OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2436, 21 November 1900, Page 10

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

The sum of £315 has been collected in Tasmania to a fund called the Tasmanian soldiers' national memorial fund. While a mob of cattle was being driven en the Rocklands station (Queensland) recently a black boy and horse were struck by lightning and killed. Watqr has been struck at Adavare (Queensland) by the bore at a dentil of 3400 ft. It is estimated that half a million of gallons per day will be obtained. During October the Yictoripii Postal department forwarded 59,963 registered letters to "Tattersall's," Hobart, being 8963 in excess of that for October last year. It is reported in Sydney that Mr John Wilkinson, who shot Joe Governor, the outlaw, has been offered by Messrs Fitzgerald Bros., of circus fame, 'a three years' engagement at £500 a year. Who says marriage i<s a failure? At the Thames last week a marriage was solemnised locally between a couple whose united ages totted up to 142 years, the bride being 73 and the groom 69. What is known as the earth-eating disease is assuming serious proportions among aboriginal natives in Northern Queensland. v The medical men are urging that steps be taken to suppress the habit. A sufficient sum has been raised in Nolfon by shilling subscriptions to erect a brass me morial tablet to the late Trooper L. M. Tarrant, a member of the fir3t contingent, who , died in South Africa. On the day following the Melbourne Cup no fewer than 14,468 postal notes were cashed by the Bank of New South Wales at Melbourne, acting on behalf of Tattersall's, for a face value of £6148 16=!. The Victorian Department of Agriculture is arranging to send a shipment of Victorian cheese to England at the end of nexi month. A special cool chamber is to be procured for ihe purpose in one of the regular steamers. A three-inch artesian pipe has just been sunk to a depth of 401 ft at Lancaster Park, Christclmrch, and the water rises in -the pipe 40ft above ground level. Thi& is believed to be the highest rise yet obtained in the district. At one of the East Coast settlements (says a Gisborne parier) there are two young Natives who think it a grand thing to receive letters through the post : so much so that they are in the habit of writing and posting letters to one another, though they live in. the same j house. j The band of the old 74th Highlanders, now | styled the Highland Light Infantry, which [ hai been selected to come out to the colonies ! with the Duke and Duches» of York, is the band in which Mr D. Wishart, of Dunedin, served as boy and man at Home and abroad for some years. * At the Liwience Magistrate's Court on the ]2th, before Mi-H. A. Stratford. S.M.. an old-age pensioner named John Ellis was fined £3, with 7s costs, in default 21 days' imprisonment, on a charge of having supplied drink to his son, John EUis, who i& a prohibited per&on. In his last public speech before leaving England for America, Mark Twain mentioned that a little girl in New Zealand wrote to him recently saving she liked the name of Mark, because Mark Antony in the Bible. Mark Twain replied that since Mark Antony had got into the Bible, he was not without hopes himself. There has been a sudden, as. well as a marked, A'ibe in the price of potatoes locally (says tho Timaru Poft). A bag of potatoes which 2ould have been bought a fortnight ago lor 4s 6cl is now worth 7s. And they aie very scare at that. A buyer in town from ! the north state* that he was unable to anyI liiiivv like fi.il his requirements. 1 An an example of tho impassable slate of ike JSusL Coast roads*, a Norlli Island fta&er

