OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 6 November 1890, Page 31

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

' NEWS GOSSIP, AND ADS. The Invercargill wool sules will be held on the 18tb December and 22nd January. The Timaru woolhrokers have decided to hold sales on D°cember 12th an'l January 16tb. The Auckland school committees are urging the Education Board to build a truant sohool.

A young man was fined £5 at Christchurcb on Thursday for disturbing the Salvation Army service.

Mr J. Mills, chief clerk in the Christchurch Customs department, has been appointed coljector at Westport.

The Ngapara Masonic Hall was opened with the usual ceremony on Thursday hy Bro J M'Lean, of Redcastle.

Thf Oamaru Harbour Board have given an order for c. 15-inch Wolman dredge, to be placed on their bucket dredge, prtee £1000.

The weekly report of the Albany street penny savinefl hank shows 71 deposits to the amount of £4 0a 6\ ; total accounts, 189 ; total deposited, £27 1-. 2d.

The hoi-pital returns for the past week are— Rerminiug from previous week 87, admitted ducj'.g the wet-k 15, discharged 16, deaths nil, total remaining 86.

Mr Tom Howell, who was reported to be mis'iag from the Bluff, has turned tip safely. He £ot adrift in a dingy, but managed to make a landing on the opposite shore.

The Invereargill Town Council, by eight votes to four, rejected a motion to impose a license fee of £10 per annum on commercial travellers doing business in Invercargill. The Tapanui Courier states that the rabbitpres> rving works at Heri >t are to be proceeded with. Mr J. F. Herbert and Mr Robert* (for Mr Joseph Clarke) are giving the project large support. r B

The only lanJ transaction to record for the past week is the disposal to Davirf Grierson, on perpetual lease, of section 5, bock VII, Tarraa district, containing 181 a3r sp, the cash price of which was 12s 6 1.

Mr W. J. Inglis, who has bean transferred to the management of the Croydon Meat Preserving Works, was presented with a timepiece and a silver tea and coffee service by the employes of the Woodlands Meat Preserving Works.

Two horses belonging to Messrs Jonkins and Co. bolted with an express on the Crown terrace. Wakatipu, and failing to negotiate a sharp corner, fell over a bluff of rooks some 30ft high, both animals being killed and the trap badly smashed.

A gentlemen who is making a tour of New Zealand informs a contemporary that he has met amongst the pressmen of this coiony more who were either total abstainers from strong drink, or extremely moderate, than in any other profession.

Mr John Scott's planing and sawmills ia Trafalgar street north, Nelson, were totally destroyed by fire on Saturday morning The loss in machinery, timber, planes, &o. is estimated at £3000. The premises were insured in the National Office for £600, of which onJy £100 was on the portion destroyed.

A practical joker in River ton concocted a telegram purporting to bt from a Sydney sweep promoter, and intimating that somo Kivertou subscribers had drawn Luyal Stove, Newmaster, ane Enuc for the Mt (bourne Cup. As it h understood that some of those interested in the tickots deposed of part of their interest for cash for considerable sums, complications may arise, as refunding money is sometimes strongly objected to.

Old age may be warded off and infant life prederveri by a judicious selection of food. The virtues of barley are innumerable, aud it is strange to fiud so few people taking advantage of its wonderful life sustaining qualities. Keen's Patent Barley is the best form in which this food ia prepared for consumption, and the uama of the manufacturer id sufficient guarantee that his preparations are pure and wholesome, and consequently specially adapted for the use of invalids and young children. •

We have received from the publishers — the Bulletin News Company, Sydney— a collection of metrical and prose sketches by Bulletin writers. The book is entitled "The Golden Shanty," from the title of the initial story, which is characteristically an Australian goldfields one. The sketches are by numerous writers, among whom may bo mentioned Mr Bracken and Henry Kendall, and are of varying degrees of merit, many of them possessing a distinct flavour of " Poker Flat " and the Brete " Hartian " stories, so that in these cases the attempt to produce an Australian style has resulted in a rather weak imitation. This does not, howevor, detract from the merit of those which are worthy of admiration — in fact, it lends them, by contrast, additional merit. The story which gives ita name to the book, while slightly improbable, is well told, and another designated by the altogether unworthy title " Mr and Mrs Sin Fat " is a very dramatic sketch indeed. While not quite endoruing the claim put forward that the book represents the cream of Australian ephemeral writing, the matter is certainly the best _of its class, and the collection now published, which might have been advantageously curtailed, should still form an acceptable railway carriage companion, or the medium of whiling away a spare half hour.