ITEMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XV, Issue 7883, 13 July 1900, Page 4

ITEMS.

) Nasty rumors are getting abroad about j the conduct of Do Beers during the siege l of >Kimberley.. On©, story is. that there '■ was great friotion: between a civil poteni{ tate and tli6 Colonel in command. Keke- > wick is said to have declined to drink [ champagne and eat tinned truffles when the people were starving on horseflesh, and s the babies and children were dying "like flies" for want of farinaceous food and.milk. Be is also said to-have raided" De Beers' r premises often and vainly in order to. find the secret stock of luxuries, on which certain notables were living gorgeously to pass it over to the Children's Hospital. "Tangata-mata" : The future Premier of Maoriland is not hard to pick. Big M'Kenzie, the rugged, blundering, but able ' Minister for Lands has been lying at his home in tlie South Island for weeks past, ' and it is feared he will never "again take office. Seddon has also been burning the 1 candle at both ends. The old strength that used to. enable him to strap himself to the bos-seat of a coach and .sleep in that position, for hours as he bumped-over a trough road, and yet be ready for middeputations ■ (whilst . his cursing, sleepy secretary could hardly stand), is gone. He and M'Kenzie promisa to be listed with • the rest of M.L; political martyrs that have succumbed in harness—Atkinson, Ballance, and many others. Meanwhile the whole burden and heat is falling upon Joseph Ward, the resuscitated one, and be • holds up the whole log well. He is just now Colonial Secretary, Postmaster-Gene-|tol, acting-Premier, Minister of Railways, jaikl a host of other things besides. He [has become, immensely popular with all fclasses, and Seddon affectionately alludes to{him as "My toy, the coming Premier.'' Ward is undoubtedly the strong man of ;the Seddf>n party, and sis months hence '•wiH hisu on top-- | A visitor to the Wanganm Museum wrote [to joajujivregrettiog that ft looted

Boer Bible Bhould find place among tho curios of that institute, and' asserted that "Trooper sho.uld be asked to restore it, if possible, to the family whose, birth registers it ■ contains."