declares that a certain family, wishing to get ( a bugey out for a drive into the town, were i compelled to place tlie buggy on a. bullock j dray, and the vehicle was thus conveyed to the metalled road, where the horses were liar- ' ne?sed to the buggy, and the journey con- j tinupd. j The distribution of the Government rewards foi capture of the Breelong murderers will be made almost immediately. John Wilkinson, who shot Joe Governor, has, it is understood, decided to divide the £1000 with his brother, who was present when the black was surprised | asleep. 3n the case of the capture of Jimmy | Governor tho £1000 will -be divided among th° eight persons who took part in it. A couple of miners /have had a curious experience in a copper mine at "Nyngan (New South Wales). They were returning to the surface from the 200 ft level, when they found progress barred by a snpJre, which was on a ledge 70ft from the top. It disputed their right to pass, and -they were forced to spend the night i underground. Eventually they blew up*' the snake, which was 7ft in len-gch, with a charge of dynamite. A plucky rescue at sea was effected on Octo- j ber 5 during the voyage of the sliip Oonstanz, ! from Capetown to Melbourne. A seaman fell overboard, and, notwithstanding the yes&el^ was travelling; about .eight knots ah Tioiuv the sailmaker a!a<l -an A.. lk threw a small Nor- i wegian pram overboard and jumped into it, j proceeding at once to the relief of their com- „ rade. In los-s tlmn an hour he was safely en "j board ago in. j Two men n imed Robson and a man named Beach were tho fortunate finders of a nugget of gold, which., when cleaned, weighed 250z, while they were working near Treiitham, Victoria, recently . The place had proved ?o poor that ohey hail removed most of their tools from the claim, but while looking round prior to abandoning it, they made the above discovery. A nugs-et weighing 130cz was found in the same locality about three years ago. An instance of the tremendous sea oii' Grey- j mouth last week is furnished by the experience \ of the Pareom. Her engines were set going i at full f-peed, yet she could not make any \ headway, and eventually drifted nearly 40 miles. As her stock of coal ar.d provisions was running short, Captain Black had to put I into Wcstporl to obtain fresh supplies. Prom the time of leaving Napier to finally mooring alongside the Greymouth wharf a period of 12 days had lapsed. By the Jano Douglas, from Okarito. last week (says the West Coast Times), Mr Molloy I brought up some of the gear of the poor old ! Waipara — all that was worth saving from the vessel which had been identified with Hokitika for the last 30 years. A pathetic incident in connection with the old vessel was the receipt of a telegram in Okarito from a daughter of Captain Bascand, who sailed her for many years in the old days, asking that a piece of the Waipara might 'be sent to her, ,and which request was complied with. | Colonel Gordon,, of Adelaide, who recently returned from the war, brought three flags, each of which possesses a peculiar interest. One is an Orr.nge Free State flag— the last flown in Bloemfontein. Another is a Union flag shat was to fly over a united Transvaal and Orauge Free State Republic. The thirds is a miniature jilk flsg, led, white, and blue, which was part of the preparations made hy the Boers in anticipation of the fall of Ladysmith. Hundreds of these flags were made, and were intended to be used on railway excursions, for which special railway tickets had been printed. According to the Northern Territory Times (S.A) the blacks are becoming troublesome on the Victoria JRfver. The .guilty parties are said to be relatives of a black who was shot dead while resis.ing arrest on a warrant charging him with being concerned in the recent Daly .River outrage.?. Pastoralists who have recently taken up jountry in tlie district for the purpose of ttocking, seriously" express the intention of foigoing their enterprise on the sole ground of the vicious and mischievous character of the natives and the inefficient protection afforded against outrages. The '-littls steamer Waipara, which was blown up a few days ago on the Okarito bcr. j where she became a wreck in 1898, had had an eventful career, meeting with rather more mishaps than be-all the average steamer The Marine department's reports chronicle the fact that she was ashore in the Grey Rhev in January, 1877, and in June, 1882; on the north spit of the Hokitika River in April, 1893, and again in May. 1894- ; on the Hokitika beach while towing the Mon.na. in September, 1896, and straaded at the same ploce in October, 1897; while in January, lE9B, she was stranded at the North Beach, Okarito, and declared to be a total wreck. A lino commodious hall has been erected in Jones stipet, near the corner of Lees street, ', for the Mi;ses Ham aim. who, having recently | resumed from Australia, have decided to open a dancing academy. The building is \ ?paeious, well ventilated, and well lighted. ' The floor has been tested, and found to be eminently suited for dancwu?, 'Retirius:

, rooms are also being constructed, so that wlien I everything is completed, which will be in the ! course of a clay or two, the Misses Hamann. will have a capitally equipped establishment , for their classas. The contractor for the erection of .the building was Mr C. Ellis; the j painting was entrusted to- Mr W. Munn, and the^plumbiiig to Messrs Ross and Wilson. Mr ,J. A. Harding, of Gisborne (says the Hawke's Bay Herald), has a grievance. Somehow or another sporcing people never seemed to be able to get their tongues round the name of his mare " Enhakkore." It was I spelt and pronounced in the must hideous ways during the Hastings and Napier Park raca weeks. Even the Maoris never got tho correct pronunciation, and the name looked like Maori lingo/too, thougli none knew what it meant. The owner was asked about it, and he calmly said,' " Judges 14 and 19." There was only one judge at the park, but later en it struck someone to take a glanea | at tlie Biblical Judges, and he discovered the following: "'But God clave a hollow place that there was m the jaw, and there came water thereout,, and v-hen he had drunV his J spirit came again and he revived ; wherefore I he called the name thereof En-hakkore, which is in liehi unto this day." A young man named Dempsey, residing afr xtenwicktown, had a most perilous experience j during the recent floods in the Waiau River. ; He left Eenwicktown on horoeback io bring l^home a horse, supposed to be running on an j island in the above-mentioned river. -On | arriving at his destination lie foolishly sent the horse he was riding home, and then discovered that the other was missing. This happened on a Sunday night, and he was imprisoned on the island till the following Wednesday, -when lie was released in an exhausted condition. "Dempgey's life would have been in greater jeopardy had he not, strangely enough, burdened himself with a cornet before leaving home, which instrument he utilised to attract the attention of settler? i to liii dangerous position. Js. word of praise is i due to the Blenheim police, who took a boat j a distance of 20 miles, and then crossed the I fast-flowing stream with considerable difficulty, only to find that Mr Poole had pluckily rescued Dempsey by biaving the torrent with a draught horse. A lady styling herself Madame Demse, and loosing as a scientific oalmist and character delineator, made hsr appearance before Mr Beetham, S.M., at Ohristchurch the other day on a charge of telling fortunes. The dej fendant occupied a stall at the exhibition, and j two detectives visited her to have their fortunes told, with the above result. Jlis Worship said that if this business were going to assume large proportions, it would be better to have a decision of-ihe Supreme Oourl on the matter. It was a ' mystery to him that anyone could be imposed upon by such rubbish. , Continuing, Mr Beetham said the lady had brought her&elf within the act. If sho wished he would fine her sufficient to enable her to appeal. Mr "Beswick (her counsel) said there was n6 intention of appealing, and his Worship fined the defendant 20s on each of the two charges. Mr Bestham remarked that the Exhibition Committee ought to refund the lady ihe amount (£5) they charged her for the use of the stall ; they were really parties to the offenoa, and had no business to let tha lady the space.