OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9106, 4 May 1891, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

♦ NEWS, GOSSIP, AND ADS. Saturday^ heavy hailstorm put an end for the day to ontdoor sports. From Greymouth last week there was exported 4090 tons of coal, and from Westport 4536 tons. Sergeant-major Towler is to be removed from Mosgiel to Dunedin, and, in addition to being drill instructor, will act as defence storekeeper. The Taieri Horticultural Society did not quite pay its way last year, and to square accounts the fixed deposit had to be trenched upon. The prize list is to be cut down, and 3d charged for exhibits. Mr Charters was re-elected president, and Mr J. C. Hodges vice-president. The hospital returns for the past week are :— Remaining from the previous week, 70; admitted during the week, 9; discharged, 12; deaths, nil; total remaining in the institution, 73. The Tuapeka Times understands that all the rabbit and stock inspectors who have been in charge of provincial districts throughout the colony have been reduced in 3tatus, and, what is of sadder significance, their salaries have fallen with their dignity. Mr Douglass, who was chief inspector for Otago, has been trans ferred to Timaru, and his salary reduced from £350 to £200 a year, the same rule being applied all round. The Wellington Post describes the local Rugby Union's inquiry into the chargeß of using foul language as a hollow pretence, and the committee's action recalls the old chestnut about a sapient justice before whom a man was accused of stealing a pig. Three witnesses swore to seeing him commit the act. Ten were found to swear they did not see him steal the porker, and the justice dismissed the case, as the weight of evidence was in favour of tbe accused. Lord Tennyson, in answer to a note from the World's Fair Auxiliary Association tendering him honorary membership, and suggesting that he should write a song for the opening, wrote as follows: —" I accept your offer of honorary membership not without gratitude; but as for a song, I am an old man verging on 82 and cannot promise." The latest census story is that of a boarder about to leave volunteering to fill in his landlady's census paper. Having obtained particulars concerning all In the house, be retired to his room and described his hostess as" 55, divorced, bashmaker, idiotic, native of Kilnenny, and a fanatical Roman Catholic." A very swell master-hairdresser, who resided in the establishment, was put down as a " shearer," and a civil servant, who thinks no small beer of himself, was described as "Boots and generally useful." The fraud was only discovered when the census collector arrived and started to check the returns.