BRIEF MENTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 249, 21 October 1903, Page 2

BRIEF MENTION.

Traces of frost this morning. Low temperature throughout the colony last night.

South east gale in the Far North at 9 a.m.

New Licensing Bill was tabled in the House last night.

The prohibitionist trio—Ell, Bedford, and Taylor—were agin it.

According to the Premier the Bill is not likely to please extremists, but should prove satisfactory to moderates. We shall see.

The Victorian Polo Association has agreed to receive a visit from a New Zealand team in March next.

By a buggy accident at Knmara a day or two ago the Eev. Father O'Hallahan had his coliar-bono and two ribs broken.

Italian Marconigrams have been working between Pekin and Taku.

Dr. H. M. Wilson, son of a wellknown Napier business man, has received the appointment of Assistant Medical Officer at the Wellington Hospital.

Five ewes on Mr France's farm at Milburn, Otago, gave birth to seventeen lambs, Three ewes had four lambs each, one had three, and one two.

The Rangitikei farmers have arranged for a veterinarian, a graduate of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, to commence practice in the district.

At least 500 acres of land in the Eketahuna district have been cleared within the last few months by means of a new explosive.

" Yes, I remember him," said Alkali Ike. '• He died very sndden." " Heart disease ?" asked the Eastern tourist. " Waal, now, I don't know as you kin say it was the heart any morn the club, spade, or diamond. Any way, he dealt hisself four aces."

" Whoever first said that ail's fair in love and war was assuredly no gentleman."—From "A Man of Letters," by Sir George Donglas.

The Clufcha Leader learns that a local business man intends embarking on poultry farming on a large scale at an early date, and has already secured a farm of about a hundred acres for that purpose near Balclutha.

Banks: " I don't mind the influenza itself so much ; it's the after-effects T'm afraid of." Rivers ; " The aftereffects is what ails me. I'm still dodging the doctor for twenty-five shillings."

" Two excellent kinds of wine mixed together may make a very bad drink. An excellent man and a very good woman married together may make an abominable match."—From "Rambles in Womanland," by Max O'Bell,

The co operative workmen engaged on the Mangaweka viaduct wore jast celebrating the placing in position of the last girder when about 20 of them received notice that their services were not longer required.

We use either too much or too little philosophy. It's too much when we reckon on Providence fillin' up de 'tater-bin next winter, an' it's too little when we crawl tinder de canvas at a circus an* git cotched at it.

London maidservants have felt the blight of competition lately. A number of cheap foreign boys were imported to London to do their work, and the girls held a mass meeting in Hyde Park and called on the Government to protect English women-ser-vants.

There was a pious man who one day died And passed to judgment. Born to wealth, his lot

On earth had been with those who labored not.

Bat he had kept himself from worldly pride, Had hated sin, and sinners ; and had tried To let no evil word nor action blot His earthly record. Valiantly (in thought) He battled ever on fair virtue's side. * # ■ * ■ *

Expectant now before the judgment throne, He waited there the nimbus for his bead,

Till some strange force compelled sin to recoil. "Avaunt from me I" God cried in thunder tone.

"' And six days shalt thou labor/ I have said;

Death keeps no crown for those who do not toil." '

After a Swiss Judge had pronounced a decree of divorce, the couple showed their gratitude by embracing in court, after which the ex husband entertained bis ex-wife and a few friends to a " separation " dinner at a restaurant.

Uncle Reuben says:—" Now an' den I h'ar a man deolarin' dat life am a failure, or axin' if life am wufch de libin'. In sich cases I allus figger dat he's found he can't borry any mo' money, or dat his father-in-law has axed him to go out an' aim his own board."

The Medical Association of Mexico will send to the St. Louis Exhibition an uncanny plant, which grows wild in the State of Michoacon, and the aroma of which is said to make people lose their way and to render them unable to return to their homes until the smell ceases. A person wearing a sprig of this plant in his buttonhole will get lose in his native city.

Farmer Summergrass : " Darn me if I'd ever believe it ud be so foggy in New York 'f I hadn't seen it. What's the matter with your machinery, anyway?" New Yorker: "What do you mean ?" Farmer Summergrass: "Why, you talk so much about your skyscrapers—now why don't the blamed things work?"