BRIEF MENTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVI, Issue 149, 28 June 1902, Page 3

BRIEF MENTION.

A COM) snap—return of frost. Heavy snowfall on the ranges. King's condition remains satisfactory Passing promisingly through a critical period.

Thousands wait the issue of the medical bulletins at Home. Telegraph poles in inner area to be painted.

At Lynn half a crown a pound has just been paid for the first of the season's strawberries grown in the town. Nearly 70,000 botanical specimens from the Royal parks wore supplied daring March to London Board schools.

Ping pong is to be played in a glasshouse by a Dublin club which has just been formed for the enjoyment of the game,

A heavy southerly gale was raging in the Straits this morning.

The following are the words of the haka which the Maoris performed in honor of the King on Thursday last :— " Ka mate, ka mate ; ka ota, ka ora. Tenei te taugata pahuruhuru nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra. Hupaue! Kaupanel Whiti te ra." The translation is as follows:—"It is death, it is death; it is life, it is life. This (alluding to the King) is the man of great power, who causes the sun to rise. Hurrah! Hurrah! Let the sun rise." The opening words refer to the death of the Queen, and the coming to life, or accession to the throne, of her successor, our present King. "Pahuruhuru" is a very ancient Maori word, and means literally "the man who has as many followers (or .warriors) as he has hairs on his body," hence " the man of great power." Residents of Kaiapoi, who have known the Waimakariri for 40 years, assert that since the earthquake at Cheviot the coast near the mouth of theMver has been raised about 2ft. A Victorian J.P. v?as fined the other day for riotous conduct. From the evide cc it appeared that he was abusing everybody he met in the street, using veuy bad language, and on being remonstrated with spoke so insultingly as to provoke a fight. A previous conviction for riotous behaviour was proved. Commissionaries have now been posted at the doors of a number oi Glasgow public-houses to intercept would-be customers showing signs of having already indulged too much. An old gold miner residing at Ade-long-Crossing, Gundagai, New South Wales, has just celebrated his 102 nd birthday, and he enjoys fairly good health. He was the first discoverer of a quartz reef in the State, and he received a reward for finding paying gold at 1000 ft in the Lady Mary mine, Adelong.

The trustees and guardians of Shakespeare's birthplace report that last year 30,000 persons passed through the room, while nearly 15,000 had visited Anne Hathaway's cottage. Forty three nationalities were represented.

A bull fight took place at Roubaix, Prance, lately, where six bulls were slain and a horse was so badly wounded that it had to be despatched on the spot. The police are tal»iig precautions for infraction of the law against cruelty.

Permission has at length been given by the German authorities for women to attend political meetings. They must sit in special places, however, and makes no speeches.

Heaton Park, Lord Wilton's wellknown seat near Manchester, has been sold to the corporation of that city for £230,000. The greater part of the estate will be made into a park, and the outlying portions will be de veloped for building purposes.

A Bengal paper prints the following ingenuous advertisement:—" Wanted for marriage a fair girl, Hindu, Kayastha (Dakshinari), for a graduate student. Very respectable heiress apparent preferred. Address sharp, confidentially, to,'' etc.

The five-masted Preussen, described as the largest sailing ship in the world, has been launched at Geestemuende. The Preussen, which is of 8000 tons register, was built for the Hamburg shipping firm of Laeisa.

A working man, who was summoned at Birmingham for keeping a dog without a license, told the magistrate that he had since taken out a license, and in order to do so he had pawned his wife's wedding-ring.

Canon Fletcher, the vicar of Wrexham, has received £400 from Yale University towards the restoration of Wrexham Church tower, one of the " seven wonders of Wales." The gift is made in memory of Elihu Yale, founder of the University, whose tomb, with a quaint inscription, is in Wrexham Churchyard.

A painter working outside a second floor window of the Scotsman office, Edinburgh, was seen to relax his hold and fall backwards. For a moment it seemed that he would be dashed to pieces, but his feet caught in the win-dow-sill, and he hung head downwards until his fellow-workmen dragged him back into the room.

A St. Helens' upholsterer has found a note for £1000, which has been lost for half a century. Mr William Parker, the landlord of the Raven Hotel, Church Street, sent an old couch, which had been in the house during the regime of several landlords, to be upholstered. When the couch was being taken to pieces the note was found underneath the lining.

The Lord Mayor presided over the 84th annual meeting of the British'and Foreign Sailors' Society ab the Mansion House, and the company present included the Duke of Fife, the* Primate, Dr Parker, and " lan Maclaren." The new " sailors' palace," towards which Mr J. Passmore Edwards has given £12,000, has cost £36,000. Other donations amount to £12,000, leaving £11,000 still to be collected.

It is strikingly illustrative of British perseverance and fidelity to leaders that they have carried on a disastrous and enormously expensive war for nearly three years without a change of Ministry, and without doing injustice to generals who failed. They have endured their losses with dignity and patience, adhering firmly to their programme, be it right or wrong. This may be called mere obstinacy in a bad cause; but it implies a certain firmness and steadiness of character which have political value. —Baltimore Sun.