OMNIUM GATHERUM. OTAGO WITNESS

Otago Witness, Issue 2565, 13 May 1903, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM. OTAGO WITNESS

i Two cases of scarlatina are reported from Clinton. Rabbits are remarkably plentiful all arcrand Alexandra. ■ • ' There is some talk of forming a curling •club in Alexandra. .... The Westriorfc Coal. Company. 'a *output last week was 13,598 tons coal. Rents are rising in : -Alasterton, where it appear* tliat the demand for homes is increasing -more rapidly thajj the supply. Spring will ccc the streets of Leeston not asphalted, but concreted. Asphalt cannot b2 obtained, as there is such a run on tar. The Riverton Racing Club made a profit of £120 on the 1903 meeting, and decided to place £300 on fixed deposit for two yeare. The rabbit trade is brisk in Palmers ton. One day last week eight trucks, containing 10,000 rabbits, were despatched from Palmerston. Residents of Tahakojia arid Tautuku are agitating for a telephone service. At present they have to go 12 miles to get a doctor. Lovell's Flat residents have a scheme for draining the Tuakitoto Lake, which will shortly come before the Bruce County Council. The Mosgiel Borough Council is under the strict surveillance of .the local ratep^yera, and it is 6aid a Vigilance Committee is to be formed. From Greymbutli last week the Blackball Company shipped 1239 tons coal, and the Rrunner Company 1765 toO3 coal and 40 tons coke. Mr R. M'Nab, M.H.R., ha: presented to Gv re Coronation Library a framed photograph group of the Southland members in the last Parliament. A Southland paper say 6 that Mr D. K. M*'Rae> has sold his interests, as a going concern, in Wyndham Sfation to Mr James Begg, owner of Cairn Station. It is reported that at the next meeting of the Education Board a motion will be tabled to upset the C'atlins School Committee election for alleged irregularities. A great number of wells in Ashburton have gone dry, and but for the rain on Sunday, which filled the tanks, householders would be in great straits for water. The Levels County Council has accepted the t£tnder of Mr W. Hopkinson in the sum of £4239 for the erection of a bridge over the River Opihi, near Pleasant Point. Owing to the prf-valence of infectious disease in Oamaru and the many absences from the school, it has been decided to give the usual mid winter holiday now — a. month earlier thora usual. The company which has established i paper-making mills at Riverhead, a few miles from Auckland, has had a very successful year. Considerable additions are to be made to the plant. At the annual meeting of the Gore Horticultural Society it was stated that the balance sheet showed a credit balance of £]2 10s Bd. The assets of tho society are valued at £19 3s 2d. Some time ago the Wyndham Town Board voted a sum of money to the brass brfhd. The Auditor-general lias disallowed that sum a* there is no lesgal authority for it, and the band has got to " pay up." The balance sheet of tho Wai ma to branch of the Waitaki and Waimate Acclimatisation Society shows that there is a balance of £16 on the year's working, which brings up the credit balance to £127 16s. Alterations at the level crossing are in progress at Oamaru with a view to improving pedestrians' view of approaching trains, and also to improve tho crossingkeeper's stand for watching the crossing. At Brigaton a man who was picked up on the pavement helplessly drunk was discharged on showing that he was a lifelong abstainer, and had taken giager wine, thinking it a teetotal drink. After a separation order had been granted against him, a Carnarvon farmer continued to live with his wife as a lodger. On his failing to keep up his payments the wife bad him arrested on a warrant. Some few old identities will recollect Mr M. St. Leon, the oldest circus proprietor in Australia. He died very suddenly at Oakleigh, Victoria, at the age of 84. He-.saw many ups and downs in hie colonial career.

