NEWS AND NOTES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XIX, Issue 3293, 5 December 1892, Page 2

NEWS AND NOTES

The English mail arrived at Auckland at 4.40 p.m. on Sunday.

Mr. John Sawers is appointed an inspector under tha Dairy Industry Act.

Many quartera of beef by the Olarama, although of bright appearance externally, were found to be quite putrid near the bone.

A demand is made in London that credit in the drapery trade shall be reduced to four months, and Australian bills to 60 days.

Mr. Mullins has been appointed manager for the Farmers' Alliance, Wellington, and Mr. Tornbull, of Tiraaru, agent for Palmerston. There were about 150 applications for the Palmerston agency.

It is announced that tbe lasses' brass and string band, connected with the Salvation Army, will perform at tbe ToWn Hall on Wednesday and Thursday nights, lb is said they are goo^J masiciaas.

The Government give notice that Monday, 26th, and Tuesday, 27th December, and Monday, 2nd, and Tuesday, 3rd January, will ba observed as holidays at all tbe public offices in the colony.

The Pall Mall Gazette, referring to tbe Federation debate in tbe New South Wales Parliament, says that intercolonial freotrade would remove the chief impediment to the commercial federation of the Empire.

Among recent additions to Eltham is a shop built by Mr. W. Lloyd to tbe order of Mr. S. Zinsli, saddler, &c. The shop is a very suitable one. Mr. Lloyd has now started an addition to the Eltham school.

A well-known Canterbury sheep-dealer, who had to seek the protection ot the Bankruptcy Court about 14 years ago, has just distributed the sum of £1400 among his creditors, having been enabled to do this through successful business operations.

A. Hamilton correspondent of the New Zealand Herald writes : — " In one refuge one of the inmates has recently been elected an officer of a local Masonic Lod Be, and may be seen as active as a man of 40 walking about tbe town visiticg the hotels and stores and otherwise amusinghimself." Another " caps " this ac follows :—": — " I have nothing to say against that man, as he is evidently • on the square,' but we can beat that record, for not long ago a man who was, if I remember rightly, receiving aid from the Charitable Aid Board, was serving as a grand juror at the sittings of the Supreme Court."

Fishermen are noterl for the toughness of their yarns, but the following unearthed from a recent issue of the Clutta County Gazette, beats the record as far as we know : — " Mr. Garden met with a peculiar experience whilst fishing last week. Whilst whipping tbe Kuriwao, he felt his hook get fast to something at his back. On looking round be discovered he had booked one of Mr. Wallace's cows by the tail. He played the tail for a few minutes, but the cow went away, and took Mr. Garden's hook with her. Not a baa fishing "tail," is ifc? Bat this pats the cap on it: As I was passing the paddock a couple of hours after, I saw the cow with a four-pound trout hanging to her tail. She had been in the creek for a drink, and the fish had taken the fly,"

"KEATING'R POWDER" destroys Bugs, Fleas, Moths, Beetle?, and all other jnsects, whilst quite harmless to domestic animals. In exterminating Beetles the success of this powder is extraordinary. It is perfectly clean in application. See the article you purchase is " Heating's," as imitations are noxious and ineffectual. Sold in tins, 6d, le, and 2a 6d each, by all b enlists.

La grippe is on the rampage again. It is very bad in Chris tchurcb, has broken out in several parts of the Wellington province, and is reported to bave reaohed the southern end of Hawke's Bay. Now that the sheep breeders of Australia are anxiously seeking for fresh outlets for their surplus stock, it is satisfactory (says the Argus) to learn that a promising demand for stud sheep exists in South Africa. The s.s. Damascus, wbicb leaves for Capetown, will take two high class rams to Cape Colony. These two rams , have been specialty chosen in order to ' improve the standard of South African j Bheep.

A musioal writer states that fine vocalists are rare in countries where fish and meat diet prevail, and that the voice depreciates as families grow rich and increase tbe amount; of meat consumed. Naples and Genoa, where much fish is eaten, give few of Italy's singers ; and the sweet voices of Ireland are found in tbe country, but not in the towns. In Norway too much fish is eaten for the production of singers, but Sweden is a land of grain and song. The carnivorous birds croak ; grain-eating birds sing.

The latest development of popular institutions in America has taken the somewhat startling form of a police machine gun. This interesting contrivance is, as one might expect, the invention of that eminent destroyer of life and property, Mr. Gatling. Its official name is "Police Pattern Model, 1892." It is very light, eaßily handled, and so quick in discharge that it will fire eight hundred shots a minute, and disperse a mob and materially decrease it in numbers at a range of from a mile to a mile and a half. It is warranted to clear a street in quicker time than anything less than an earthquake. " Toe Triumphant Democrat " is its popular title.

In reference to the correspondence which has taken place in regard to a supposed balance of a West Coast relief fund raised in Wellington, the following letter will no doobt be conclusive : — "Wellington, Dec. 2. Tbe Town Clerk, Hawera. Dear Sir, — The absence ot Mr. J. Dransfield through severe illness has caused a delay in replying to your letter. I find there was a balance left in the West Coast relief fund, but it, with several other unused balances, was incorporated and given by Act of Parliament to the benevolent society for orphan purposes some 10 or 12 years ago, and this after advertisement of the Act in several city and country papers. This information, I think, will he sufficient, but if you require any further data I shall be happy to afford the same to you.— Yours, etc., S. E, Dransfield. "

The Wanganui Chronicle reports the death, on Saturday evening last, ot Mr. George Pe»ke, formerly of Kai Iwi. Mr. Peake had been in failing health for the last six weeks of bis life he was confined to his room. His illness originated with an affection of tbe heart, whioh ultimately brought on dropsy, from which he died. Deceased was a cousin of Messrs John and Henry Peake. He was 45 years ot age, and came out to New Zealand about 30 years ago, and has always resided in this district. His place at Kai Iwi he sold to enable him to settle in Hawera, but ill-health shortly obliged him to leave there. Tbe deceased, who was a widower, loaves two children, a son and a daughter. His wife was a daughter of the late Bey. C. H. Nicholls, formerly a minister of Christ Church, Wanganui, The deceased's daughter is at present in England, where she went with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Peake, the latter being her father's sister. Mr. Peake's loug residence in the district has made him many friends, and his loss will be severely felt beyond tbe circle of his near relations.

