NEWS AND NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7376, 30 January 1902, Page 2

NEWS AND NOTES.

The Mauriceviile Athletic Club has voted £2 2s towards the Normanby Athletic Club Defence Fund. The rumour ia industriously circulated in Wellington that Mr T. G. McCarthy is likely to be called to the Upper House. Numerous small children in Hastings, Hawke's Bay, now wear sandals, which enable the feet to retain their natural shape. The term of service of the Sixth New Zealand Contingent, which left for South Africa on the 30th January, 1901, is almost up, and it is expected that some of the men will shortly be leaving on their return to this colony. Some Masterton plumbers are being proceeded against for using inferior material to that provided for in the by-laws in connection with the borough water supply scheme. In the register of unclaimed moneys held by the Bank of New Zealand appears the sum of £7 14s to the credit of J. G. Collins, laborer, Patea. In the Bank of New South Wales register is the item £4 3s 2d to credit of trustees of H. Shanks, Hawera. So far as can be gathered, n good deal of rebuilding will take place in a short time in connection with the hotels in the Christchurch licensing district. One architect has work in hand for eight hotels, the total amount to be spent on the buildings being over £60,000. This evening, in the Opera House, a farewell social to Captain Bartlett, who returns to South Africa in command of the North Island battalion of the Eighth Contingent, will be held. There will no doubt be a large attendance to honour a local resident who has already earned a big reputation for his work during the war. Mr W. J. Palmer, the oldest pomologist of the Agricultural Department, will in future be relieved of a large portion of the travelling. He will take charge of the horticultural sections of the experimental stations at Wairangi and Mornohaki. He will also continue the work of instruction in fruit culture in the Taranaki district.

The Bay of Plenty Times says that a Maori chief of some renown as a prophet and a great student of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, has discovered that the Boer War was foreshadowed therein, and that it has to endure for 42 months from date of commencement. As it has been going on now for 27 months, he reckons that there is to be another year and three months' fighting.

The Auckland Herald states that there is still a largo demand for improved properties in Auckland province. In the Waikato district and elsewhere many settlers are disposing of their farms to southern buyers at prices greatly in excess of what could have been obtained there two or three years ago. There is no doubt that the rapid growth now being made in the dairy industry ia assisting greatly in the settlement and development of our lands.

With reference to the statement made by Sir Joseph Ward at Greymouth that it wns the duty of the Government to stop work where the amount voted by Parliament was spent, we (Times) are informed by the Minister for Public Works that this course will be followed, and no exception made. This will mean that some of the works will be suspended for a time. The Minister, speaking on the subject, added that it was only fair to those districts where the expenditure had not been so great that this should be done ; and that the money voted by Parliament must not be exceeded.

Major Steward, M.H.R., who has just returned from a visit to the Chatham Islands, says that the islanders would be pleased to have a thousand Boer prisoners quartered on the islands, as the prisoners, with a ship of war and two or threo companies of infantry to watch them, would provide a market for farm and garden produce. Major Steward thinks the Chathams would be a good gaol for prisoners of war, as they could not get away, and could be easily guarded.

An accident, which might have been attended with loss of life, occurred at the Makohine Viaduct on Tuesday. One of the " struds," weighing five and a half tons, was being hoisted into position, when the Bhackle broke, and the mass of iron fell, smashing through the scaffolding, and embedding itself in the ground, nearly three hundred feet below. Several workmen had just passed under, and one, hearing the shouts of the men, leaped on an adjoining scaffolding just as the huge casting came crashing through the platform on which he was just previously ec paged.

The British war sloop Condor, which it is feared has been lost on the voyage from Esquimaultto Honolulu, ia aecrew sloop of 980 tons, with engines of 1400 indicated horee power. She was one of the vessels on the Pacific Station, for which she was commissioned on November Ist, 1900. The headquarters of this station are at Esquimault, British Columbia. Captain Clifton Sclater is the commander of the ship. The Condor was one of the vessels which took part in the bombardment of Alexandria in the eighties, and was commanded by Lord Charles Boresford (then Captain), who ran right close under the forts and hombarded them energetically. " Well done, Condor," was signalled to her after the bombardment by the Admiral, who -highly praised the pluck of the Condor's commander and crew.

In his address on Socialism, at Wellington, Mr Mann stated that it was not overtaxation nor over-population that caused the distress at Home, nor was emigration (though that wag another question) the only means of relief. If monopoly was replacpd by even distribution of the proceeds of labour, the United Kingdom, with its 40 millions, was not over-popu-lated. The limitation of families had been proposed, and seriously entertained — to what extent it had been acted upon lie was not in a position to say. But investigations had shown that -the United Kingdom, with its average of work and mineral resources, could maintain in adequate comfort 60 or 70 millions. During laßt century the increase in the aggregate wealth was greater than the total increase of population, but half that wealth went to those who neither toiled nor spun.

