NEWS AND NOTES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1575, 15 March 1887, Page 2

NEWS AND NOTES

At a meeting of the directors of the Wanganui Meat Preserving Company held on Saturday Mr. Cowie, late of the Wellington Meat Preserving Company's works was appointed manager.

Dr. Grace, who has been atten fling the Bishop of Wellington since his recent accident, informs vis that his patient is improving, but it is anticipated that it will be 6ome considerable time betore he can get about. — New Zealand Times.

Mr. Inston, of Eltham, informs us that he visited Lake Rotokari on Saturday, and he describes it as a beautiful lake, about a mile long, varying in width from about 15 to 20 chains. It is surrounded by hills, forming a large watershed : it is very deep, and the water is good. It is situated about seven or eight miles from Eltham eastward, and can ouly be struck at present by persons acquainted with the countiy, but a road is now being opened tip which will take visitors to within a couple of miles of it.

The number of those persons who fought at the battle of Waterloo is naturally dwindling from year to year. A survivor of the great battle still lives at the Hague, in the person of the Heer J. Chapman, Enthoven, wbo, on December 24th, celebrated his 101 st birthday. The veteran still vividly recollects the incidents of the decisive contest which shattered the power of Napoleon. The anniversary of the battle, it may be mentioned, is still religiously observed in Holland — in synagogue and church, where special services are held.

The Deniliquin people (New South Wales) gave a supper in honour of Sir Henry's visit, which was, of course, a seemly nnd a creditable thing, but when the eating had ended aud the drinking begun, and the toast of the " The Queen " had been honored, aud " The District," also on the proposition of the guest, the order of procedure was moved in most unseemly haste to " The Ladies," and only one man apparently was sober enough to suggest that a slight mistake had been made. The toast of the evening had been forgotten, Sir Henry suggested then that it was quite too late to introduce the forgotten toast, and time, perhaps, to go to bed, and they went to bed

The New South Wales firemen who proceeded to Melbourne to take part iv the Fre Brigades's Demonstration were subject to a great deal of anuoyanee on the Victorian border, owing to the searchiug investigation of their effects which the Customs authorities are bound to carry out to prevent the tariff being evaded. How strict this is maybe judged from the fact that a jovial drum-major, who was the possessor of a new shirt, found himself compelled to put it on before the assembled multitude to avoid paying duty, an incident which caused considerable amusement.

The Almighty has done nearly everything for Auckland (says the Bell) that was calculated to make it the great entrepot of the South Seas, except in planting it with the laziest and least enterprising mercantile class to be found, perhaps, in the Southern Hemisphere. The first founders of the place, unlike the founders of any other city in the colonies, were just logs of wood rolled up on the beach by the tide, and have grown into life from the nutriment that lay around them ; and those that have come after seem, with a very few exceptions, to have inherited the traditions and imbibed the spirit of the place.

A Paris correspondent telegraphs : — A census has been for the first time taken of the carrier pigeons in Paris. The return shows that these birds have increased and multiplied in an astonishing manner, inasmuch as they number 2500, of which 1780 have received a high training, and can be trusted in all weathers to go great distances. They are each trained to go to some particular locality from Paris, and others to come to Pans from different strongholds and great towns. The pigeons which, should ever the capital be beleaguered, are to keep it in communication with the forts above Grenoble and those of the Pyrenees were bred in those mountains and in the Alps.

The Napier Telegraph publishes the following figures showing the exports from Hawkes Bay during this season : — Frozen meat, £48 572 5s 3d ; wool, £504,744 13s 5d ; skins, .£2259 4s Gd ; tallow, i' 9402 11s 10s; pelts, £3649 8s; preserved meats, £1244 5s ; sundries, £2900. With the omission of the item " sundries, £2900," the whole of the exports have been made up from the produce of pastoral industries ; there was nothing of an agricultural character in the shipments. The value of the shipments, large as it is. does not represent that of the whole production of the district. A very large quantity of wool grown on the coast runs goes to Wellington, of which no account is available, while the export of live sheep overland represents several thousands of pounds value.

An inventor ot Leipzig has just perfected a machine for the execution of criminals. A raised platform, about 20ft square, has what is grircily described as " a tovnfovtftblo easy chair " in the centre of it, and behind the chair is a statue holding a balance in the left hand — that is all the criminal sees. A powerful electric battery is installed under the platform, and communicates with the chair. The condemned man is to sit on the chair, and sentence of the court is to be read to him by the proper authority ; the executioner breaks the wand which he carries in his hand as the symbol of his office, and throws the pieces into one of the scales of the balance, which in its descent discharges the battery. The inventor says he has satisfed himself by experiments on animals tnat the mode of death is painless and instantaneous.

The statistics of the colony of Queensland for 1885, which have just been published by the Registrar- General's Department, show the results of the drought in a rather unexpected manner — that is, if the returns ot live stock can be depended on. That drought, says the Brisbane Courier, which in the beginning of 1880 commenced in 1882. Iv 1881 we had 12,042,893 sheep, and on the 31st December, 1885, we had only 3,993,322, a decrease of over 3,000,000 in the four years ; though during the year 1885 itself we lost only 314,589. But judging from the accounts we received during the period of drought from our pastoral districts the loss of cattle ought to have been proportionately greater. We he.ird of large herds being almost totally destroyed, and iv the settled districts the evidences of a great mortality amongst the cattle were only too perceptible to eveiyone. Yet in 1881 we had only 4,324,937 cattle — the highest number we ever reached in Queensland — and at the end of 1885 we siill had 4,102,652 remaining.

. Mr. Skeet announces in. our advertising columns that he will visit llawera on 21st instant, remaining until 5 p.m. on 22nd.

At the recent Rifle Association meeting, the effigy of Kynooh, whose ammunition 2ias been used throuxkoxit the meeting, was rigged up, and a procession of sparks, 100 strong, formed. These, headed by a band playing the dead march in " Saul," carried the effigy round the camp, after which it was placed on a hedge, and a firing party of four riddled it through with bullets. Sergeant Parslow, of Auckland, who directed the movements, then ordered the figure to be roasted, and the ceremony of cremation followed.

When the lowa prohibitory law was framed it recognised the right of distilleries to manufacture alcohols for export beyond the borders of the State for commercial, medical, and scientific purposes, but which were not to be used as beverages. There is a large distillery in Dcs Moines, the capita! of the State (a city of 40,000 inhabitants), without a single open saloon. The friends of temperance attempted to close the distillery undor the law by injunction. The judge of the Circuit Court has rendered a decision refusing the injunction, holding that the law protects the distilleries in the manufacture of liquors for export to other states, limited only by the law in the states where they are sold. This is probably a correct and sen-ible interpretation of the law; hut it places the advocates of prohibition in the state of lowa in the anomalous position of refusing to drink intoxicating drinks but for permitting them to be manufactured for the residents of other states to drink.