GENERAL NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10755, 20 March 1897, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS

The death is announced of Mrs B. Carson, widow of Mr Samusl Car3on, of Belfast, who during the latter portion of her life speafc much of her time travelling between England and New York, chiefly on baard the Lucauia. The will has been Hied at Belfast. It is stated she bequeaths the bulk of her fortune to ths officers of the Lueania, including a bequest of £10,000 to Capi-aiQ M'Kay. She leaves £5000 each to her bankers in New York aud Belfast.

An American electrical journal gives a wonderful picture of an ice-eabcing steamship, invented by one of ihe numerous BsducPowells as a means of getting to the North Pole. The vessel itself is of the cigar-shaped, armour-plated pattern, with a long spindle in front resembling the horn of a narwhal, on which three circular cutters are revolving furiously, scattering ice and water like a demonstration of fireworks. Tee eugiise power oF this remarkable vessel is put at 15Q0 h.p., and the fuel, which is ti be stored in every available corner not occupied by food, consists of petroleum.

A sad drowning case is reported from Akaura, on the West Coast. Mr Johnston, a. widower and a fanner, left his uouse So go for (be cows, but forgot to put up the board sofoss the doorway always used to keep tbe children ia the ho:ise. On bin return he m:ssed the eldest eirl, and asking another child where she was received the reply that she was at the water hole playing with a stick. The father went to the place only to find the poor child's body floating head downwards in about 18iu of water quite dead.

According to the Wairarapa Daily Times, in order to make some room in the Parliamentary Library 30 great cases were packed with voium.s of newspaper... A celi~ -x-i rented under an insurance building on f^e reclaimed ground aud the cases stored there. It is below bipb-ivater mark, and the damp will very soon mildew and rot the contents of the cas-s. As rent has to bel paid, anyhow, it would have seemed a more reasonable proceeding if the committee had hired a dry room. The pipeiM are even now of great value, and will become more so with the progress o£ time.

It will be remembered that a little mote than a week ago Stewart Monteith, a Reefton brewer, was fined £50 and bad his brewery, plant, &?.., confiscated for a breach of the Bsor Dut3' Act. According to the local papers it has now been found that when the barrets of beer (the non-stamping of which was the offence alleged) left the. brewery they were properly stamped, and the error in the stamp record, which "rrved to prove the charge, was" a clerical one. The Government have remitted the forfeiture of the sfccck and plant oa payment of the fine and costs and costs of possession.

The Marlborou^h paper ,:rjo k ,u--t for the !»st 18 months there has been lying ou the . jacn at the Blind River a .-<; We shipment of V ie, rotting in tbe open air, aud liable iv case

. an exceptionally high tide to be swept away. it was intended for the construction of bridges and culverts on the Bind River estats; (purchase J uc^er the Lauds for Settlement ■ Act), br the settlers possess neither roada nor culverts, and the cousequence has been that in the middle of the summer the waggons have repeatedly been bogged all night in the same spot and a (fouple of valuable horses losfc. Though opened for settlemeut two years, only about £100 has actually beeu spent in road construction, while on the Cheviot estate "37,000 has been sp»r.fc

The Sidney "pushes" who have of late taken to petroiiising cricket, with disastrous results to decent, law-abidiag people," hava found in Mr Addison, S.M , a magistrate preuared to deal with them. Recently four members of a^'punb" were before him. Sydney llivers, for riotous nomine & snd profaue Janguitge si-t Wcnfcworth Park criekrt ground, was .fined £3 wU.h the aiferuatWe of two months, aud for a<ishnhii;g the police /sent to prison for six month;! .Tamus Le.:inrMi, fur inciting Rivers, was fined £5 or on- mnntb. and for ns«aaH;ag a eov.stahl.; £2 or 21 days. Willi.iiu H*!l was fir.ad £3, or oue month- Mr Addison said lie and his brother magistrates ha<s determined to put a stop to the conduce of these " pushes." They wect to cricket matches for tbe express -purpose of making t'-emselvrs obuoxioue, aad want well provided with pockets full of staves. They also resortsd to the most unmanly and un-English practice of hooting a visiting te^ui. It would be s blessing if 50 vigorous youag men ifou'.d form themselves iufco a vigilaccecocuruittae autt lay cut a hundred or so of those blaekgu.-irilly roughs, so thai i;j would be out of their power to create-such distucbau'j','9 us that ou Saturday :ai Wentworth Park, which nearly culminated iv a riot.

