General News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 838, 23 March 1888, Page 29

General News.

The two oldest trees of the world are supposed to be one in Calaveras Couuty, which is believed to be 2564 years aid, and the cypress of Somina, in Lombardy, Italy, which is 1911 years old, planted 8.0. 42. The latest thing in American railroad enterprise is tho “ bridegroom tickets ” of the Canadian Pacific. The north-west is full of young men who have gone to take up land ; but youDg women are scarce, and the cost of going back to the old provinces, getting married, and bringing back a wife keeps many of them single and retards the growth of population. Ko the C. P.R.R. is holding out an encouragement to matrimony by granting return tickets to young xnen, good for six months. If they come back with bride, accompanied with marriage certificates, the bride’s fare is refunded. J *. But the bride must be this season's crop—And the railway officials are supposed to be able to tell a nice fresh bride at sight from an old one of last year. Mr A. Boardman, writing in the New Zea--1 land Herald on the Auckland Harbor Board’s management, pays a decided compliment to our local Harbor Board. Ho says :—“ The great aim of the Wellington Harbor Board is to encourage shipping and commerce in every way in their power by carrying out, through, competent officials, what I have said are- the two cardinal features of harbor management, viz., the reduction of charges to a minimum and the increase to the greatest possible extent of facilities for.ship masters and exporters and importers to do their work in the least possible time, which of course is another way of lessening charges, for time is emphatically money in regard to loading and unloading ships, especially in these days of very expensively, worked large steamers. And Wellington benefits very largely by this wise management ; in fact, the good folks of the Empire City mean, by wise harbor management, to absorb as much as possible of the shipping trade of the Colony.” The correspondent of Le Temps at Sofia communicates to that journal the substance of an important conversation he had with a prominent member of the Bulgarian Ministry with respect tc the attitude .which his country would take in the event of war breaking out between Russia on the one hand and Germany and Austria on the other. In the opinion of this statesman, the former Power could not spare a very large force to operate against Bulgaria, and against a small army his countrymen were quite prepared and fully determined to defend themselves ; and the result of the conflict probably would be that Bulgaria would gain its independence, and rise to the rank of a kingdom. Possibly, also, it might, be iollowed by the formation of a great federation under the presidency of the House of Hapsburg. Why should not the Bulgarians, Roumanians, and Servians go to Vienna for tho discussion of their common affairs, he asked, just as the people of Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemburg, &c., now go to Berlin for a like purpose ? Sir Robert Walter Carden, who recently died in London, had a proprietary interest in The Times newspaper before he was born. The story is dramatic in its way. His father was a barrister in good practice, and married Jemima Walter, daughter of the first and sister of the second John Walter, proprietors of The Times. This paper had but lately changed its style and title, having been aforetime known as the Daily Universal Register. At the wedding breakfast of Mr Carden and Miss Walter, the father of the bride rose and proudly endowed her, as a marriage gift, with a column of advertisements in the young and rising journal. The particular column was the third, or as it is sometimes called now, the “ agony column ” ; and it is said that the family lawyer, who was present, but had not been consulted in this important matter, was not well pleased with Mr Walter’s impulsive generosity. Whatever the column in question was worth at that time, its commercial value must have vastly increased as the years rolled on, and little Master Robert came into the world proprietor of an undeveloped goldmine.

Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell’s lecture on Monday at the Theatre Royal was of a very interesting character. The lecturer’s intimate knowledge of Maori life and character, combined with the fact that ho was a spectator of so many stirring scenes in the past troublesome days, rendered his graphic description of incidents in Maori warfare doubly interesting His vivid word painting of a sensational interview with Kimbell Bent, the deserter, was most dramatic. The story of early Maori courtship in the Hoki&ngi district, and tho part he took in' rescuing a Maori maiden who bad been captured as a wife for the chief of a neighboring tribe, was very amusing. The lecturer paid a high tribute to the chivalry existing amongst the Natives by the story of an incident which happened in General Chute’s time in Auckland. The explanation of the origin of the Hau Hau religion and the recitation of the chant of the Hau Han priests was very amusing. The lecturer passed rapidly from highly dramatic pathos to broad sketchy points of humor, which seemed to highly amuse his audience. We were sorry to see such a moderate attendance. In a leader on the state of trade in this Colony, the Melbourne Argus says “ But a colony in Austra'asia has only to wait, and the cloud rolls by. New Zealand is not in the straits which Queensland was in when, twenty years ago, her Government found it difficult to raise money at 10 per cent., aud the mortgagees and the owners of property were equally confounded. We mav predict with the utmost confidence that she has only to economise and to tide over present troubles as best she can, and her splendid national resources will soon re-assert themselves. In these new countries wo must take gloom and sum»*-' iua as they come. The one lesson to * - L from the New Zealand situ**' Q ' -f “£££ "SeT”; w n“ion e,ed“ by, av frnmfiq -*es in public expenditure Xinna '' * n . strife, inasmuch as it is °bv U chaf; i n om . p regen t stage of developmer c—when, we are. largely > dependent Capital for the development of V U *^J res ;'ffirces —the public credit ia tho [ q£ QUV progress as a com(.Sanity,” * jT ;