CLIPPINGS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 169, 7 November 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

CLIPPINGS.

The Auckland Star says : — MrF. D. Fenton, Chief Judge of the Native Lands Court, has sent in his resignation to the Government. His reason is understood to be somewhat similar to that which actuated Mr. Barstow. He has been. in. tae service 81 yem, and is entitled to a substantial pension, but the Legislature during the last session or two has shown such a disposition to alter the conditions under which pensions have accrued and may now be legally claimed, that it is not thought safe to risk the chance of a disturbance by the law. It is announced that a Melbourne merchant offers to subscribe dBSOO towards the formation of a company to provide a lodging-house for women. The project has been received with warm support. A very interesting experiment with a new telephone, invented by Robert M. Lock wood and his son William, of New York City, was tried recently between New York and Philadelphia, over the ordinary telegraph wires. The result was a surprise to all who were present. Conversation, even to a whisper, in Philadelphia, was heard with perfect distinctness of articulation, such as is perfectly practicable for commercial purpose. The principle claimed by the inventors is that of molecular disturbance and the suppression of all vibration. A new ballot-box has just been submitted to the French Goverment. It has two locks, each opening with a different key, and apparatus which clips a stub or corner from the ticket, deposited by the elector, and drops the stub into one part of the box, the ticket going into the other division. Simultaneously the machine registers on a table before the voter the number of tickets clipped. The ballots must agree in number with the stubs, and both with the "tell-tale^" and the Toter sees for himself that Ms ballot has been cast and taken account of. A Mexican at Las Vegas, New Mexico, tied his wife firmly to a board, leaned her thus helpless against a fence, took a position 50ft away, and used her as a target for rifle practice. He did not hit her, his object being to frighten her by imbedding the bullets in the board close to her head and body. She fainted under the frightful ordeal. A farmer at Cambridge has secured 114 per cent, of lambs. | A ladies' six days' go-as-you-please contest was to have commenced at Newcastle, N.S.W., on 24th Octoher. The autumn meeting of the Hawke's Bay Jockey Club is to be held on 16th and 17th March. The principal event is the Napier Handicap, 500 soys., lj£- miles. "An Original Service of Song," composed by a certain Mr. Jones, and entitled " The Wreck of the Tararua,^' was given at Dunedin recently. The Customs revenue last quarterTwas £75,500 in excess of that of the corresponding quarter of 1880. The figures for the two y-^ars were respectively £312,500 and £388,000. When President Garfield was on his death-bed, certain New York brokers, it is now admitted, had a private wire connected with the White House, and were advised of the President's condition in advance of the Press and officials, in order to enable them to speculate in crape. " A corner in crape " was made by certain citizens of the Jewish persuasion, and by a concentration of stock they had command of the San Francisco market. " Crape corners " were put up elsewhere. The business instincts of the American people are so keen that an opportunity of this kind was certain not to be slipped.