OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2263, 15 July 1897, Page 34

OMNIUM GATHERUM .

NEWS. GOSSIP. AND ADS. Pheasants are very plentiful in Hawera district, two sportsmen having bagged 33 last week. The average duration of the reign of English monarchs for the last 600 years has been 21 years. The report of the Private Benefit Societies Commission is expected to be ready at the end of next week. " " The Wanganui Borough Council has a credit balance of £1846 16* 2d, and has knocked a penny off the special rate and doubled the grant to the public library. The Government is in treaty for the purchase of the Matakiwi estate, near Masterton, for settlement purpojeq. The directors of tho New Zetland Insurance Company have declared the usual interim dividend of 2s 6d per share. The North Otago Times mentions that Mr Peter M'Donald has sold his farm at Otiaka to Mr Robert W. Hill ah £12 per acre. Tne- Auckland Harbour Board, finding a deficit accruing nf,£2Qoo a-yeav, bai determined to raise £3000 a-year revenue additional. The oubput of coal from Westport lust week was 4891 tons 12cwt, of which the Westport Coal Company contributed 4106 tons 12c wt, and the Cardiff Company 785 tons. John Stow, prosecuted by the Charitable Aid Board at Auckland for failing to support his wife and family, w*s sentenced to three months' imprisonment. The meats amounted to £126.

At a Westport wedding recently as the newly married couple were leaving the church a wellknown milk vendor boldly stepped up to the bridegroom and "asked for a turn for the ensuing month. He got the order. The Tapanui Courier reports that a similar blight to that affecting gorge is now killing macrocarpa, lawsoniana, and similar foliaged trees. Native flax is also dyirig from the same cause. The blight is very rapid in its action. In 1837 there were 80,000 letters and 44,000 newspapers delivered through the post office in the United Kingdom. In the 12 months from , 1895-96 the returns show that the deliveries amouuted to 3,031,553,198, exclusive of telegrams. _ Mr Justice Edwards, in passing sentence on the men Filzgeiald and Wilson at Napier, for manslaughter, said the evidence before the jury in the case would undoubtedly havo justified a verdict on the capital crime of murder. Captain W. Jackson Barry is meeting with every encouragement in disposing of his book. ,' The old pioneer is as sprightly as ever, and assures his old friends that he is in the swim this time, and hopes co be a wealthy man within a couple of years. It is calculated that a week's work in Birmingham comprifes, among its various results, the fabrication of 14,000 000 pens, 6000 bedstomds, 7000 guns, 300,000,000 cut nails, ! 1,000,000 buttons, 1000 saddles, 5,000,000 ' copper or bronza coins, 20,000 spectacles, six j tons of papier-reaihe wares, over £30,000 worth \ of jewellery, 4000 miles of iron and steel wire, I 10 tons of pins, 350 miles' length of wax for I vestas, and 8000 tons of brass and copper T?areß.