At the Wealeyan District Meeting, it was recommended that tbe Conference be asked to grant a special grant of £2S to the Hawera circuit, and that a grant of £30 be made to the Opunake circuit for furniture to the new parsonage. The report showed the following redaction of debts : — Opunake, £19 2s lid ; Hawera, £91 6s 6d. Permission was granted to OpuDake to acquire a new parsonage with eight acres of laud, and to New Plymouth circuit to sell half an acre of land. It was resolved that the Conference be recommended to station a second minister at Midhirst, in the Waitara circuit, on the following conditions :—(1): — (1) That a Rpecial grant of £50 be made to tbe Waitara cirouit for the new a«enoy ; (2) that Cardiff, Eltham, and Ngaire be added to the Waitara circuit ; (3) that a special grant of £25 be made to Hawera in compensation for tbe loss of these places. Tbe Eev. P. W. Fairclough was appointed representative to the conference wLich meets at Dunedin next March.

When the export duty on gold was abolished (writes Nemo on the Dunedin f ttir) it was ordained and enacted by tbe Legislature that, " in order to recoup the local authorities in mining districts for tbe loss of revenue sustained by the operation of the Act, every such local body shall bave power " to levy rates on mining property. This was hailed as a boon and a blessing by tbe miners ; but it turns out to be only a scourge. Formerly they paid the doty when they got gold, and exaotly on the quantity obtained. Now they pay rates on the value of their plant, whether they get gold or not. So that in many instanoes they are paying more as rates than they paid as duty, and especially is thiß the case with the labor-employing companies. Thus the Island Block Company, having expended a very large sum of money iv plant, find themselves called upon to contribute something like £200 per annum in special taxation, although they are not getting enoagh gold to pay wages. As their last year's turn-out was about l,ooooz, the export duty would only have amounted to £100. Thus they have lost £100 by tbe remission of taxation. There is something radically wrong in this. Tbe small miner — the " fossicker" and the " hatter " — benefit by the change, lor they have nothing taxable , but capital is heavily punished lor enterprise. That this will te ! against the extension of mining caouot be doubted. Poor qoavtz and lowpayiDg gravel will not be able to endure the 6train ; and many Jikely enterprises, which might have paid fairly well, with au export duW, will be smothered by local taxation.

The Dishorning Commission appointed Borne time since by the Ontario Government has lately been engaged drawing up its report. Tbe Commission is in favor of dishorning, the report stating that the cruelty of the practice is exaggerated by the opponents of tbe operatioo. Writing on tbe subject, Mr A. Pell, a well-known agriculturist, says: — "All will agree that tbe practice of sawing or knocking off the horns of fullgrown cattle is abominally cruel. In this country it has, I think, been held to be illegal. I On the other hand, there can be no doubt but that, in dairy herds especially, much suffering is caused and pain inflicted by one animal on another by goring. Beyond this, very serious loss is incurred by wounds on the nddpr, causing partial or total ioas of milk. In thH western cattle ranches of America oxen are deprived of their horns in order to pack them closer and with greater comfort, in the railroad cars — the length of tbe Texan horn in particular making close packing impos sible. The horns, however, instead of 1 being Bawn off, are not allowed to grow. At the time of branding the calves, a redhot iron is applied to the budding horn, and no more is seen of it. For some time I have adopted this method myself, with the result that the stock so treated are quieter and take nothing like tbe shed and manger room they otherwise would in the winter yards,* squeezing in and feeding, as they now do, like pigs at a trough. An observer will notice that tbe artificibl and natural polled Irish and Scotch cattle wintered out in tbe midland pastures huddle together like kittens for warmth, while those with horns lie apart with mutual distrust.

The secretary of the Hawera Horticultural Society informs us that Mrs. Major has handed the prizes allotted to her at the Hawera flower show over to the Hawera Hospital Fund. The example is worthy of imitation. Tbe storm on Sanday was a very severe one and was ielt over a wide area of country. It was very bad at New Plymouth, tbe day being one of tbe worst for years, and all along the line it was felt ' with severity. In the bush a number I ol trees were broaght down by the wind.

At tbe sale of half acre sections fronting Victoria street a.nd South road on Saturday one half acre fronting Victoria street was bought by Mr. Barnard at £32 ; Mrs Bobinson bought two facing same street at £30 each. Five sections were purchased by Mr. Milmoe, tbe corner section at £40, the other four at £30 eaohi

It will be seen that Mr. Ellerm has resigned his position on the Hawera County Council. We understand that want of time to attend to the duties is tbe cause. Mr. Ellerm always looked after the interests of bin constituents well, and will be missed. The poll will have to be tver the whole of Waimate riding.

There is a large entry of live stock for Budge & Good's Waimate sale to-morrow.