• The Dunedin special of Christohurch Truth says:— The requisition from the Ravensbourne electors asking Mr Barclay to resign his seat was almost unanimously signed. At fifteen houses only was the requisition not signed, and the occupants of three of these were absent at the time the canvassers called. Three persons objected to sign beoause they are in favour of freedom of speech. One refused because her husband was away, another because he had not supported Mr Barclay and it was the duty of those who had foolishly returned him as their member to put him out, and two others because they " do not know the man." One enlightened elector would not sign because the Manchester Guardian has deolared that the war 13 unjust. Another refused for a very different reason, namely, that he does not read the papers at all. One female elector refused to append her name beoause she is a Salvationist, and another, a man, magnanimously declined to join in doing any man out of his billet. In another case, an elector when appealed to, sen tentiously deolared that "It was all— -— rot, 'l conoeijuently he djd not sign,

The Taranaki Rifle Association Meeting has been fixed for Maroh 19th and 20lh. A lib trout, caught in a stream near Dannevirke yer.terday, when opened was found to contnin a young trout nearly half its size and a medium-sized crayfish. A recently registered baby of Sydney was named Fern Tree ; names of parents, T. Tree and Rose Tree. Other children are Peach Tree, A. Z. L. Tree, Wattle Tree, and Eucalyptus Tree. Sir Thomas Scankn, K.C.M.G., is the author of the Cape Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, under which the Acting-Chief Justice of C.ipe Colony, Sir John Buchanan, has just held thnt a man may marry his aunt. A. woman named Goodey fell asleep in her house at Palmerston North the other evening. A candle, which had been left burning, set fire to the house, and the occupants had a narrow escape of losing their lives. In reply to a question put to him after a lecture at Pahiatua as to what he thought of a Fair Rent Bill, Mr R. C. Bruce said that if such a Bill became law it would get people into a tangle suoh as the world had never seen. Instructions have been issued by the Telegraph Department that in future the sen&eleßs practice of counting, say, " fourpence" as two words while " threepence " passes as one, and other similar anomalies, is to be abolished, and a revised scale has been issued. At the Post Office Hotel this afternoon (says the Wellington Post), the members of the Institute of Marine .Engineers gave a hearty send-off to Mr W. Bennett, of the Patea Shipping Co., who is going Home to direct the building of that company's new steimer for the Patea trade. Mr Bennett, who is an ex-President of the Institute, wns presented by the Institute with its badge of honour — a neat gold Maltese Cross — and a number of addressps of Institute members in the Old Country. Yorktown, the centre of the South Australian salt industry, is said to have been in a state of riot during the holidays. The men engaged in scrapiug the salt on the lakes visited the town and took charge, making themselves thoroughly at home in private residences and elsewhere. The only constable received such a buffeting that he had to be carried into the Court on a couch. Mr James, S.M., decided, at one of the sittings of his Ormondville circuit, that Justices of the Peace have no jurisdiction in judgment summons cases. A Sydney commission agent was fined £100 and costs the other day for manufacturing cigars without a license. A new light railway line, 45 miles in length, is about to be constructed in Suffolk. It w'll pass through several I small towns, all of which are at present I without railway communication. The line will have a connection with the Great Eastern system at Haughey in one direction and at Westfield in the other. It will be of standard gauge, and will serve an agricultural district of 190,000 acres. It is usual in this old-fashioned group of islands, says a London contemporary, to divide the engineering profession into three branches— mechanical, civil, and electrical. America, with her characteristic pushfulness, has added a further branch to the profession, a " social engineer." The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce can claim credit for the innovation. It employs a social engineer to study the betterment of working conditions in factories and stores, and to offer his service and suggestions to employers. As a result, changes are said to have been made in more than 100 establishments. An enthusiastic Frenchman lias said that the fleets of the world — especially the British fleet— are now reduced to scrap-iron. He meant to imply that the air-ship has killed the watership. All his countrymen do not go so far as this, but the rage for air-ships in Paris continues to grow into greater extravagances. The experiment from the Wandsworth fla f s suggests that the amusing mania has spread to England, and we are threatened with all manner of little imitation or model air-ships for Christmas toys. — Globe. By letters from Johannesburg, the Otago Daily Times learnt that Mr G. Hutchison, late member for Patea, was occupied for six days in December in defending five Dutchmen, charged with high treason, before a Military Court. There were four separate indictments, including minor charges, against the accused. In one case, j the whole of the charges were Bustained. In another, the accused was set free. In the others, the charge of high treason was dismissed, and the prisoners were convicted of some of the minor charges. Such a thing was never heard of before under military law there, and Mr Hutchison has been congratulated on all sides, and business is pouring in upon him. A correspondent overheard the following conversation while travelling by train in the Waikato : — Waikato farmer : " You come from Taranaki, do you not ?" Taranaki dairyman : "I do." W.F. : " Great place for dairying." T.D.: '-Yes. Everywhere one looks there are milk-carts. les, even going to church you see the cans in transit." W.F. : " You have plenty of grass and rain, don't you." T.D. : " Abundance of grass, but not much rain." W.F. : "Oh ! I thought you had a heavy rainfall, which interfered with the factory test, and that you had to cover your oows." T.D. : " How could it affect the test ?" W.F. : " I heard if you did not cover the cows the rain went right through !" It is almost incredible that the man who was Lord Chief Justice of England at the time of the Parnell Commission— a man, tco, who was actively engaged in politics before his elevation a? a judge— did not know Mr Parnell even by sight ; yet a book which has just been published puts the fact beyond dispute. Lord Coleridge, at the close of the Commission, had never seen the Irish Leader. Those who are interested in these odd trifles of political life will remember, too, that Mr Gladstone, though he wa3 in the House of Commons nearly sixty years, was only once known to visit the smoking room there. It was Mr Labouchere wh© begged the G.O.M. to break his record, and Mr Gladstone yielded, the attraction being some experiments in thought-reading by Mr Stuart Cumberland.

