Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 6848, 25 March 1897, Page 3

Items.

Scene: Melbourne city watch-honse. Time, 0 a in. First prisoner to second ditto—" Them's a rough looking lot of drunks lined up this morning." Second ditto—" Them's not drunks; them's plainclothes coppers." A rather romantic wedding was celebrated at Mascerton on Friday, when a young man, who is seriously ill with typhoid fever and not expected to recover, was united to the lady of his choice.

Stated that an Australian Premier recently had the bailiffs in his house for city rates, and that when ho went to row the Town Clerk on the subject he wa3 shown to the door.

List month a hotel proprietor in the New South Wales backblocks was lined L 2-3 and costs for making a book on a horse race. After the case he caused a slight stir by hoisting a tlag half-mast. Then people called to hear who was dead. "Justice,'' said the hotelkeeper, to which a bushman replied: "About time, too ; she's been blind these 20 years." In Naples there exists a race of cats which live in the churches. They are kept and fed by the authorities on purpose to eat the mice which infest the buildings there. The anima's may often be seen walking the congregation, or sitting gravely before the altar during time of mass.

These are the kind of artesian wel's they set in Queensland. At Charleville a first ilow of 250,000 cnllons of water per day has been struck at a depth of 2823 feet.

"Pain is nothing but tho cry of a sufferinsr nerve for healthier blood.' ! Mr Charles Parker, an ex-M.H.R. for Motueka, celebrated his SSth birthday last week.

A proposal has been made in Brisbane to send 60 boys from that city State schools, comprising a physical drill team, to take part in the jubilee celebrations in England.

The Queen's "Diamond Jubilee" is to be celebrated in Canada by the organisation of "The Victorian Order of Home Helpers," the object of which will be to care for the sick and suffering. Lady Aberdeen, who has set the project on foot, says that her Majesty personally suggested this enterprise. A fund is to be started. Only women over 30 may join the Order as active members. They will receive for their services as nurses something like LI a week. It is proverbial in Canada, as it once was in Ireland, that whatever trood work Lady Aberdeen is interested in is sure to succeed. An American Court has declared that railway companies are compelled to carry bicycles as personal luggage without extra charge. Two ex Hawke's Bay runholders are now in Coolgardie, one keeping a publichouse and the other a butcher's shop. A c mtemporary points with misgivings to the fact that those Australasian colonies, containing about four million inhabitants, mean to borrow L 15,000,000 within the next year or so.

Baths of herbs and spices are now provided in Paris. People can have a lemonjuice lath, pine bath, milk bath, salt, barley, rosewater, eau-de-Co'ogne, or wine baths.

A bridegroom recently married in Kentucky was 103 years old, the bride being 101. The bridegroom was left a widower sixty years ago, and the venerable couple had known each other close upon a century. The death plant of Java has flowers which continually give ofi a perfume so powerful as to overcome, if inhaled for any length of time, a full-grown man, and which kills all forms of insect life that come under its influence.

A professional swimmer, while passing over the Tay Bridge in a train suddenly climbed on to the to top roof of a railway carriage clad in bathing costume and dived into the river below, a distance of 100 feet. He was taken on board by a steamer.

An incubator for weak and prematurely born infants Is now in use in an East London Mothers* Home. It was presented by a wealthy lady, who first successfully used it in her home for her own infant.

Four children at a birth is reported from Hull, three boys and a girl two of whom have died.

A new invention is to be tested in a few weeks at Providence, Rhode Island, an electric ship with fourteen propellers, designed to run forty-five miles an hour. The company engaged in fhe experiment claim that the Atlantic voyage can thus be shortened one-half, and that their peculiar motor, invented by a Mr Painton, greatly economises both machinery and feul. The widow of the late Mr Carson, of Belfast, who spent most of her time travelling between England and America on board the Lucania, has just died in New York. She bequeathed her entire fortune to the officers of that vessel, including LIO,OOO to her captain; her daughter, who opposed her mother's seagoing mania, receiving only L2OO. The London Times reports that in 33 civil cases which it investigated, in all of which the plaintiff won, the average amount recovered was L4l and the average costs were L9O. And the law is built just like that in the colonies. " The household virtues do not teach charity any more than the love of a tigress for her young makes her a domesticated annimal." —L. F. Austin.

Mr E. M. Smith, ex M.H.R., has applied for an increase of salary as Borough of New Plymouth lamplighter. A witness in the Wellington Magistrate's Court the other morning informed the Court that he learned two trades, but had never learned to write. On the Indian relief works, for every man employed in digging, three other persons—generally women, young lads, and girls, or men unaccustomed to manual labor—are occupied la carrying the excavated earth in flat baskets on their