Miscellaneous.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 932, 10 January 1890, Page 15

Miscellaneous.

New Steamers for the New Zealand Trade.—By the English mail, advices were received that the Shaw, Savill and A-bion Company’s second i»w cargo Bteamer Was to be launched about the 20th October. Her length is 330 ft between perpendiculars, and 34Sft over all. Her mean draught, with 4400 tons weight on board, will be 23ft, and as her cargo of frozen meat, wool, &c , and coals will not exceed 2700 tons weight, she should not draw more than from 20 to 21ft when leaving New Zealand. Ihe vessel has been called the Matatua. Ihe same Company’s third new steamer is smaller, her length being 342 ft between perpendiculars, while she will draw, when loaded with New Zealand cargo, about a foot less than the Matatua. She is expected to be launched in December, and is very similar in dimensions and general con. struction to the s.s. Bayley now in the colonial trade. The s.s. Matnari was being rapidly filled up when the mail loft, an( l i** was anticipated that, in addition to her accommcidation for 38,000 carcases mutton and a cool chamber of 150 tons measurement, she will have space for about 4500 bales wool. Freight being scarce to the Colony, the Matnari had to load a cargo of rails from Barrow to Algoa Bay, after discharging whicb she proceeds in ballast to New Zealand.

The Little Grey Foxes. —The San Francisco correspondent of toe Auckland Herald says board two dozen little grey foxes, which were ordered some time ago by the New Zealand Government, through Mr R. J. Creighton, the local agent. These little animals will be tried as rabbit exterminators, and everyone in California who knDWS their habits is confident that they will go a long way toward solving the rabbit pest question. These animals are to be found only on the small islands to the westward of the southern coast of California, and even there they are not at all common, and are very difficult to capture. They five on rabbits, mice, and all sorts of small animals, but they have not been known to disturb the sheep on any of the islands. None of these lib' le animals have ever been brought over to the mainland and set free, and the naturalists of the State generally regard them as a unique and comparatively harmless variety of the fox tribe. To those whose ideas of foxes are obtained from the ordinary red or grey animals these little fellows will prove a surprise. They are not nearly strong enough to touch a lamb, and a good game rooster can give one all the fight it wants. Mr Creighton feels hopeful that they will do excellent service in exterminating rabbits, and that the expense in getting them will be amply repaid.” The Aucklan i Star says; “These foxes are the first of a number imported from America by Sir James Hector, on behalf of the New Zealand Government, for the purpose of ascertaining their value in destroying the pest of rabbit 3in the Colony. Opinions differ as to whether the remedy would not be worse thau the disease.” They will have to be taken on to Sydney, and it has been suggested that they should be tendered as an unexpected donation to the Acclimatisation Society’s Gardens there. To Advertisers. — The following ingenuous doggerel appeared not long ago in the Transvaal (South .- fricn) Daily News : Please Remember. Little drops of printer’s ink, A little type displayed, Make our merchant princes And all their big parade. Little bits of stinginess. — Discarding printer's ink— Burst the man of business, And see his credit sink. School Troubles. —The New York Sun says a public school in Troy, JN.Y., has been closed because the building was overrun with fleas. When the school was closed for tho summer vacation none of the lively little insects were in the building. About two weeks before school opened for the fall term, however, the janitor found the floors and walls covered with fleas. He swept them up by pailfuls. The School Board, had the school opened in September, when there was trouble. One hundred pounds of sulphur were burned, but this did not drive away the fleas, although it did many of the pupils. Next, large quantities of carbolic acid were sprinkled through the building, and this made three of the teachers and a number of the scholars sick, and they left.