LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hastings Standard, Issue 90, 10 August 1896, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A number of interesting articles appear in our fourth page. Eighty-seven selectors took up 16,358 acres of Crown lands in Hawke's Bay last year. The Native Land Court was occupied to-day with a disputed will-case and a number of cases of minor importance. To-morrow Poukawa will be resumed. A stone crossing is being set up opposite the Carlton Club hotel. The long-looked-for wood-paving is still " kept steadily in view " by the Council. The ringing of the firebell last evening must have made a difference of a few pounds to the collections of the various churches, as the alarm was attractive enough to withdraw a very large number from their devotions.

The Skating Bink was again largely patronised on Saturday night. For the egg and spoon race there were nine competitors, and the event was won by Mr. J. Hay, who evidently knew something about the game. Acknowledging an item from our columns, the Evening News remarks : " We take the following interesting statement from the columns of our esteemed Hastings Standard, ! whose special wires from Wellington are superior to any supplied to the dailies in large towns." In connection with the Volunteering movement the signalling squad, under the instruction of Sergeant Shanly, are getting on splendidly, and their services should prove of special value to the corps. So soon as the fine weather sets in the range at Te Mata will be taken in hand. It will have to be almost rebuilt, as the damage done is extensive. The report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Brunner Coal Mine disaster is to hand. In Sydney over 2000 families, totalling about 10,000 human beings, are receiving bread from the Benevolent Asylum each week. The police are laying informations against a large number of residents in the Gamaru district for coursing hares without a license and out of season. Two swagmen stole an 18-gallon keg of beer at Cuiverden (Amuri). When arrested they were hopelessly drunk. Penalty one month each with hard labor. Intense cold was experienced in Central Otago last week, the thermometer registering 10 degrees below freezing point. A pot of ink in the office of the Mount Ida Chronicle was frozen hard after the fire had been burning an hour and a half. In a severe gale at Stewart Island last week three fishermen had their boat upset, and narrowly escaped drowning. They were, however, pluckily rescued by three young men who saw the accident. A cutter was also driven ashore. An old Maori woman was found dead in a tent at Taylor's Pah, 2|- miles from Hastings, on Friday last. It appears that she was left in charge of another woman, who had evidently left without providing for the wants of the sufferer, and she had died from starvation. The dark-skinned hawkers who roam about New Zealand, where gipsies, Hindoos, Sikhs, or Levantines, are called ' Assyrians ' for some curious but some unknown reason perhaps because they ' came down like a wolf on the fold.'—An old cliesnut resuscitated in the annual report of the Labor Department.

There was a narrow escape from a serious fire at Norse wood on Thursday evening, a kerosene lamp being capsized in Rev. Mr Eanderson's residence (between the Lutheran Church and Mr A. Hansen's residence) igniting the carpets and the sofa. Fortunately Mr Randerson was at home and he immediately caught up the lamp and ran outside with it, afterwards turning his attention to extinguishing the fire. We understand that at the meeting of Licensed Victuallers held in Wellington the other day, it was decided to employ two lecturers at £IOOO per annum each, one for the North Island, and the other for the South Island. These men are expected to act as a counter blast to the Prohibition Party. Mr Hornsby, of the Napier News, stands' a good chance of the appointment for the North Island, and we are convinced that no better man for the position than he can be found in these parts. —Examiner. " And I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down."—ll. Kings, xxi., 13. With this text the Rev. Phoebe Hanaford, in a lecture delivered in New York recently, proved that man's sphere is also in the kitchen. "If those men who are for ever flaunting in our faces the texts of St. Paul in which he forbids women to speak in the churches, would read this text, they would find out where some of the kitchen work belongs," said Mr Hanaford. " Everyone is not a wife, hence the absurdity of the idea that women's whole duties are household ones."

Some rather amusing incidents are reported by persona who had a crosscountry " run' to the fire last night, one young man who took one of the back streets for it, arriving at the scene of the conflagration minus his trilby protectors. He had started with a pair of slippers on, but the bird-liine quality of the soil was too strong even for his feet; and some day in the distant future those slippers may be found tenanted by an ancient toad. A young lady is reported to have been bogged for about ten minutes, and would probably have been there yet, had it not been for the thoughtfulness and chivalry of a young man in securing a wire from one of the adjacent fences and heaving one end out to the stranded maiden he gave her the order to take a turn with the hawser round the part generally encircled by the arm of the opposite sex. She immediately made fast and " wired " to the motive power at the other end to heave avay. Besult —Young lady saved from nmddy grave; young man glad he came in handy for once in his life; expects Humane Society's medal. Another young man was found early this morning suspended from a barbed-wire fence, head and feet downwards? Motto—Always take things cool, even in case oi fyre,

Mr P. J. Quirke,who has just returned from Australia, informs the Pahiatua Herald that had the ram that brought JEI6OO at the Sydney sales been put up for auction at Pahiatua he would probably not have brought more than 10s. Under the co-operative system works were carried out last year in ten different parts of the Hawke's Bay district, and the contracts completed numbered 92. The average rate of wages earned, wet and dry, was 5s 9d per day. At works at "Waikopiro the men only averaged 2s 8d a day. The Bulletin looked for the Queensland footballers to run through New Zealand with an unbeaten record, barring Taranaki perhaps, and gave Skipper Cockroft, late of Hawke's Bay, credit for teaching the Bananalanders all the New Zealand tricks and a few of his own. Their first match, at Auckland on Saturday, saw the visitors suffer defeat. What next ? An eating house made of ; paper has been erected in the port of Hamburg. Its walls are composed of a double layer of paper stretched on frames and impregnated with a fire and waterproof solution. A thin wooden partition affords further protection against the inclemency of the weather. The roof and walls are fastened together by means of bolts and hinges, so that the entire structure may be rapidly taken to pieces and put up again. The dining-room is capable of accommodating about 150 persons. There are 22 windows, and four skylights, and the heating is affected by a couple of isolated stoves. A Maoriland storekeeper who recently went for a holiday and never came back, leaving an immense pile of liabilties behind him, found his banker rather in the way of his departure. He had a small overdraft, and he felt that the all seeing eye of the institution was upon him. So before leaving, he sent the bank a brick and some other trifles done up in a leather case, and requested it to keep his jewellery in a safe place till he came back from a trip down South. And, even when he seemed to be rather long away, the institution felt so sure that he wouldn't have gone away for good without his valuables that it made no inquiry, and held on to the brick with perfect confidence, and gave him all the start he wanted.— Bulletin. 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 Coijgh 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, an|d all leading storekeepers.—Advt. -Neil's Celebrated Liver Tonic, a pure botanic remedy for all affections of the liver, biliousness, jaundice, yellowness of the skin, indigestion, &c. In bottles, 2s and 2s 6d, at Neil's Botanic Dispensary, Emerson street, Napier, and all leading storekeepers.—Advt.

Neil's Cobn Cube 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.—Adyt. 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 Core for me; it beats all your rum hots for coughs and colds, it's sold everywhere."—Advt.