NEWS AND NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7371, 24 January 1902, Page 2

NEWS AND NOTES.

The Aorere arrived at Patea from Wellington yesterday, and Eails to-day and on the 27th.

During the past five year 3 there have been 3500 administrations' of chloroform at the Auckland Hospital, of which but three have had fatal results, or an average fatality of one in 1166.

A Court-martial took place recently aboard the Royal Arthur, at Hobart (Tasmania), when a seaman who struck a superior officer received a sentence of two years' imprisonment. He had served 18 out of 21 years, and thus forfeits his pension.

Caterpillars have commenced depredations on the barley crops of tbe Ellesmere disliict (writes the Leeston correspondent of the Lyttelton Times), several instances being reported where already it is estimated that 25 per cent, of the yield has been lost from this cause.

The King's accession and tha honours bestowed for services in the war, says Whitaker, have revolutionised the orders of knighthood, the increases in the Companions alone being: C.8., from 639 to 741 ; C.M.G., from 385 to 672 ; D.5.0., from 345 to 1312 ; and C. and M.V.0., from 53 to 162.

Mr O. E. Hugo lectured last evening upon " Noses and Foreheads." The lecture was well appreciated. At the close, some gentlemen and four young ladies had their faces read. Mr Hugo will lecture upon " Eyes " next Monday evening.

A company has been formed in Durbun (says the Natal Mercury) with a capital of £10,000, for the purpose of purchasing and working mica mines in Zululand. Samples of the mica have been scot to England, and replies have been received that one sample is worth £SGO per ton. Tbe whole of the capital has been subscribed locally.

Max O'Rell, in Jan article on English exclusiveness, says : "If you were to wreck two Englishmen at one end of some long outlandish island in the Pacific Ocean and two Scotsmen at the other end, and you happened to pass that way a few years after, you would find the two Englishmen had never spoken a word to each other, because, they were not - introduced. But you would find the two Scotsmen had started a Caledonian Society."

A new microbe has been discovered. A writer in a South African paper recently made the assertion that frozen meat contains tbe J* microbe of inertia," and gives an instance in whioh certain men who were fed on frozen meat at a boardinghouse were quite incapacitated from work for a considerable time afterwards.

M. Tessipoff, a Russian naval surgeon attached to the Baltic Sea fleet, has been experimenting with an apparatus for taking photographs of the sea floor at any depth, and, it is reported, with such success that reliable records of submarine life may now be reckoned amongst our reliable sources of biological knowledge. The great difficulty is in the construction of a lamp strong enough to resist the pressure at great depths without making it useless for illuminating purposes, and this difficulty M. Tessipoff is said to have overcome.

Mr Cruickshank, S.M. for Kaitangata, gave an important judgment in which a man was charged with killing native game out of season. Counsel for the defendant contended that no offence in common law was disclosed. He pointed out that section 17 of " The Animals Protection Act, 1880," which made it an offence to do so, was repealed by section 5 of the Amending Act of 1900, and had not been re-enacted, as ought to have been done. The Magistrate upheld the contention, and dismissed the information. This means that there is no protection for ducks, etc., at present.

If a man throws a stone at a horse, and the missile, glancing off the animal, injures a little girl, does that constitute an assault ? This was a knotty point which occupied the magistrate at Sydney for some hours the other day, and occasioned the production of a large pile of legal text-books and much argument by counsel. The defence raised was that there was no " mens rea." In delivering judgment, the magistrate pointed out that if the stone was recklessly thrown, the defendant must be considered to have acted maliciously. He quoted a number of oases in which it was held to be sufficient excuse to show that the assault happened by misadventure. He was of opinion that the defendant did not intend to injure the complainant, and, therefore, dismissed the case.

A gigantic sale of men's and boys' cloth ing now raging at the Economic The firm's half-yearly distribution is a popular one, and they are going to eclipse their previous efforts if possible. — Advt.