OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 1913, 9 October 1890, Page 27

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

NEWS GOSSIP, AND ADS. The Agnews are now settled on their land at Blackstone. The operations of the Waikouaiti Dairy Factory during the past year resulted in a loss. Constable Fool, of Roxburgh, replaces Con stable Pratt at Kaitangata, Constable Fouhy succeeding Constable Fool. Ripe cherries and plums (locally grown) are now being sold in Nelson, and in Wanganui ripe tomatoes are exposed for sale. The Confederate Miners' Association intend celebrating the abolition of the gold duty by a ball at Cromwell on the 24 th. The death is announced of Mr John Robert* son, long and favourably known as " whip " on the Queenstown-Cromwell coach. An Auckland paper says that boys all over the town are now practising lassoo-fchrowing with bits of rope. or string, having caught the infection from the cowboys in the Wild West show. There are now over 60 inmates in the Magdalen Asylum, near Chriatchurch, drawn from the prisons and streets of the cslony, and including the forlorn of every creed and district. Good progress is being made with the construction of the necessary railway buildiDgs on the Otago Central line, and it is expected they will all be completed by the end of the present month. There died at the Lower Hutt last week, at the age of 85, Christian Evensen, who landed at Queen Charlotte Sound in 1831, and the following year took a voyage to Sydney with a cargo of flax. The Mines department are about to call tenders for making the first section of thft Garston-Nevis road. The section will extend from Cunningham's to the top of the range, a distance of five miles. The Bruce Herald Btates that a lot of wool, the clip of some thousands of sheep, was passed in at the price offered in Dunedin and sent to London, where it failed to reach the price offered before shipment. At the meeting of the Bruce County Council yesterday it was stated that one riding in the district had paid £60 last year under the Hospital and Charitable Aid Act, and had received not a penny in return. A large sized whale was thrown up a little north of Barrytown, West Coast, a few days ago, but as it had evidently died some time before, and was correspondingly "gamey," no one cared to face the task of trying it out. The Black Chronicle, published as the organ of the " lower " clergy in Rome, is making a profound sensation by the manner in which it professes to " unmask the crimes and vices of the cardinals and bishops." It urges the abolition of celibacy. A new and profitable occupation for women in America is that of census enumerator. Miss Bessie Robertson, the champion census enumerator, can register on an average 282 names per day, earning a salary of 7dol to Bdol per day — that is, 28s to 325. During last week there were 112 deposits, representing £4 78 lid, lodged in the Albany street School Penny Savings Bank. New accounts were opened to the number of 23, making the total number 169. The total amount deposited is £15 6s lOd. Mr Henry Oatrnan, editor of the Morning Call, Pittsburg (U.S.A.), has been officially notified by the Methodist Church, to which he is attached, that he must either cease publishing a Sunday edition of his paper or leave the church. He refuses to do either. A person deßirous of transmitting a pound to a certain business firm in Christchurch, recently, forwarded half the pound note, and in his letter stated that for safety he would remit the balance in stamps. It remains to be see,n what he will do with the other half of the pound note. Mr Tidy, the analyst, and Mr Macnamara, the principal medical witnesses for the Maybrick defence, have published a pamphlet, in which they declare that their evidence bears the test of mature reflection, that there was nothing to show that Mr Maybrick died of the effects of arsenic. A grub which threatens to be very destructive to fruit trees has been discovered at Clifton. The grub is about half an inch long, of greenish colour, with black head, and attacks pear, apple, and cherry trees. Ifc appears to eat a long, narrow section of the bark, and in one instance completely destroyed a tree. The dwelling house of Samuel Collet, Gore, was destroyed by fire on the evening of the Ist. The fire originated through a kerosene lamp either bursting or flaring up, from a^strong east wind blowing in the front door. The house was insured for £90, and the effects for £40 in the New Zealand Insurance Office. When the deeds by which the munificont gift of Sir Edward Guinnes9 for the erection of artisans' dwellings in London r and Dublin came to be stamped, directions were given, under the authority of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to remit the stamp duty. The amount that would have been payable was over £600. Lady Downsbire, whom Sir James Fergusson has just married, is the Foreign Undersecretary's third wife, the first being Lady Edith Christian, and the second a South Australian lady whom he met while governing that colony. Sir James is 58, and his new wife, who became a widow after only four years of matrimony, some 18 years younger. Wild dogs are beginning to make themselves unpleasantly felt in North Wairarapa, says a Masterton contemporary. A few of them have lately been seen on Blairlogie and BeaumariF. They are very destructive to sheep, and much worse than the Australian dingo— being very cunniDg. They are supposed to be dogs that originally belonged to rabbit packs. At a dinner in the House of Commons the other day Sir Patrick Jennings, X 0.M.G., exPrime Minister of New South Wales, was introduced to Sir Charles Russell. " I think we have met before," said the ex - Attorney-general. " Yes," said Sir Patrick, " 40 years ago we were both at school at Newry, and were being taught our classics by the same Presbyterian clergyman." The public little dream of the superiority of farinaceous food in comparison with meat as a diet. Analysts have shown us that Keen's groats contain three times the nutriment to be found in best beefsteak. Blotchy faces in adults and sore faces in children are generally caused by eating too much meat. Keen's groats can be obtained from all grocers, and cannot be excelled as healthy, nourishing diet. • An American paper remarks that taking a million dollars is called Genius; taking a hundred thousand is called Litigation ; taking tweDtyfive thousand, Insolvency ; taking ten thousand, Irregularity; five thousand, Defalcation, one thousand, Corruption ; five hundred, Embezzlement ; one hundred, Dishonesty ; fifty, Stealing ; and twenty -five, Total Depravity ; whilst the taking of one ham, it adds, is called Making War on Society. Among the applications for patents are the following : — John O'Mara, Gore, for " O'Mara's patent hinged descending table-plate for rabbit traps " ; G. P. Clifford, Dunedin, for an invalid's reading stand and bed table ; S. E. Denniston, Invercargill, for " The Denniston improved flax dressing, washing, and bleaching machines for the manufacture of New Zealand flax " ; Robert