During the recent floods on tha West Coast the principal damage done to the Blackball Coal Comastny's tramway was due to a snag that was something like a snag. The diaaii-;l:er at the butt w^s about Bft and ac the branchless end it was quite 6fc—a once veritable forebt monarch. It came on alone, and wheu.it encountered the standard of the aerial tramway the result; was—well, quite m.-iappoiuting. There was uo appreciable shock, no crashing, tearing, or quivering, "'be snag just went through it as it it wen: so much soft cheess, without swerving from its course ia r,b.f> • slightest degree. IS was a revelation to ttiu onlookers, a new lusson iv dynamics : they simply looked at eaeft other inutsly; bat fcha expression plainly meant " How is that for high ?" By the way, a dozen cases of roburite are said to have been picked up ou the beach neat Grfiyiuouth. It is supposed that it was lost by the Torpedo Corps in vainly endeavouring to remove the Tiiurso—a work which the flood did nio«t eft's;ctu*lly.

A good story 13 told of how a Brussels merchant had revenge ou the Beljjip.u easterns author]Hhs. The merchant/ like others, was frequently put to loss by the vugiriea of the customs. This euUniisUed when, ou his importing 1000 paii's or cloven, the customs appraiser considered them declared at too low an esMmate, &v& fchn Treasury took the goods, paying the merchant tho pries at which the gouda were declared. By this operation the merchant lost a heavy contra:;'., and made up his mind that the Treasury hhoukl suffer. Auother case of the sarU'i quantity wai addressed to him and' G«c'.x.red s,'o the same value as the former. Again, aud much in ang«, the officials seized the good/:, payiup tho merchant the declared value, which was in reality the FX'ict piice lit whiah they were invoiced to him. The day curao for them to be sold. Several gkive merchants went to She warehouse ready to purchase, but to the utter dismay of the officials,-and especially of the particular appraiser who bad exercised his right of pre-emption, i'j was discovered thaji all tho gloves were 'left-handed. There were no buyers. Shortly after, a seemingly disinterested little man, who appeared morn like aa " old clo " merchant than anything else, went to the warehouse and said that he had heard U.isvfc some gloves weru lying tht»re which were unsaleable ; what could he have them for ? " Oh! " replied the appraiser ; " if yon will pay the storage and cartage you may take them away." This was done without hesitation, arid ia throa hours they were Bafely lodged in the warehouse of the original glove importer. A month afterward* 1000 right-hand gloves arrivad, sddres-'sed to the same merchant. They were pawed without demur. This is the usual result when a Belgian official tries to ba claver.

peace,

If Mr Erne&t X. Hooley ba3 recently won great wealth, he ia evidently determined to make good ua e of it. The Pall Mall Gazette is in a position to announce the scheme which he has adopted for his own commemoration of the sixtieth ysar of her Majesty's reign. Fortified by the intimate knowledge of rural poverty with which his philanthropy has brought him into contact, he has devised a scheme for bettering the condition or the very aged jioar, the widows _ and the iufirm residing in his "•strict, which embraces a considerable part of Derbyshire. Mr Hooley has m*<ie arrangements to eet snide the sum of £15,000 a year, aud a system of organised charity has baeu inaugurated. To a town with a population ef 10,000 an annual sum of £1000 will be apportioned; a village with 3000 inhabitants will bsnefii; to the extent of £300 per annum; and so on in proportion. It has baeu very wisely resolved that the bounty shall not mice the shape of actual money 'payments. Accounts will be opened with the various shopkeepers, upon whom orders will be givau by the local organising cornmitfcesu, which will in the majority of cusbs consist of 12 members, of ah creeds, classes, aud politics. The scheme must certainly rank iv the forefront of those happily numerous iostauces of private spontaneous inuuificence which grace with their /splendour the Victorian reign.

