LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hastings Standard, Issue 86, 5 August 1896, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Borough Council meet to-morrow evening. To-day is Arbor Day, but Hastings does not appear to recognise the fact. A cockatoo has been lost from Tomoana, for which a reward is announced elsewhere. The Customs revenue for the past month shows a falling off of .£9OOO as compared with the same month of last year. A quantity of reading matter appears on our fourth page, including a descriptive article on our Parliamentary leaders, and a further account of Turkish horrors. The Princess Theatre will be open to admitted to evening session free of charge, roller skaters this evening. Ladies are The novel feature to-night will be an orange race at nine o'clock, for which there will be a large number of competitors. The practice of lolantlie by the Amateur Opera Company last evening gives promise of one of the smartest productions yet put upon the boards. With a few more voices ii\ the female choruses and more precision with the male ditto, Mr George will have under command a company that will do credit to Hastings. A writer in the Post suggests as a remedy for the unemployed difficulty that a tax be put on all children as they come into the world, payable by the parents and payable yearly until the child attains a certain age. Such a measure, he maintains, would have the effect of making people be content with smaller families, and thereby reduce the labor market. The llegistrar of Electors, Sergeant Mitchell, has sent a copy of the revised electoral roll to each of the post offices in the district, where they can be inspected by the public. Every one entitled to a vote should examine the list and make sure that his name is included in it, and if not report the fact at once to the Eegistrar, who will have the omission rectified in the Supplementary roll. The Hastings Band expect their repaired instruments from Christchurch next week. Their next performance will be a Sunday concert on the Racecourse for which the .Jockey Club always give permission. A cornet, by Boosey and Co., (Class A), costing 10 guineas, has just been purchased from the Dresden Piano Company, "Wellington, for the use of the bandmaster, Mr L. Fowler. It is a firstclass instrument, and in the hands of such an exponent as Mr Fowler it will materially strengthen the band. The usual monthly meeting of the Hastings Fire Brigade was held last night, Captain Brauscli in the chair. An account for £4l 17s from Gilberd and Co. was sent on to the Borough Council; and accounts amounting to £2 5s 9d were passed for payment. It was announced that there was a credit balance of £o 12s on the general account, and £5 9s lid on the sports account. Votes of thanks were passed to Mrs W. Chapman for presenting a flag to the brigade, and to Mrs Furness for offering to do so. William Furniss and John White were proposed as messengers to the brigade. Leave of absence for one month was granted to Treasurer Popplewell, and Lieut. George was appointed acting-treasurer for that period. It was stated that last year there had been 55 musters of the brigade. A French florist has offered a prize of ,£I2OO to anyone who will produce a plant which will yield blue roses. According to the last census returns there are 120 raupo whares, and 4654 " tents ar dwellings with calico or canvas roofs" in European occupation through out New Zealand. Prophecy is always risky. In March, 1888, the Bulletin predicted that the late John Ballance, of Maoriland, would be forgotten as a politician, and remembered as the man who bred the racer Fishhook. And now Ballance is politically immortal (moderately immortal, that this), and only one man in five thousand, perhaps, remembers he ever owned Fishhook. Mr John R. Robinson, of South Africa, is probably one of the richest men in the world. He is estimated to be worth £70.000,000. In 1878 he was in debt. He had been keeping a small grocery store in the Orange Free State, and could not make both ends meet. He and his wife begged their way to Kimberley (300 miles). There his luck turned, and his first happy stroke was the picking up of a rough diamond worth £250. Mr W, Todd, late of Invercargill, writing from Perth, Western Australia, says ; —" Direct communication between New Zealand and Freemantle is much wanted to ensure speedy transit, the delay through transhipping in Melbourne being at times vexatious. There is a large and increasing demand for New Zealand produce, which is rapidly gaining in favor. The difficulty with a stranger it to get a footing, which only time and money can procure. I am of opinion that frozen meat would pay well to send here when freezing chambers are erected. Butcher's meat sells at from 6d to Sd pel; lb., with short supplies, owing to the difficulty of obtaining same. The mortality on board ship is so great that insurances are almost declined."'