Lochhead, Dunedin, importer, for an improved washing machine. Rev. G. W. Hudson Shaw, M.A., vicar of Thornthwaite, Cumberland, England, and brother ; of Mr H. G. Shaw, of the Grenfell Superior Public School, has finally declined the twiceoffered living of Morpeth, the value of which is £1286 per annum. Mr Shaw's present incumbency is worth £124 a year, in addition to which he receives about £300 per annum as an Oxford University extension lecturer. He considers, however, that it is time a parson refused preferment and stuck to his work, especially when he has enough to live upon. During the hearing of a case at the Guildhall Police Court, London, in which a farmer was charged with being the person to whom belonged some meat deposited in the meat market which was diseased and unfit for human food, one witness from the country, in answer to Mr Baylis, said that the cow was very ill, and they had given it three bottles of whisky, a bottle of gin, and some gruel. — Sir Andrew Lnsk : Then she was not a teetotaller ? What do they do with beasts that are ill in your part of the country ?—? — The witness : Cut their throats. — Sir Andrew : Oh then, you cut their throats to save their lives, as the saying goes. What was wrong before you cub its throat ? — The witness : It was a bit strange in its head.— Sir Andrew: I should think so, after the whisky. A fine of £20, and £2 2s costs was imposed. The 65fch Regiment was 20 years oufc of sight 9 till at last London Punch discovered it to be iv New Zealand. That island (sajs a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald at the time— from 25 bo 50 years ago) was the very pick of stations in the British Empire for officers without means, and men who could turn their hands to some use when their discharges were purchased or their terms of service expired. The corps finding itself in such clover, asked nothing batter than to be let alone— a wish which the easy-going authorities at the Horse Guards discovered and good-naturedly complied with. The result was that officers, non-commissioned officers, and men become a sort of commune or mir. The full privates were let away for months at a stretch to plough and delve and blast, a small percentage of the earnings — so at least it was whispered — finding its way upwards, being promoted, in fact. These knowing lads made themselves popular with the Natives, too, so that iv the sixties, when trouble commenced in Taranaki, the Maoris would bawl out, " Lie down, ickedyfifth, we're goin' to shoot." No wonder the new troops that came in the wake of General Cameron called the 65th the "Civil Maoris," and no wonder that many a stiff stand-up fight in the buff behind the canteen was the result.