It is proposed to fill in portions of the Zuyder Zee, and under a scheme looked upon tavonrably by the Government it is suggested that a dam be constructed from Eivyk, on the northeast point of Holland to the island of Wieringen, and then from the eastern point of this island another dam 18i miles long to the coast of Fnesknd. The Zuyder Zae is one of the strongest instances we have of the power of the sea over the laud-. Prior to the thirteenth caubury it was only an inland lake. Oa December 14, 1237, during a tftrrifis storm, the sex broke through the dividing shore .line and wideued the i»ke into a large buy of the "North t>ea. On that occasion about 80,000 persons losb their lives. Other inumlaliims ..euuneci at Utsr dates. lr. 14-21. no fewer thau 21 parishes were swallowed up s,nd 100,000 persons drowned. Then followed the most terrible of auy recorded, that geuuraliy kuown asthe All Saint-." D.iy Flood of 1570. Tee sea raced along the whole of the'eoast of Hollaed and Jutland tor two days, carried awny all the uikes, aud caused tue 10-s of 100,000 lives. The whole country lay waste for years for the want of population to rebuild the dikes. The lasb great flood occurred on Christmas 1717, when 15,000 lives were lose. During the present ceiitmy tho destructive power oi' the sea has besu miuiraieeii, as the dikes are r.otv builb strong and tiigu euough to withstand the heaviest;sea<=. Although the ssa during the past 1000 jears has robbed the Dutch of great tracts of iand they h»ve, by great peiseverance, recovered a pare of it, aud 'there is reason to believe that, they will now succeed in forming the Zuyder Ze« iuto rieb agricultural lands, just as they have already dried up the Harlem Sea and converted it into waviDgcoroSelds.

The multiplication of the German people proceeds apace (writes the Loudon D^ily -Sows of January 18). The oHici.il statistics of the last "cuisus, which have juso beeu issued, show an iucreatie of neafiy 3,000.000 for tiifc iivd years. Wo give the exact lijjures below, and append for ttie purposes of comparison the corre^pondj ing figures ■ for France:—Gem^n Empire: Pr.ssut population, 52.279 901 ; increase 'iudng layfc five years, 2,85 L,431. France: Present population, 36.i:28,969 ; increase during lajs five years, 133,819. Tue way in which Germany is effecting, so far as population goes, a. peaceful conquest over France is very remarkable. Of the 52,279,901 Germans given above, 31,855,123 are frussiauH, and theae figures hugyehc an iiitexeatiug comparison. A hundred jears ago there were three Frenchmen to every Prussian. To-day, for j every Frenchman, i Jrussia, without calling in j any of herallie.-, can almost produce a man of £ her own. As for the German Empire at large, j there are to-d*y five German 3to every four Frenchmen. Yofc even so late a.s 1860 there were more Frenchmen tbaa Germaos. During the last fivu jeura alone Germany has puc on nearly 2:\- mfi'ious more of population than France. It numbers be any t«t, then every year that passes makes the revanche more difficult. In which case population rates may ha a valuable ally to the cause of European

THE MOST DESOLATE SPOT

IN EUROPE. i

A NIGHT ON THE MARISMA,

Among the wild and untrodden wastes that scar the shape o£ Europe, the great Marisma—the vast swampy oi Southern Spain —is the most desolate. la summer it is a sun-baked desert of dried mud, dotted in parts with foetid, swamp jangles and reedfringed lagoons, where nothing stirs but the shimmering heat-haze and myriad nesting water-fowl; in winter a limitless waste of ta—cy waters and stretches of oozy marsh.

The sultry day was dead and the last traces o£ light were fading when I clattered down a stony liitle street on the outskitts of that muddy wilderness. Jose, a wiry, blpokhaired mar>li-dweller, had nndenaken to steer me through the darkness. There was no moon,' and the wastes looked wild and grim; but Jos-e had been reared in a mud hut among the lagoons, and he knows that

TEACKI/ESS WATER DESERT better than the wild geese that people it. So we swung clear of the village, and rode out 'nto th« night.

Shortly we broke into a forest of umbrellashaped pine trees, and threaded warily along through the silent paths. The darkness was thick—almost muddy—but my half-savage mataiiaiaii never made a mistake; he kept that dim trail aB easily as in broad dayiight. At times a heavy bird "of prey—hawk or eagla—would crash out through the adjoining branches with a startled screech, and rapid whirrs-and scuttlings underfoot told of prowling badgar and mongoose. None but the occasional lonely charcoal-burners try to scratch a living out of those dense sandy jungles—tinman beingsarefewand scattered. Wild pigs, wolvas, and Iynxe3 are the only true owners of South Spanish wilds. At intervals of a dozen or thirty milea suudry fever-stricken fowlers and trappers dot the grey swamps with their reed wigwams. Toe ambling doable-jointed porji;-s scuttled along over the crisp pine needles for an hour or so, when the forest faded behind us, and a black, far-stretching wss plain loomed vaguely as far as we could sew. It was the Marisma.

The soil was softer here, and ever and again the ponies waded through a splashy poo!, level-bottomed, and rimmed with rushes and water-growth.

