OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11808, 10 August 1900, Page 8

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

The grass grub is reported to be a grcab deal of damage to the pastures in the Ashburton district. • All the representative football matches to be played in Tarauaki this season will bo refereed by Aucklanders. \ The colony and protectorate of. Ashanti has an area of 40,000 square miles, and a population of one million and a-lialf. In 1893 each person in the United Kingdom wrote, on an average, three letters a year. At the present day the average number per head is 4-2.

For cycle fittings and accessories, of every description and make, at moderate prices, send to W. A. Scott, Speedwell Cycle Works, 155 George street.... A bakehouse was destroyed by fire at Geraldine on Wednesday morning. A man named A. Howard had a narrow escape from being suffocated, being rescued just in the nick of time.

The total expenses in connection with the late outbreak of plague at Noumea, were a little over £2000. The cost is to be met by a supplementary sanitary tax.

The Oroua Downs estate in the Manawatu district was inspected this week by the Land Purchase Board with a view to its acquisition for closer settlement.

The parcels delivering service ' established by the New Zealand Express Company (Limited), Crawford street, provides for tho removal of tho luggage of servants, etc., to or from any address in city or suburbs.... Residents in England have £110,000,000 invested in mortgages in -foreign countries. These investments annually drain the foreign countries of about £5,500,000 in hard cash.

A superintendent of one of the great Zoo r logical Gardens, who has been studying the matter, declares that the majority of wild animals are left-handed, or (shall we say) left-pawed. ...

Thursday Island reports that two Cingalese were arrested recently on suspicion of shooting an Indian named Bacea. A row occurred between the Cingalese, and while Bacea was endeavouring to prevent trouble he received a fatal shot in the abdomen from a revolver.

Whilst drawing a charge from a gun at Naringal, in Warrnambool district," a young man, William Read, was seriously injured! The charge exploded, and entered behind his right ear, coming out at the top of his head. He managed to walk a mile to his brother's house, where he fell down in an unconscious condition.

The construction, of the great harbour afc Peterhead, in the north of Scotland, which is being carried out by convict labour, is making slow progress. Labour is short, owing to the paucity, it is said, in the supply of criminals.

Moebow, Bassett, and Co. are sole agents in New Zealand for the '99 daisy cart, patent steel horse collar, Sterling bicycles, and the M'Conniek Reaper and Binder....

■A curious feature of Japanese journalism is that every, important paper is said to have a

" prison editor." Japanese journalists are bo constantly being fined and sent to prison that the sole occupation of the individual is to go to gaol when called upon.

At the Kensington Hotel last evening a social gathering was held on the occasion of the retirement of Mr and Mrs Maloney from the hotel after an occupancy of 13 years. A musical programme was first carried through, successfully, several well-known singess taking part. The host and hostess then provided a sumptuous repast, to which the numerous guests did ample justice. Mr M'Kerger proposed.the toast of "The Host and Hostess" in a happy speech, and it was given with musical honours. The Sterling warrant is backed by experience, reputation, capital, capacity, honesty, and the Morse chain. The Sterling rider site on certainty....

Tho affection of some troopers iri South Africa for their horses is exemplified in a letter written by Trooper W. Morton, of Invercargill. Writing, from Johannesburg to his mother he says:—"lt was very touohing to see one of our fellows from Dunedin when his horse dropped down under him. With his water bottle he poured some water down the horse's throat, but it was no use. His horse died, and poor Ted Haydon sat crying like a child."

John Ferrier, charged with the murder of Alice Elizabeth Aubrey at Dawson on July 2, was before the Sale Supreme Court on July 21. Mr Maxwell, who appeared for accused, intimated that the defence would be insanity, and asked for an adjournment of the case till September to admit of JFerrier being observed and examined, and other inquiries being made. The application was granted. One of the nicest and easiest riding gigs ever seen in this or any other country is the new Daisy Cart, truly a buggy on two wheels. A shipment of which has just been landed by Messrs Moehow, Bassett, and Co., Cumberland street; and the price is only £10 105....

In the course of a letter to a Victorian resident a London firm states:—"Mr Cecil Rhodes has let a contract for refrigerating engines for cool storage depots in three Rhodeaian towns. Beira is to have refrigerating warehouses, and special trucks are to be provided for the railway. • This is the course you urged him to adopt, and we are glad to see your proposals are bearing good fruit." Men exposed to the rigours of the Alaskan winter do not wear moustaches. They wear full beards to protect the throat and face, but keep the upper lip shaven. The moisture from the breath congeals so quickly tliat a moustache becomes embedded in a solid cako of ice, and the face is frozen in a short time. Colonel Stapp, who died in Taranaki the other day, came to New Zealand with his)regiment, the 58th, at the outbreak of Heke'a war, and remained until the close of the campaign. He then returned Home, and went to the Crimea. Returning to this colony in 1857,. he took, part in later fighting: against the Maoris. His services in the Native wars in this colony are described as of a most exceptional character. When his case came before the House of Representatives in 1891, tho Petitions Committee recommended that the sum of £750 should be placed on the' Supplementary Estimates in recognition of his distinguished military services; and warm testimony as to his valour was paid by Sir John Hal) and other members of the Hoxise.

The cool and comfortable condition in which horses using steel collars, return from, their* work is a remarkable contrast to the heated and exhausted state of horses working in ordinary collars in hot or wet weather. The collars are lighter, stronger, cheaper, cleaner, and more comfortable than leather collars, and the only way to appreciate their numerous and undoubted advantages IS TO "give them a trial." Mobkow, Bassett, and Co., sole agents.... , At a committee meeting of the North Otago A. and P. Association on Wednesday, Mr James Reid brought up the question of the appointment. of judges (says the North Otago Times). He said he would like to point out that, they had often made mistake* in the choice of judges, and to get over the difficulty he would suggest that the appointment be referred to committees—a committee who understood sheep to select the judges for sheep, and another who understood 'horses to select the judges for that class of stock. Each committee could make a choice of three or four judges, and submit the names to the General Committee. The matter was discussed, all the members expressing their approval of the principle, but at tho same time it was thought there was too little time to carry it out this year, and upon motion and amendment it was resolved to appoint judges as usual this year. It was also resolved that the principle be recommended for adoption by the committee next year.