Sugar-cane crushing is now general throughout New South Wales and Queensland. During a period of six weeks over 800 tons of vegetables were exported from Victoria into New South Wales. Mr W. W. Carlile, who was a candidate for Waipawa at last generel election, is now editing the Courier at Coolgardie. The Rev. E. G. Cranswick, the rural dean of the Blue Mountains, N.S.W., spent a recent Saturday in company with some of his parishioners clearing the scrub from the church lands of his parish. The old messenger at the Government Buildings, who died rather suddenly on a recent date, had hardly expired before Ministers were fairly rushed by applicants for the vacancy. The Taranaki News thinks that while Government can see its way to spend £50,000 on thermal springs, and half a million in opening up goldfields, it might devote a few thousands towards the encouragement of prospecting for petroleum deposits in the Taranaki district. After lingering for three months in the Auckland Hospital, Mrs Crowe, of Otahuhu, who was scalded through the capsizing of a kettle of boiling water, has succumbed to her injuries. She had been attending a sick child for several nights, and, feeling exhausted by want of sleep, she fainted while taking the kettle of the fire. Referring to the question of the success or otherwise of "prohibition" in the Clutha district, the Bruce Herald says it is a strange commentary on prohibition to hear of a prohibition order being taken out against a resident of the Clutha district. As there are no hotels, on whom is the customary notice to be served ? The Bush Advocate relates the following extraordinary occurrence : —A considerable portion of the hillside at the Makotuku bridge is gradually moving away toward the river, carrying the road with it. Mr Bosanko has partly filled in the hole at the end of the bridge, but the road is only suitable for horse traffic. Owing to the pressure from both ends the bridge has become to a certain extent telescoped, and it seems to be only a matter of time ere the whole area above mentioned will come right away. It was Alfred Austin, the present laureate, who, on the occasion of the death of the Duke of Clarence, wrote of his betrothed Princess May as " being doomed to wear the mockery of widowhood about her maiden hair," and then, eleven months later, when the marriage of May and the Duke of York was talked of, burst into poetry to the effect thai she had " mourned too long." Alfred earned liis laureateship—he has always been a most accommodating bard, sarcastically remarks Melbourne Punch. Of a thirsty Marlborough man it is related that in one of his recent outbreaks he had got through his last shilling, and was hard driven to procure a hair of a dog that had bitten him. But as necessity is the mother of invention, so did a happy thought come to him in his extremity. He had horses, and let them out of his own paddock and drove them to the pound, where he was paid the driving fees, which he promptly converted into ' something short' —and oh, how sweet! Butler, the M.L. recidiviste, says the Bulletin, sentenced to 12 months in Melbourne the other day for being illegally at large and committed for trial for other offences, professed the utmost piety before his arrest. He was living with distant relations, who believed him to have been in America for the last ten years. Every meal the discharged burglar and supposed murderer would deliver a lengthy grace while the food got cold, and he nearly became estranged from one of his female relations owing to the strong stand he took on finding that her children did not attend Sunday school! Referring to the recent refusal to allow cyclists the use of the borough footpaths, the N.Z. Feild, an up-to-date sporting journal published in Wellington, says ; There is no reason why cyclists should be debarred from the use of footpaths outside of the busy parts of the town, especially when the roads are too rough for riding. Under the laws that have recently been passed in France for the benefit of cyclists, riders are allowed, in thinly-popu-lated districts, to take to the footpaths when the roads are temporarily unrideable on the understanding that they shall proceed with caution when passing pedestrians. About twelve months ago (says a contemporary), a Maori fell in love with a Maori belle, and the course of true love running smooth on that occasion they were married. But to be up-to-date they determined to be married " all the same as the Pakelia," so they conformed to all the legal requirements, and were duly joined together by a Registrar. But soon after the honeymoon matters went wrong somehow, and the husband found that in order to get quit of his bride legal means were as necessary for the untying as for tying the knot. So he set the lawyers to work, and got his divorce. He also got the lawyer's account, price £7B, which he paid, but he now says, " Never no more." Queen Henriette of Belgium has had more than the usual amount of sorrow in her life. Before she had attained the age of forty her hair had become snow-white. Her only son, the Duke of Brabant, died so suddenly that it was rumored he had been poisoned; her son-in-law, Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, it will be remembered, killed himself under shocking circumstances at Meverling, near Vienna. Her favorite nephew, Prince Baduin, whom she had come to love like a son, was killed at Brussels; and a short distance from the Belgian capital, confined in a gloomy chateau, is her demented sister-in-law, the widowed Empress Carlotta, whom she has always tended with the utmost devotion. Neil's Compound Sarsaparilla. A household medicine for purifying the blood and toning up the system. In large bottles at 2s 6d at Neil's Dispensary, Emerson street, Napier, and all leading storekeepers.—Advt. Stop that Cough by taking Neil's Balm of Gilead, a positive cure for coughs, colds, chronic bronchitis, influenza, &c. In large bottles at 2s 6d, at Neil's Botanic Dispensary, Emerson street, Napier, and all leading storekeepers.—Advt. Nkil's Celebrated Liver Toxic, a pure botanic remedy for all affections of the liver, biliousness, jaundice, yellowness of the skin, indigestion, &c. In bottles, 2s and 2g 6d, at Neil's Botanic Dispensary, Emerson street, Napier, and all leading storekeepers.—Advt. Neil's Corn Curb removes either hard or soft Corns. A few applications only necessary. Is per bottle at Neil's Dispensary, Emerson street, Napier, and all leading storekeepers.—Advt. Mr. L., a broad-minded pressman, met Mr. C., a Prohibitionist, the other day. "That's a nasty cough you've got," said L. " Come and have a rum hot; it'll do you good." " No, thanks; Woods' Great Pepperment Cure for me; it beats all your ram hots for counts and colds, it's sold evervwhere,' I —Advt,

Mr D. Crozier has been asked by a Hawera sportsman to put a price on Kanaka. Mr Crozier, it is understood, wants £2OO for the son of the Australian. Wm. Hannan, charged at Yass, N.S.W., with causing the death of Edward Arthur in a fight, was discharged on the close of the Crown case. Two children at Marton have been treated for diphtheria by the anti-toxin method, and Dr Sorley informs the Advocate that the results have exceeded his fullest expectations. Out of 31,170 tons of meat received at the London Central market during the month of May,6687 tons came from New Zealand and Australia; 5910 tons from America; and 2828 tons from foreign parts: the balance (16,744 tons) being British meat.