WEIRD CKIiJS

mag out from the darkness cf the outer marsh as we tror.ted evenly along—the sharp wail of plover and the grating whiae of aaipe. Grey shadows flitted noiselessly around, and we knew they ware waterfowl, though we could see nothing. We rode silently on, the easy loping amble of, the marsh ponies covering the long miles with wonderful quickness.

Time had worn well into the small hours, when a vag'ne copse of pine trees loomed on the plain, and we rode into its shadow gratefully. We were to camp here for the Might. So the ponies were tethered, and a couple cf hur.k-mattings spread on the springy earth for all sleeping accommodation. With a coveriug or two of rugs we coiled ourselves up like tree bears, and settled down to wait for daybreak.

For a while I lay and listened to the queer, cries cf the nightiy marsh birds—old friends of mine—as they swam the open waterwastes or drummed the bog for worms, The clear, wild trumpet note of geese filled the air at timtes, and the long, solemn boom of a prowling bictsrt—a sarge bird or the heron kind—echoed over the wastes. Oace or twice I beard the hard breathing of a large animal as it passed close by, scampering off with terrified suoits ass it winded us—deer, probably, or wild cattle. Bat of all weird, impressive experiences.

A WILD NIGHT

in the open Marisma takes the lead,

Presently the abominable mosquitoes, which shrilled and wisged round my head ail night, began to thin away, and I snie^lt the dawn. A grey tinge lit up the eastern sky live minutes later, and aftor a short interval of lightening dusk tha au'i slid up from trtß rim of the tawny wase;» —for ie those latitudes there is scarcely anj twilight. The Marisma burst upon us in a misty, golden haze, curtaining iho farther wastes like a yellow steam cioud. Then iha earth mists rolled away, and showed a desolation of swamp and palm scrub, ia the midst or' which we were mere dots of living matter, existing in a dead wilderness.

DAWN IN THK DESERT.

The first conspicuous things in view were a few deer—a couplo of does led by

A GRAND OLD STAG, black asarook, his 10-tine antlers branching against the sky lice as we lay aud watched him. Then, us one of the ponies stirred, be glauced our way, spied us out, and wns off actoso the plain iike a bluck streak with his Jamil/ in tow. His scurrying flight startled a band of grey-lag geese, and they sprang iuto the air at the warning " Honk 1 honk ! " of their sentry, and winged away towards the Guadalquivir.

Thousands of wildfowl—duck, widgeon, teal, pochards, and plover—starred the wide waterpools iv dense masses, and at the farther end of a brown swamp ah army of. rosytinted flamingoes shone like a blood-hued cloud. Their absurdly long legs and golfcluii bills lent the wild scene a weird effect that made it more like & dream than a »baro reality. The air was filled with long, angular lines of geese and ducks, cranes and curlews, hurrying across the sky to pitch in their t'avouriiefeeding grouads. As we rose and walked on to the marsh myriads of snipe sprang from the oozy beds, and the masses of wildfowl lifted from the water with a roar like 10 united thunderclaps.

We shot half a dozsn ducks and teal that rosa from the sheltering reed beds, and Jos6 weDt to pretiHte them for breakfast. I made for the farther end of. our little forest, disturbing a grizzly mongoose and a pair of .prowling wild cats on the way. I cams to the fringe of the wood and looked rouud. A herd of black and chestnut bulls—oid stagers of the fighting breefi caller, Adalid, —wild aa hawks and

I'^EIJCK A3 TKiEES,

were gronpad at the outskirts. I began to wonder whether I should be late for breakfast, whea one of the. hulls, a maguilicent dead-biack brute, put an end to all cogitations by dropping his head and charging full tilt at me. Both barrels of my gun—loaded with snipe shot—full in his face at 40 yards msda no impression at all; so I pat the weapon down and twisted aside, as old Pinero had taught me in the bull-fighters' college at Ssville.

The great horns lunged past, and as the brute returned to the charge I slipped to ths lefr. again, and as swiftly dodged behind a handy cork tree. This time the bnli tr.issed :i3y woereabouts, and, after snorting iudignantly and tearing up the ground with his horns, he grew suspicion?, ani galloped away over the swamp.

I felt grateful for those lesson?, grateful towards the bulls on which I had learnt even the one chat had banged me hard—so hard ! —against the wall of the college riag. Dear old Pinero !

When 1 arrived at the breakfast ground the freshij-shoc wild fowl were dons to a turn, and I would give the finest ten-decker banquet in the two hemispheres to vanquish that meal over again. However, we unlabored the ponies after breakfast and

EODE OUT OVEK THE MARSH.

