The Oamaru Mail. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1908.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10009, 27 November 1908, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1908.

The police require an owner for a silk scarf, picked up in Thames street yesterdav.

Yesterday Messrs W. Sumpter and J. Mitchell, on behalf of the Waitaki Acclimatisation Society, visited the Ivauroo river for the purpose of liberating a large number of young trout that had been entrapped in the pools left in the river bed by the receding water, and amongst which, especially the iarger ones, -greathavoc was being wrought by hawks and -gulls. Messrs Sumpter and Mitchell were successful in freeing some thousands, but there, are still many to be handled before the work can be said to have been fully accomplished. At the Dunedin show Mr W. Gardiner scooped the pool in aged- mares with Daisy Bel land Princess Fanny. At the meeting of the Education Board yesterday, the resignation of Miss Annie Reid as head teacher at Kokoamo was accepted.—The request of the Kakanui settlers that their properties be included in the, Kakanui. school district was agreed to.' The combined school entertainment; which was given recently with such magnificent success, was repeated last- evening at the Opera House, with the idea of benefiting, the Hospital funds. There was again a large attendance, the door takings amounting to about £2O, added to which a large number of tickets had been disposed of. As the amount paid ; over to the trustees will earn a 24s in the £ "subsidy, the fmtds of the local Hospital will be considerably augmented. The programme was similar to that previously given, and the various juvenile items entered with a spirit that could only result from careful preparation. Vocal solos were rendered by Mrs Batson and Mr F. Williams, a violin solo by Miss Eva Jones, North School, and a skirt dance bv Miss 1). Winsley. The Waitaki Boys' High School, under Mr Burry, gave two instrumental selections, and Mr Hunter's band supplied the orchestral music. At- the conclusion of tnc programme, Mr M'Douall, on behalf of the Hospital Trustees, thanked the performers and all who by their attendance and help in any way had contributed to the success of the entertainment. The services of the Opera House staff was given gratuitously. Mr John Lemmone, .under whose direction Madame Melba is to tour Australasia next year, was in Oamaru to-day preparing for the reception of the diva, who will give a concert here on April 19th. Madame will leave England on January 22nd, after her return from America, where she will go on a four weeks' tour in December. She will give 100 concerts in Australasia, and her declaration to Mr Lemmone is : "T want to sing everywhere, as 1 shall never undertake a tour of such prov>ortions again." The Japanese mail steamer Kuniano Maru, which arrived at- Sydney last wick from the East, brought news that the American Fleet, which visited New Zealand and Australia, passed through a- severe typhoon in the Japan Sea. The Kumano Man*, met the squadron 18 miles out of Kobe, on October 17th, and they all bore tracos of having had a severe buffeting in the storm. Several of the ships. Captain Mathieson states, presented a badly battel ed appearance. Some of them had lost their masts, and boats and decks and fittings had been &wept away. It was reported that several of the crew had been carried overboard. Just before the Fleet reached Yokohama, a greatstorm burst over the city. A deluge of rain fell, destroying much of the lavisn decoration, whilst a- gale of wind played havoc with the fine arches erected.

Pean Irefroy. who lias expressed the opinion that t.e:' minutes is .long enough for a sermon, wj-.;kl have met with scant sympathy from some divines of past centuries. Thomas Hooker considered three hours a fair average, allowance for a sermon, though, on one occasion, when he was ill, he let his 'congregation off more lightly. Pausing at the end of fifteen minutes, he rested a while and then continued his homily for two hours longer. Crammer's sermons were each a small book when, set up in type; and Baxter, Knox, Bunyan and Calvin rarely reached "Lastly, my brethren," under two hours. George Herbert once said 1 : "The parson exceeds not an hour in preaching, because all ages have thought that a competency" : but a. certain rector of Bil•bury, Gloucestershire, was of another opinion, for he never sat 'down under two hours. The squire, we learn, usually withdrew after the text was announced, smoked his pipe outside and, returned for the blessing. Kiamil Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks and the present Grand Vizier, is by birth a Jew, but became a Mohammedan when a boy through his father's conversion. Although about 75 years old he is a man with very modern ideas, having served his country as Governor of Syria, as Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and also as Grand Vizier. He is a great traveller and a wonderful linguist, speaking English, Hebrew, Greek, German, French, and of course Arabic and Turkish. He is the most accomplished statesman in Turkey ito-day. He has always been favorable to Jewish migrations into the Ottoman Empire. In 1890 and 1891, when l)r Cyrus Adler visited Turkey, he was then the Grand Vizier, and Dr Adler spent some time in his company, talking to him about the Jews and their troubles in Russia and' elsewhere. He was very sympathetic. He told Dr Edlar that the Sultan was entirely willing to have the Jews migrate to Palestine, for they made good subjects. It was undesirable for many to come at one time because the country was not in. condition to absorb considerable numbers rapidly. He suggested that Syria and- Mesopotamia, being less settled than Palestine and better able to absorb large populations, might be more favorable regions for settlement. The only real objection he had to the migration of Jews or other foreigners to the Ottoman Empire was their habit of retaining citizenship in the countries from which they came. Thus they did not assume any obligations to the Ottoman Empire, and might, on the other hand, involve it in dispute with other nations,

