Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 7495, 19 April 1899, Page 4

Items.

Captain Martin, a retired shipmaster, resident ab Kaiwarra (saya the New Zealand Times), has imported from Norway a patent lighthouse on a small scale, such as is in vogae in Scandinavia for showing the eD trance to the numerous fiords and harbors that abonnd around the coasts. The light is obtained from a reservoir of kerosene, and will burn for a week, night and day, without attention. A disc of red glass revolves round tlie lamp, throwing a correspondingly red light once in every ten seconds, estimated to be visible in fair weather at a distance of six miles. The lamp consumes only a quart of kerosene in 24 hours, and as the attendance needed is next to nothing, the cost of maintenance is as cheap as the most economical could consider. Captain Johnson (harbormaster), Captain. Kennedy. Messrs Wheeler and Cook journeyed to Kaiwarra on Tuesday evening, and after several tests, expressed themselves highly pleased with the results. Recently, about nine o'clock, a belated costermonger's barrow, drawn by a donkey, passed over Woterloo Bridge northwards. On its offside it carried a halfpenny paper lantern. " Wot," cried a handsom cabdriver at the inevitable check at the Strand, "d'yer call thit a light ?" " Yus," was the instant retort; "the lor calls it er light, but we calls it a hillumination."