LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hastings Standard, Issue 91, 11 August 1896, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

No clue has been found in the Maraekakaho burglary case. The usual fortnightly meeting of the Debating Society takes place this evening, when a discussion on " Should the totalisator be abolished" will be taken. Mr White is to speak in the affirmative and Mr M'Lean is to oppose. At a meeting of the committee of the Hawke's Bay Trotting Club at Caulton's Hotel last evening, it was decided to hold the races on Wednesday, 7th October. The programme will be the same as last year, with the exception that J6lO has been added to the Hastings Cup (harness), and that £ mile has been taken off the Hawke's Bay Handicap (saddle). It is probable that the stakes will be still further increased at the March meeting. Totalisator permits for two meetings this year have been received. The W T anganui amateurs are to stage "Dorothy" shortly. A farmer named Roberts died suddenly at Huirangi, Taranaki, on Friday last. Mr J. H. Clayton, late of the Bush Advocate, has purchased the Egmont Post. A man named Hansen was fined £2 and costs at Masterton on Friday for supplying liquor to a prohibited person. It is said that the reputed big discovery of gold in the Gisborne district will pan out more in the rumor than in the quartz. In Adelaide a petition with 20,000 signatures was recently presented to Parliament demanding that public-houses should be opened on Sundays. The Wheelman says that the two-year old son of F. Howard, Napier, is probably the youngest bicycle rider this side of the line. In the opinion of the Mayor of Auckland there has been more building going on there during the present year than in any three years before. A well-known occulist, who has been studying the human eye for 30 years, declares that most great men of the past and present have or had blue or grey eyes.

Mr William Walter, junr., of Nuhaka, had a nasty fall in the hunting field on Thursday, being severely cut about the lace and he had the small bone of one leg broken. —Wairoa Guardian. The current number of The Wheelman is to hand. It is a bright little journal, full of information to cyclists, and thoroughly up to date. All lovers of the wheel should encourage the publication. Mr T. M'Kenzie gives the public debt per head in the various colonies as follows: —New Zealand, £SB 13s 3d; Tasmania, £47 lis 2d; South Australia, JE63 Os 4d; Victoria, £45 5s 9d; Queensland, £69 18s sd; New Sooth Wales, £45 5s 9d. At an inquest at Cumbach, Aberdare, as to the death of a child named Taylor, aged 14, a yerijict of manslaughter was returned against the failier, who, on Whit Monday, in consequence of his wife riot having purchased a pennyworth of lettuce, threw a walking stick at the woman. The stick struck the child on the bead, death resulting on the Friday.

Miss B. M. Harband, who is at present infant mistress at the Lyttelton Borough School, has been appointed lady missionary to Shanghai. The Feilding electric lighting scheme has collapsed, as the Council is unable legally to borrow sufficient money to carry out the necessary work.

Concessions amounting to about £120,000 have been granted to sheep owners in the South Island, under the Pastoral Tenants Relief Act of last year. The Queensland representative football team play the Taranaki reps to-day. The Canterbury-Manawatu match also takes place to-day at Palmerston. W. Craig, a forward in the W&nganui football team in the match against Taranaki, received a fracture of the collar-bone. In spite of his injury Craig finished the game out with his team. Mr John Coombe, of Wellington, has been entrusted with an order for the manufacture of a two-manual pipe organ, with 15 stops and two composition pedals, for a Masterton church.

Dr. Newman has given notice to ask the Premier if he will take steps this session to absolutely prevent hotel licenses from being shifted from place to place, as has recently occurred from Thorndon to Newtown, and from Meanee or Taraaale to the Esplanade at Napier. There are nearly 4000 certificated teachers in the colony, and of these only 2400 are employed in State schools. The inference is that we have already on hand many hundreds more teachers than we can employ. The Federationist recounts the story of a strike of Chinese tailors a few months ago at Shanghai. It lasted eight days—the celestial operations striking together like good 'una in spite of severe coercive measures—and ended in a rise of 50 per cent in wages. Hares were at one time like sheep for numbers (says the ' North Otago Times ') in the Hakateramea Valley, but they are getting much scarcer. About 900 were shot on one property in the valley this season, and at this rate their numbers are bound to decrease. It is a difficult matter to confine an Australian aboriginal. One of them who was arrested recently in Siberia, Western Australia, on a charge of murder was placed in a temporary lock-up, made of galvanised iron. He succeeded in making his escape by burrowing under one of the walls.