The great autumnal exodus of birds is nearly over. For weeks past it has been going on, cuckoos, swifts, flycatchers, and nightingales leading the way, followed byswallows, martins, nightjars, and a score of_others, while the rear will be broughtup' in about a fortnight's time by the duff ■chaff, which is always the first to come and the last to go. One very curious feature in this annual migration is the fact that the bir-s never fly straight from England to their destination in Egypt cr Arabia. They follow a zigzag course. First of all. crossing the Channel at certain specified points, they make for Northern Germany, where the great gathering of the feathered clans takes place. There the vast host breaks up in four divisions, the first flying south-west through France and Spain to the Straits of Gibraltar ;' the second due south to the Gulf of Genoa, and thence across Corsica and Sardinia >to Tunis; the third a little more to the east, so as to pass down Italy and through Sicily to Tripoli, while the fourth goes south-east through Austria and Greece, and so by way of Crete to Alexandria. Then, on reaching the African coast, they all turn due east and 1 fly straight on till they reach their winter haunts. The reason why the birds adopt these strangely circuitous routes is simply that- they hate crossing the sea,' and always prefer an overland journey, although it may be Tery much longer. And their -great idea- is to make the passage of both the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea at the narrowest points. So they willingly fly an extra thousand miles or so by land, both in autumn and again in- spring, in order to avoid a flight of fifty or sixty miles across the water. And nothing will turn them from these old ancestral "fly lines," which seem to date back to the time when the Mediterranean was a series of lakes and Britain was connected 1 with Denmark by means of the Dogger Bank. To cure any kind of headache in twenty minutes take Stearns' Headache Cure. Gives positive relief and leaves the head ''clear ;\s a bell." No bad effects, no narcotic drugs. 2 A movement to connect nearly all the groups of islands in the South Pacific by a system of radiotelegraphy is on foot, according to The Western Electrician (Chicago, September 12). Says this paper: "It is proposed to include in this system Australia, New Zealand, and the Fiji group as well as the New Hebrides, the Solomon, Samoan, Cook, Society, and Marquesa Islands, and the phosphate islands of Ocean, Pleasant, and Makatea. It is expected that the various Governments having possessions in the South Pacific will aid in the establishment of the proposed system. Negotiations have already proceeded so far that the success of the efforts seems to be almost- assured, savs Mr J. D. Drehcr, the United States Consul in Tahiti. As the nearest available ocean-cable office to Tahiti is at Auckland, 2250 miles away, from which a steamship arrives at Papeete once every twenty-eight days, and a direct communication by steamship with San Francisco, 3658 miles distant, is had once in every thirty-six days, it will be understood how deeply interested the French colony of Tahiti and its dependencies arc in the complete success of these negotiations. The name of the proposed company is the Pacific Islands Radiotelegraph Company. Of the proposed capital of £68.000, the owners of the phosphate-deposits on Ocean and Pleasant islands have subscribed about one-seventh. In this radial system there will probably be ten or twelve circles, the largest having a radius of 1250 miles, and requiring for each station an engine of 60 horse-power. It has not yet been decided where the main office of the proposed company will be.'' The power to fascinate is to be found in the new set of prices which came into force with the great Wnite Sale at Penrose's. Concessions in the price of white goods at the commencement of summer are doubly acceptable to the public, and doubtless the public will be alert enough to take the full advantage that the white sale offers. To deny yourself a few purchases at the White Sale makes you out of pocket sooner or later! surely its, your loss if you miss such bargains as these: — Sample 42 inches wide cream woollen delaine : usual price Is lid, White Sale price Is The next quality is also 42 inches wide, but a heavier quality, and is especially suitable for dresses; usual value 2s 3d, White Sale price Is 9d yard. In white muslins for children's dresses, etc., we are showing an exceptionally good line at Sid yard ; it is v -:'.' th double the price: it can be had in lar-'e or small spots, with sprays or with snipes. Fine quality highly mercerised mousseline-de-sole in white and crsam, double width, 44 inch; special White Sale price 9Jd, worth Is 4d vard. All White Goods reduced.—PENßOSE'S White Sale. Florists have thus far tried, in vain to produce a blue rose, although they have not given up hope. A black one, we are told in La Nature, was shown in the flower show opened on July 4 last- in the Botanical Gardens, Regent's Park. London, where no less than two thousand different varieties of roses were on- exhibition. Says the paper just named-: "One of the directors of the Garden, Mr Hawes, stated in his opening address that the great rose family had been -increased by 450 members in the space of three years. Unfortunately, among those 450 new varieties, we do not yet find the blue rose which so many specialists have vainly tried to produce for a number of years. According to Mr Hawes, this result, so ardently pursued, is near at hand. We may already admire at the exhibition a rose that is almost- black, whose very dark red has bronze reflections. The transition from black to blue is only a question of time." The Mayor of Doncaster (Alderman J. F. Clark) has published- correspondence explaining why he was not presented when the King attended the races in that town. Ho received a- telegram from Mr L. V. Harcourt, M.P., who was at Rufford Abbey with the King, in the following terms: "I wish to present you to the King to-day, if you will meet me at foot of lift leading to Royal box, immediately after Leger race to-day." To this the Mayor replied by a telegram saying he much regretted he was unable to avail himself of the honor so kindly offered, following this by an explanatory letter, in the course of which he sa-id': — "It. would, indeed, have been a- great honor, which I should! have looked back upon all my life with the greatest gratification, as I ha.ve a profound respect and regard for our most gracious King, whom* I desire to honor in every way as one: of his most loyal subjects. Though I have livcdi in Doncaster all my llife, I have never once attended the races, and did not therefore feel that I could consistently break through the rule even for 60 great an honor." The Mayor is a. member of the Soeietv of Friends." Mr GEORGE ROBINSON, Dental Surgeon, may be consulted at his residence, EDEN STREET (opposite Wesley Church).