. The Wellington people seem to have gone into a state of paroxysm over the town clock which was destroyed in the late fire. The newspapers devote columns to the question of how it is to be replaced, and of course assistance is required from the public funds, but that game is nearly played out. A town half the size would get the clock suitably replaced in half the time and with less than half the talk of these “ windy ” Wellington people. “ Pollex ” (N.Z. Herald), in giving his opinion that marriage is a failure, writes But *ee for a moment the most pattern husband and father in the most model attitude : See that worthy fellow walking up and down, m jestically arrayed in his night-shirt and hushing his baby boy to sleep. I can conceive of no position reflecting mor- honor on my sex than that. See him as he dandles the little squalling urchin up and down and to and fro, with the cold night air freezing his naked nether limbs. He calls it hia “ topsy-wopsy,” “ cockabilly,” and all the other endearing names in his vocabulary, and still it kicks, and still it squalls, and as he watches its contortions, there is a world of pathos and of patient resignation as he says from the bottom of his heart, ” Thank God you are not twins.” That patient resigqation to his lot, that gratitude that it is not worse, is the spirit in which the average married man accepts his destiny when his eyes are fully opened. If he is a good man, he heroically submits to it, and thanks God there are not twins.

An occurrence of a very sensational character took place at Wrexham lately. A wellknown and highly-respected gentleman, named Mr Wilson Edwards, a justice of the peace and vice-chairman of the Board of Guardians, got out of bed at six o’clock, and taking a revolver, went into his servants’ bedroom. One of the girls, named Mary Stephens, being awakened by the noise of his entrance, sat up in bed and agked her master what was the matter, when he deliberately fired two shots at her, hitting her on the side. The other servant girl immediately jumped out of bed, and fled from the house screaming, but Mr Edwards then returned to his room, and, placing the revolver to his head, shot himself. Medical and police assistance was at once sent for, and Mr Edwards was found on his knees at at the foot of his bed, Mr Edwards has since died, but hopes are entertained that the girl will recover. The affair has created a painful sensation at Wrexham. No adequate cause for this extraordinary affair seems to have existed. Mr Edwards has been much depressed lately, and complained of money matters; but these would appear, from what can be ascertained, to have been more imaginary than real. The Coal Creek correspondent of the Taupeka paper telle the following ghastly story :—Not a little sensation was excited in tfiis neighborhood on Saturday by an accident of a melancholy nature which befel the funeral of the man Bichard Martin, whose body was recently found in the Molyneux at Ettrick. The remains of the unfortunate man were being conveyed to the cemetery in a dray by the undertaker, Mr Win. Smith, assisted by Mr J. J. Smith, when a little way past the Roxburg Bridge, where the road is very narrow, the horse shied at a log or something on the roadside, and backed over the bank into the river. The two men had just time to jump clear, the driver having a very narrow escape. The horse and dray soon disappeared out of sight, the water running deep and rapid at the spot; but the coffin, strangely enough, considering the weight inside, soon came m LI hi uuriaao nnd floAtad rapidly down the river. A party at once went in pursuit, and managed to recover the melancholy craft about a mile or so down the river. Once more recovered from the water, the rem rins of poor Martin were again placed on a con veyance, and the cemetery was reached without any further accident. The horse and cart have not been recovered.