BREVITIES.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 233, 11 December 1888, Page 3

BREVITIES.

Russia is colonising Abyssinia. Borough Council me?ting to night. Harry Rickards is likely to return to New Zealand. There are 161 males and 21 females in Mount Eden gaol. The Sydney Masons have raised £lOOO to start an orphanage with. £172 is to be given in prizes at the Port Cffalmers Boxing Day regatta. Three shillings a day is what is baing paid to some men on road works up North. There have been 500 convictions for polygamy in Utah under the law of 1882. Mr J. Marshall has given a £5O prize to be competed for at the next Auckland regatta. Auckland Hallelujah lasses are making great proficiency in their new drum and fife band.

King Milan is describe ! by an old school fellow as a “contemptible, naggy, domestic tyrant.” Of a population of 250,000 in Leeds it is said not a single laborer or mechanic owns his home. Lord Tennyson, who is now nearly 80 years of age, is in a very precarious state of health, A contemporary has an ad.^’ 1 Girls wanted for cooking.” Tastes differ. We prefer them raw. Dent, of Whangarei, beat McKay, of Waipu, for the footracing championship of the two townships. An Auckland sensation—Bartholomew is in that city imitating Piofessor Baldwin’s balloon feats. The Auckland people are not at all satis-, find at Dunedin “ jumping” the claim for an Exhibition. The Re-distribution of Seats Bill brings the number of members of the Victorian Assembly up to 93. “Jubilee Juggins” is now living upon an allowance of £4 a week. H?w many would be glad of even half that no v-n-days ? The sum of £1386 10« was paid in stakes in coßnecticn with the Dane Im Jockey C'lib’s meeting, of which Hammond received £223. A Manchester man was so irritated by the discussion “I< Marriage a Failure ?” that he committed suicide on the eve of his wedding. Professor Schmidt, of Auckland, has organised an orchestra composed entirely of ladies. Miss E. Reeve is conductor and Miss Chew leader. Major Dane: “ They heard that New Zealand was ruined—they might as well tell him the sun was ruined because a cloud was acrosu its face.” A traveller in describing a tropical shower, - says:— “ The raindrops were extremely largt?, varying in size from a shilling to eighteenpence.” Lord Denham, an English peer, of 83 summers, recently, in a fit of irritation, challenged any of his brother legislators to a mortal combat. In the city of Leeds, England, with a population of over two hundred and fifty thousand, not a single laborer or mechanic owns his home.

A Russian physician declares that strychnine is an infallible cure for drunkenness, administered in subcutaneous quantities, Pure water is cheaper. The Mikado of Japan gats publicly and uproariously drunk in broad daylight, and swaggers around his palace just like a common every-day drunkard. The New Zealand Methndist considers the entire Methodist community h is bssn slandered by the recent lying cable about that body. Undoubtedly they were. Last April the Auckland Education Board had 70 teachers in excess of requirements, and lately they had brought the number down to six, thus saving £3OOO a year. Bauchop, J Elliot, 8. Gibbs, A. G. Talbot, W. C. Hamilton, and J. Williams are New Z -alanders plaving in this year’s Edinburgh Australasian Football Club team.

Some one has computed that it requires just double the power to propel a steamship twenty miles an hour as it does to drive the same ve sei sixteen miles »n hour. It is shown by returns late y published tha f the e are still in France 900 schools in the hands of he Christian B others, which must be 1 doized before October 30, 1891. Fred Henry Hagon, a well known Sydney tdlnrand snorting man—one qf those who put down a thousand to snnd Beach to row o » the Thames—has committed suicide. Old story, drink I An Auckland paper says that Mr Shannon's appointment e.g Inspector of Soft Goods is one of the in<»st unblushing and scandalous jobs that has been attempted by any Ministry for years past. The following New Zealanders are playing in this year’s Edinburgh Australasian Foot-b-dl Club team : —Messrs Bauchop. J Elliot, S. Gibbs A. G. Talbot, W. C. Hamilton, and J Williams Major Dane is evidently a disciple of Mr Rees, There is everything in New Zealand, he save, to please the eye and charm the soul, all she is crying for is for men and women to come and possess it. Judge (to prospective grand juryman)— What is your occupation ? P. G J.— Collector for the gas company. Judge— Yon are excused. It would he impossible for you tn bring in a true bill. A volunteer capt in, on receiving a note from a lady requesting the “ pleasure of his company,” understood it as a compliment to under his command an * marched the whole of them to the lady’; house. On a recent Sunday soul Victorian lads were going out riding. One of them caught and mounted a horse grazing in a paddock, but no sooner had he got on than the horse plunged forward and fell down dead. The Auckland Herald says:—We have better Scriptural warrant for the issue of a paper on Monday morning, and fnr doing the absolutely necessary work connected with it, than Mr Reid and scores of others have for driving in their private conveyances on Sunday.