A little girl was sent by her father to make some purchases. The first item on the list was " Scott's Emulsion." She was of a literary turn of mind, and so she rushed off to the nearest bookseller's and asked for a copy of " Scott's Emulsion." The salesman was very intelligent, and he replied, "We have the book, my girl, but we only sell Scott's works in complete sets." A trial was recently made in Austria to decide in how short a time living trees could be converted into newspapers. At Elsenthal, the other day at 7.32 in the morning, three trees were sawn down ; at 9.34, the wood, having been stripped of bark, cut up, and converted into pulp, became paper, and passed from the factory to the press, from whence the first printed and folded copy was issued at 10 o'clock, so that in 145 minutes the trees had become newspapers. The age of miracles (says a contemporary) is not passed. Last spring, while a party of tourists were fishing in the Highlands, a wellknown lawyer lost his gold watch from the boat in which he was sitting. Last month he made another visit to the lakes, and during the first day's sport caught an 81b trout. His astonishment can be imagined when he found his watch lodged in the throat of the trout. The watch was running and the time correct. It being a " stem winder," the supposition is that in masticating his food the fish wound up the watch daily. *

Peter Matler, aged 30, seaman of the barque Ensenada, died in the Newcastle Hospital on Thursday last under peculiar circumstances. Some days ago he complained very much of toothache, and a doctor extracted one of his teeth. Subsequently a medicine vendor sold the deceased a small vial of a fluid which ha stated would cure toothache. Deceased applied some of the stuff to the cavity caused by the extraction of the tooth, and soon after his face became much swollen. He was removed to the hospital, suffering from blood poisoning, and died as above. The following shabby reference to the great poet, Robert Burns, appears in the last issue of the Christian Outlook:—"We write this on the centenary of the death of Robert Burns. One of his biographers says : ' On the 21st he sank into delirium; his children were brought to see him for the last time, and, with an execration on the legal agent who had threatened him, the troubled spirit passed.' It is pitiful to think that Scotland could find no fitter work for her greatest poet than gauging beer barrels. And it is cruel irony of fate that, while the world unites now to do him homage, it was content to let him die with the bailiff s grip upon his throat." A large number of the Paris policemen now pin-sue their duties on cycles. The innovation is the result of measures taken by M. Lepine, the Prefect of Police. He has arranged that each of the stations in the suburbs shall be provided with one machine, the number to be increased should their introduction be crowned with success. It is thought that the bicycle will prove of much value in urgent cases. Excursionists passing through some suburban spot will now be prepared to see gallant agents of the law hard at work mastering the intricacies of " wheeling." Indeed, at Yanes and Courbevoie the policeman on a " bike " is already an established fact. Any gendarme who has a cycle of his own, and cares to use it in the course of duty, will receive an indemnity of 50fr.

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. Neil's Celebrated Lives 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 Cork 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.—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 coughs and colds, it's eoid evwQHriMw,"— bar* 1 "* ' ' I ''i ■?* £<->»>. 'V.v&tiWtae&i

A young girl requires a situation to attend to children, &c. See advertisement. In a rush for tickets at the Pollard's opera performance at Mar ton the other night, two persons were injured and a number of others bruised and knocked about. At the Kent Assizes, Mr Justice Day sentenced a laborer named Henry Charles Ellis to a month's imprisonment and 30 lashes from the cat for highway robbery with violence at Bromley. The prisoner met a young lady named Miss Wot ton crossing a field, knocked her down, and stole the contents of her purse. " "Whatever opinions may be entertained as to the effects of moderate tobacco-smoking on the adult, there can be none as to its deleterious influence on the boy. The molecular changes coincident with development are interfered with, slowed, if not arrested, by tobacco." Facts were cited in proof of the physical injury thus caused, as were others clearly showing the mental damage inflicted. The experience of France and Germany was referred to, and the importance of hygienic instruction was urged. But since that, time the evil has enormously extended. Lads are infatuated by the notion that the ability to " blow a cloud" is an indication of cleverness, and that it raises them considerably in the esteem of onlookers.— Lancet.