In pares the grouse! was solid and trustworthy ; in others wa had to keep strictly to the narrow grooves by which the treacr.erous, shaking bogs coaid be traversed. On the softer places a thick, oozy, green tlime collected, and rippling waves rolled over the half liquid mass as it shook under the ponies' feel. Tasßocks of tamarisk and samphire studded the firmer stretches of swamp, haunted by countless, snipe and p'evar. In places the waste was a living, chattericg sea of birds ; every shade, every shape acu sjze of feathered fowl carpeted the shallows.

Bv-ajid-bye we caiaa upon a dead stag, recently deceased, and round the great body5' fong.ic and struggled a seething mass of bareneckefd grifion vultures. It was not a pleasant sight to watch those hideous birds rend and struggle over the carrion; bat there was a sort of fascination in it, and we looked oa for some time. Ever and again a fresh arrival would sweep down from ihe sky and take the place of a satiated brother, that had gorged itself to such an extent that it wa3 forced to stand aside aad comfortably tlczs.

The skies are always dotted with these scavengers from daybreak to sunset, and the dsath of any fair-sized animal will bring 41) or 50 to the spot in a few minutes, although one or two could he picked out ia 10 square miles of sky. They have eyes which can command leagues of wfkierness from an altitnde o£ a mils or two, and a stricken man is surrounded by them" almost as soon aa he falls.

WAITING EAGEELY FOE HIS DEATH.

Towards noon we halted in another 'popse of pine trees, to escape the full strength of the pitiless midday sun, which beat down with deadly force on the steaming swamps. And from the shelter of this grove we saw one of vhe rarest sights that the world has to show—the grazicg of a herd of wild dromedaries. Tbey srcod on tb.B open Marisnaa like dumpy monads of earth, and gently cropped the grass about a quarter of a mile avvay—five in all, four fuH 7 grown beasts and a youngster.

111. MY CAMEL HUNT.

Through the binoculars I noted them closely, their wild, unsightly form?, ponderous single humps, and long, bibulous under-lips. They were shaggy and unkompt in coat, moving leisurely over the swamp in a sort of ambling shuffle. Presently one of them rolled over, and began a complacent wallow in a swampy hole, kicking out his ungainly legs like wheat-flails, and evidently enjoying himself immensely. It was a sight worth any trouble and discomfort to chance upon. ■• With the exception of a herd of camels which frequent a desert in the wastes of Central Asia, these are the only wild dromedaries in the world. All other camels are mere beasts of burden, tame and domesticated ; but these strange wanderers must have roamed the Marisma since the beginning of time. Jose could not tell me anything about them, except that they had always been there, and that his father and grand - fathsrs had known them. There are about 30 or 40, perhaps more, in the swamps of that vs.se wilderness, and they are likely to remain there.

I noted that the camels ga?e no signs of any great swiftness of foot, so I stole to my pony, took np a repeating rifle, and rode slowly out of the copse, lying fiat in the saddle, and edging along under the las of the quarry in circks, as if stalking water fowl with a traiaed norse. Bafc the camsls were wary. Before I bad gained a hundred yards they threw up their heads, snortsd, and loped away in a long swinging trot. I straightened in the saddle, and tut the pony at- bis best speed, liniug along in their wake We gained rapidly on the shaggy herd, and but for a ceri'aie miserable, earih-seratchisg badger I might have had tha death of a camel to record. But my pony put his foot in that badger's barrow and turned a complete somersault, flinging me heavily earth-

f svsrds,

The soil wa3 soft, but, the »bock PAIITLY STUNNED ME,

and when I started afoot once more lr.& camels wore far out of reach, and Jose had ridden up. So I added no dromedary tc ray list of slain. We struck camp and rode out again ovar tha weary plains, in company with the vj&terI fowl and vulrnres. Before evening we turned a magnificent ol<3 male lynx out of a little oasis of scrub, and tnasy were the mongooses and genets that scuttled away from our ponies' tread as the hazy eve mag fell, and the j night prowlers began to range for spoil. We. 1 camped that nighfc on the open Msrisma, ( and next morning we struck the home tvaij, i and pushed back over the wastes.—Answers.

— Prftsh charcoal ia readiiy eaten by ail kinds of poultry, including ducks, gee?e, turkejs, guineas, and chickens. It server as a corrective when they have been confined too ciosely on one kind of food, and it also promotes digestion.

— Acid fruits, eaten abundantly, make M\g tefcih sen>itiva. This can be remedied by putting precipitated c'naik arouad the teeth when retiring. It counteracts the acid and hardens the enamei.