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Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 122, 31 May 1910, Page 2

The result of the first shipment of fruit grown in this district to thei London market may be considered rather more than satisfactory alike byi growers and those interested in the initial step of what promises to develop into an important department of the export trade of Nelson (remarks the Colonist). It was not anticipated by anyone that any record in prices would be eclipsed by the firstconsignment. Had there been anysuch expectation it would have heen foredoomed to disappointment, for there is much in shipping to a distant and unfamiliar market which can be learnt only by experience. Tasmanian fruit exporters encountered many setbacks before their fruit worn its way to popular favour in London,, and realised the handsome prices it now fetches as a matter of course.

While admitting that marked improvement is shown in the methods of treatment of the various school subjects, complaint is made by the school inspectors of Otago (reports a Southern exchange), that too muck is done for the pupils, and that they are not being made to understand the value of self-help and self-reliant work. TKey say: "It is surely one of the functions of the school to train children to learn how to learn, andl the peptonising process to which they jre.in J . many cases object can never do that."

+v i° A, uekland Observer says thafc the local Herald was badly hoaxed by certain labor men into positivelr declaring that negotiations wereafoot for a coalition between theMasseyite reactionaries and the Labor party. Some time ago a Herald reporter, disguised as a laborer, wenfc to a Trades and Labor Council meeting in Auckland and "wrote up" & report, of the meeting. This actioa was very much resented at the time. In revenge a Herald reporter was button-holed" and shown certaitf telegrams purporting to come from* tne Opposition and suggesting si coalition "Grandma grabbed them eagerly," says the Observer, "and spread herself in much copy over them while the wicked laborite* chuckled in their sleeves and chortled over, the sweetness of revenge." And that is how political history is madet A company is expected to be registered within a few days for the exploitation of the Chatham Island blue cod fisheries. The trade was about to be inaugurated by the ill-fatedl steamer Duco. However, the enterprise will now be begun anew, and it is expected to be in full working order m three? or four months from date. Australian interests in the proposed new Chatham Islands Fishing Company have been taken up. thus assuring a good market for the fish in the Commonwealth. Cool chambers are to be erected at the Chathams for the reception of the fish caught. The Nora Niven, which has been specially built for trawling m New Zealand waters, will probably be chartered by the new company. As she has also cool .storage, and the Union Company's intercolonial steamers are similarly fitted, the fish should arrive in Australia in» good condition.

A Parisian journal claims for at magistrate who recently died i» France that he was the fattest and!, heaviest man in the world. He> weighed 40st 71b, and was so stout that he could neither walk nor get into a carriage, and proceeded to> and from his office in a two-wheeled? car, which .was lowered, with . theshafts in the air, so as to place hist back on the floor and to be raised" after desperate exertion. A strong; horse was then harnessed to the car, and so the magistrate made the little? journeys in a recumbent posture. IH is added that a window had to be» demolished to get the coffin out of the house for the funeral, and that, as no hearse could have met the» emergency, a 'huge and very solid cart had, to be used to take it to the church and the cemetery.