Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 5952, 23 May 1894, Page 4

Items.

9 The oil tank screw steamer Baku Stan dard, 3700 tons burden, has arrived at Avonmouth, Bristol, after solving the problem of steaming long ocean voyages by using oil for fuel instead of coal. She was built a few months ago, and her bunkers were fitted up for oil or coal, and she was equipped with all the appliances for using oil in her furnaces. After a trial trip from Newcastle to Dartmouth, she steamed to America, and has now recrossed the Atlantic from Philadelphia, using oil only out and home, the first steamer which has thus crossed the Atlantic. Excavations at the recently-discovered ancient necropolis at Sebastopol have thus far proved very fruitful in valuable relics and antiques in metals and in precious stones. Many gold medallions and statuettes in marble have a high artistic value. The last discovery is a beautifully worked mosaic floor of a Greek temple, raised, according to the inscription on a pedestal, to Dion, by his son, Antibion, "after his father." The necropolis is said to have belonged to a Greek colony existinjr there between 400 b.c. and 200 A.D. The Government is apportioning a sum of money to provide a special museum at Sebastopol for the reception and public exposition of these interesting relics. Miss Hilda Hitchings third" daughter of the late Dr Hitchings, of Napier, is the champion tennis player of Hawke's Bay. It is remarkable (says the New Zealand Graphic) to see one so severely handicapped by physical infirmity—for Miss Hitchings has but one arm, and that her left—display such ability. Standing five feet eleven in her shoes, she has a commanding reach. Her great forte in the game is placing. She played a match against Miss Speers, the present champion of New Zealand, and defeated her. Besides her tennis ability, she can paint, play the piano, make all her own dresses, and writes an elegant hand, and better than all, is well versed in those domestic duties which make the salt of life, and without a knowledge of which no girl can be called educated. A terrible snake story comes from India. A young woman had recently given birth to her first child. One afternoon she w:ss sitting in a low rocking chair placed in a shady corner of the verandah. Her maid lay asleep on the floor, and she, with the baby, now a month old, laid in her lap, presently succumbed to the heat of the day, and slept too—slept long and heavjly. She heard no sound; she was disturbed by no movement; but woke suddenly to find her baby gone and an enormous python lying gorged at her feet. As she sprang from the chair, the snake struck her on the breast, inflicting a jageed wound, and then sped off down the hillside. Witt a.wild cry, the poor creature fell > to bareftGl reason Horn that momßht;