NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 326, 30 January 1908, Page 2

NEWS ITEMS.

At a meeting of the University Senate resolutions ;were passed placing on record the senate's regret at the loss by death of Sir James Hector, the Rev. J. 0. Andrew, and Mr W. D. Milne. From all accounts the burial pf the late John Taiaroa, a southern Maori chief, near,; Dunedin, was responsible for a scene that stands to the shame of many of the European spectators. The Otago Daily Times describes these individuals as "dense, ignorant, heartless pakeha savages, who possess no more delicacy of feeling than to treat the solemn rite a noble race accords its dead as a grotesque exhibition got amuse them gratis." "Two pounds Home is equal to three pounds or three pounds ten in New Zealand," said a pastrycook, a recent arrival from the Old Country, at the Christchnrcli sitting of the Conciliation Boara. "I was getting two pounds a week when I left, and came here for two pound ten, and lam much worse off. You can get a good house at Home for five shillings a week. Here I have to pay fifteen shillings for one not so good."

(The new disciplinary law regarding the sacrament of marriage, decreed by the Pope, under date August 2nd, 1907, will come into operation on Easter Sunday. Among other provisions it states that in future mixed marriages between Roman Catholics and Protestants must be celebrated by the pastor of the parochial districts in which they take place. Such marriages, if celebrated in Protestant Churches or in the registry office, will be regarded as null aud void by the Roman Catholic Church, although they will, of course, as formerly be perfectly valid provided they do not contravene the lav»s of the State.

r j lie evils of overtime were dwelt upon by some of Uunedin's leading manufacturers in the course of a series of interviews with a. reporter of the Otago Daily Times. Overtime, it was urged, was no good to anybody, being merely the lesser of two evils. An unlimited amount of work and a limited number of hands to do it left only two alternatives: overtime, or leaving the work undone. It was stated that it was costly to the employers, and that the employees were unable to do their best work hours; also, that working late had the effeot of making the hands listless next day. One Dunedin firm liau , been working to the full limit of overtime for the last eight months.tiaMiidtaw— Who believes in dreams? At Pizzo, in Calabria, Italy, a peasant, named Braccala dreamed that he saw his son, 20 years old, being attacked by two men, who were stabbing him with knives. In a state of great agitation Braccala awoke, and, arousing his wife, told her what he had seen. The woman endeavoured to calm him, but while they were I still discussing the matter a knock came at the front door, and hastening down Madame Braccala opened, the door justj.in time to catch her son in her arms as lie fell swooning iato the room. He had been attacked, ami t,cubbed in no fewer than ten places, aud was covered with blood. The unfortunate young man died shortly afterwards. 3r»".".'!a- t£S£rT!<US!.~■. 1 .'■■ l »"g ■» •-Mr Keir Hardie, on arrival in Tasmania from Nesv Zealand, stated to an interviewer that lie was thinking of advising his two sons (both engineers) to settle in New Zealand. "Maoriland is certainly the best country on earth for the workers," lie said. 'The people are slowgoing, cautious (yes, Scotch, if you like), yet have proceeded further along Socialistic lines than stay other people. A brainy organiser or two could lift Maoriland into the position of an earthly paradise. The agitators there don't seem to me to quite fill the bill. They are mostly imported men, and make the mistake of talking to the fairly prosperous Maorilanders about 'chains' and 'slavery,' which, however applicable such terras might be to the very poor of Old World industrial centres, are really not understood in New Zealand.''