The Star. (PUBLISHED DULY.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1893. NEWS AND NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2362, 25 February 1893, Page 2

The Star. (PUBLISHED DULY.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1893. NEWS AND NOTES.

A budget; of interesting news from our Ofcakeho correspondent appears to-day on fourth page. The Wanganui Herald is sorry to hear that Sergeant-Major Anderson is again confined to bis bed through illness. Mr. E. J. A. Stevenson, Government auditor, is paying his usual half-yearly visit to this district. The County Counoil has ordered 500 barrels of cement, and the first portion will arrive next week. At the Brunswick sports on Thursday, I. Watts (11yds) won the 220 Yards Handicap, and ran third in both the 100 Yards and Quarter. Among other damage done by the gale was the blowing down of tress across the Whareroa road. The road is, or was, blocked for wheel traffic, but men have been set to work to clear it. The delay in calling the annual meeting of the Hawera Caledonian Society arose, we are informed, from the absence from the district on a holiday of the treasurer ; bat now thao he has returned a night has been fixed for the meeting. We are informed that the caterpillars are causing great destruction to the crops in the district. One eettier, residing near Hawera, has lost Dearly the whole of a crop of 60 acres, and another may save about three bushels an acre off 30 acres. The pest is said to be even more destructive down Manutahi way, several crops having been entirely lost. Tbe caterpillars, as most people are aware, do tbe mischief at night, when the birds are absent ; and their modus operandi is to pick off the grain of one stalk and then proceed to another, leaving the grain lying on the ground, Their practice is characterised by our informant as " pure devilment." Nolan, Tonks & Co. sell stock at Eltham on Monday. Messrs George Thomas & Co., at; Wellington, on Monday, sell 360 tons of fencing. Mr. Tennyson Smith will take the Presbyterian service tc-morrow morning. Mr. N. King's Toko sale -will be held on 10th March, instead of 17th. Mr. W. J. McNiven, plumber and tinsmith, has advt. in adother column. Smart boy wanted. We direct attention of our readers to Messrs Lattey, Livermore and Co.'s Tea advertisement on front page. These teas are, -we learn, steadily gaining favor with the public, in. every district where they have been introduced. In Taranaki itself these teas are well known, and are gaining golden opinions from their purity and delicious flavour. Messrs Lattey, Livermore and Co. are issuing handsome pictorial advertisements to all their agents, depicting scenes on tea estates, both in India and Ceylon, which are as interesting as they are artistic. Eotheram'B English Levers, £5 ss, £6 6s, £5 10a, £7 10s, and J822, at H. G. Pitcher's. Serviceable cheap Watch, 'The Egmont/ at H. G. Pitcher's. 21s each.— Advt. Grand selection of Engagement and Dress Kings, at H. G. Pitcher's.— Advt.

The Collet Dobson Company will perform " Wilful Murder " at Normanby on Wednesday next.

Owing to the accident to the Waiaaa bridge, the # performance at Manaia of 11 The Bhau*ghraun," by the Dobson Company, has been postponed.

The Takapuna was unable to call at New Plymouth on Saturday, and, therefore, the supplementary San Francisco mail has been left behind this month.

There are in the colony no less than 82 brass bands, properly organised and equipped, 11 of them having a membership of over 40, and 10 numbering up to 110 members.

To-morrow evening, after the usual church services Mr E. Tennyson Smith, the celebrated English temperance advocate, will deliver from memory Dr. Talmage's famous sermon entitled " The Archfiend of the Nations " in the Town Hall, Hawera. This announcement should be sufficient to crowd the building to its utmost capacity, as the lecturer is by many credited with the power of reproducing the sermon of the American divine in a manner equal to Talmage himself. Mr. Tennyson Smith's mission, which has been looked for with great expoetancy by the temperance friends, will continue every evening until Thursday next.

11 Spectator," in the Referee, remarks : — 11 The winner of the Hack Hurdle Race on the first day of the Egmont Meeting, Union Jack, was bred by Mr. John Grigg, of Longbeacb, and is said to be by a horse called Liberal. At all events when he won a Ladies' Bracelet of 20 soys at the Ashburton Trademan's B.C. May Meeting in 1888, he was so described. Query — Is Union Jack entitled to ran as a hack ? Acoording to the advertised conditions of the race he won at Ashburton it was to all intents and purposes an open event, and I cannot see how the stewards of the Egmont R.C. awarded him the stakes. The owner of Cingalee could get plenty of evidenoe that Union Jack won the race in question, and should, I think, have been allowed a reasonable time."

The astounding wastefulness of American representatives is strongly illustrated (says the London Speotator) by the annual report of the Pension Commissioner just presented to Congress. He claims credit for economy in his department, saying that the pensions for this fiscal year will only be £31,080,000 sterling, ana gext year only £33,000,000. Indeed, fchonßh there arc 780,000 claims registered in the offioe for future settlement, he do6s not think that the total expenditure on pensions will ever exceed £4.000,000 a year, or say £3 10s taken from every household in the Union ! And then they tell us that democracy is always cheap! It adds a little, perhaps, to the shamefulness of this waste that it is in no way dictated by kindliness to the poor, an immense proportion of the pensioners being freeholders, bat it is intended to deplete the Treasury, and so protect great manufacturers at the expense of the whole body of consumers. " Max O'Rell," in the course of an interview with an Auckland Herald representative, described in strong terms the inconvenience be was put to through the train being delayed at Hawera for the races and thus having to drive to Wanganui. " Laßt Tuesday night," he said, 11 1 was at Hawera ; the next night I was due al Wanganui. Because it was race day not only were the Courts stopped, but railway traffic also suspended. So I had sixty miles to do in a buggy with a pair of horses. . . ; I mast say it seemed a very strange thing to me that I bad to undergo that experience. Of coarse I can quite understand that Government wantß to make a profit out of railways; there should be attention to the wants of those going to the races, but there should aIBO be a sufficiency of trains for those who have to travel on ordinary and serious business." Max O'Rell might have mentioned that if he had taken an early train he conld .have got to Wanganui before mid-day. The bearing of the information laid by Mr. Monro, Inspector of Stock, against Mr. Harry Wagstaff, for driving a diseased cow along a highway, to which we referred in a former issue, came off at Opunake, before Major Take, R.M. The defendant pleaded guilty. Mr. Monro, with the permission of the Court, took the

opportunity to express a hope that the

press would give publioity to this oase, as it was thought desirable to put a stop to

the practice of driving diseased cattle

along the roads, and he went further to explain that it was not necessary to find an animal badly diseased before taking action, but by the interpretation clauses " diseased" meant affected with cancer, and, further, by the interpretation of the word cancer, it includes the external manifestations of all those diseases which, in the opinion of the Inspector, render the flesh or milk of any animal so infected unfit for consumption. So that anyone driving a beast along a road, the flesh or milk of which is, in the opinion of an Inspector, unfit for human food, is liable to a penalty under this section of The Cattle Act. Major Take fined the defendant the minimum penalty of .£2, and costs.