The Nursing Kecord (London), in its issue of the 23rd November, in an editorial article headed " Legal Status for Nurses in New Zealand," says :— " We congratulate the nurses of New Zealand on the professional status accorded to them, while at the same time we would remind them that responsibility is inseparable from privilege, and that State registration iB the starting point, not the goal, of their professional progress. In a comparatively new country, with a limited number of nurses, the work of organisation- is easier than in the Mother Country, where there are many thousands of nurses, and a large variety of vested interests to be considered. Nevertheless, in any country, there are always obstacles to be overcome before any progressive enactment can be passed ; and each colony which adopts the registration of nurses, by demonstrating to the world its desirability and justice, brings nurses at Home a step nearer to professional status."

Mark Twain told an after-dinner story at New York the other day, which is now being much quoted. Once, while residing temporarily in England, he was subjected to a tax, and he wrote to Queen Victoria " a friendly letter of protest." He said; "I don't know you, but I've met your son. He was at the head of a procession in the Strand, and I was on a 'bus." Years afterwards h6 met the Prince of Wales at Hamburg. They had a long walk and talk together. When bidding him good-bye, the Prince said, "lam glad to have met you again." This remark troubled Mark Twain, who feared that he had been mistaken for someone else — perhaps Bishop Potter. He communicated this suspicion to the Prince, who replied, "Why, don't you remember when you met me in the Strand, and I wns at the head of a procession, and you were on a 'bus ?" It is said that the King has read nearly'everything that Mark Twain has written, including all his books of travel.

The blockhouses referred to in the South African telegrams are tiny forts, consisting of a hexagonal edifice of corrugated iron. They are the invention of Major Bice, R.E., who got his ideas from his experiences at the siege of Ladysraith. The walls are made by placing two sheets of iron four inches apart and filling the intervening space with gravel. These bullet-proof houses, when loop-holed and occupied by ten or fifteen men, were found sufficient to ward off any of the lesser attacks with which train-wreckers covered their operations. After a time, it was necessary to provide each house with a barbed wire entanglement and a spider's web of wire so interwoven that it was cutterproof. Before the reclaiming of the country was started, the railway communications were picketed with blockhouses at intervals of 3000 yards, so as to baffle any attempt at crossing the line under aarifle fire of at least 1500 yards.

A remarkably severe storm passed over Molong, in New South Wales, the other day. A correspondent of a Sydney paper, describing the Btorm, states that for several minutes, soon after 8 o'olook, the heavens were filled with sheet, chain, and forked lightning, and to the west end of the town what appeared to be a huge ball of blue fire fell behind the hills. One peal of thunder crashed simultaneously with an extra vivid flash of orange colored zig-zag lightning, and women and children ran screaming with fear. In St. John's Church the Key. J. Alldis had 'just started his sermon, when the church was suddenly filled with red flame, so bright that the gas lights looked like burning tapers. ! Great confusion followed, and the congregation huddled up in all sorts of quaint positions. Several women and girls fainted, and one was carried out in a fit of hysterics. The churoh vibrated under the Bhock, and showers of dast and fine plaster fell from the ceiling. When order was restored, the Eev. Alldis offered a prayer of thanksgiving, and then resumed the service. " ;

A fire at New Plymouth on Wednesday destroyed a shed at the rear of Braund's furniture warehouse.

Major-General Babington, the new Commandant, will visit all the volunteer districts in the colony.

Entries for the solo competitions at the Band Contest to be held in New Plymouth are numerous, no fewer than 40 having been received for the B flat cornet solo.

At a Liberal gathering in Wellington last night, referring to railway works, Mr Seddon reiterated that the Ministry would not go beyond the votes authorised by Parliament. '

In connection with the promotion of Lieut.-Colonel Davies, it may be mentioned for the information of those unacquainted with matters military that his brevet rank makes him a full colonel without increase in pay.

The annual general meeting of members of the Hawera Public Library will be held this evening. Subscribers 'are reminded that the meeting will be held at 8 o'clock sharp, to enable the members to attend at Major Bartlett's presentation at 9. Grass land to let. Lad to drive baker's cart wanted. Attention is directed to Mr F. S. Canning's list of properties for sale. The first quarter of Hawera Technical School commences on Monday next for painting students, and for teachers on Saturday, Bth.

Everybody ought to know that Messr Hardley and Sons have on view the largest and best selection of cooking ranges in the district, including among others Barningham's and Shacklock's, makes of high and low pressure, suitable fur brick chimneys or open kitchens at Dunedin pricoß* — Advt