The Balclutha new Borough Council, it ii said, already speaks of a big loan from thai Government for street improvement. At the Balclutha Magistrate's- Court at I larrikin named William Barnard was con* j vioted of disorderly behaviour in Toiroi i Church, and was fined 50a and 36s lOd costs,; ; or, in default, a 'month's imprisonment. ' i The action of a barrister engaged in ai j case at tne Supreme Court, Chnstchurch, in givine evidence on behalf of his client, elicited a comment from the judge that tho practice should be avoided as much as possible. As giving some idea of the amount or work involved in connection with Greater* Christchurch, it may, be mentioned; that for? a week there are; arranged se-xen committee meetings, and a' 'special meeting' of the council. • • ..-■ '-'" Speaking at the Hawke's Bay Christian Convention, Mr Lang, an ex-Indian missionary, :said that -h& found heathenism among- the young ..of .'..the. qutekirts of the Hawke's .Bay district as great as he had s-™n- in India. _, Country justices of the peace have much to put up with ,in discharging their duties. Two • females informed a justice in Kangiora who had fined them for not sending 1 •ohildren tosehool that they intended to havo nd more dealings at his storo. Now that prohibition, fa the order of tho day in Gore some .other use must Iks found for the hote's, and it is reported that one "of the leading hotels there has been leased for boarding-house ■•purposes at £6 per week, which seems a good figure. - ; A writer in the Grey River Argus asserte that the sras engines adopted by- tho local Borough Council to drive, the- new waterworks pumps will cost 2s -6d for gas for work that could 'be done for lOd with coal. But, then, slack is cheap on the Coast. In the Magistrate's Court, - Invereargill, on Thursday, an old lady, when taking tho oath, .saluted the Book with a sounding smack, and announced that she. would " tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, and I'll show up ," the defendant in the case before the court. Auckland distriot rock oyste-w are fetchinggood prices this season .in Wellington, owing to the supply being very short through the closing of ' numerous beds. Fishermen in the Bay of Plenty are making a profit of £1 on every sack of oysters ■which they send to the- Auckland market. People who are accustomed to -travel by train betwoon Timaru and southern station^ state that the portion of the wreck of tho Eleinehire. which has so long withstood tho action of.-hca.vy seas and corrosion, is beginning to settle down at the seaward end, as if the lower portions are ' breaking or buckling. ... At a mce'ting of Clyde and Alexandra. " fruitgrower* on Thursday" it was rn-olved to send a deputation to Sir J. G. Ward urging the construction of the Otßgo Central railway. The Minister "of Laiids is -to bo memorialised on." the/ duabjltitie? aa regards : corn^punication owiusr ;tb the lack of railway, and the Ajgricultuvai Department is to be requested to cause " the Government pomo-logist to visit tho district"- more frequently. Mr W. Jonee raifed a point at the Arbitration Court in Christchurch on Wednesday when the gardeners' dispute canle on as to whether the court had jurisdiction in the dispute. In England, he said, gardeners were classed as domestic servants, who, he understood, did not come under the act Hi 6 Honor: "I have no hesitation in ruling that gardeners are not domestic! servants, although they may be engaged in a, ' nursery.' They are m?n enaged in manual labour." At the meeting of the H. and C.A. Board! at Invereargill on Thursday a legal opinion was read stating that the board had power to insist on freehold property being handed over to them by recipients of relief, and power also to take mortgages. This course is not approved by some recipients. On'& old lady, when informed that her relief money would be stopped, wished the board a fast journey to Hades, and charitably expressed the hope that they would lose the return half of their picket. It is understood that the Public Health. 'Department is very much dissatisfied with the apathy of the public in respect to observing the provisions of tho PuWio Health Act. The act provides that a child must be vaccinated within a year from date of birth, or e!*e, if objection is made to vaccination on conscientious grounds, an exemption must he arjplicd for within four months of date of birth. It is estimated! that about 75 per cejit. of.Darents neither get their children vaccinated nor apply for an exemption certificate. Prosecutions will probably be undertaken. The Marine Department is exceedingly pleased at the way in which the Nautical Almanac oomrjiled by Captain Blacklmrne, Nautical Adv-isT to the Government, has been rwivd by mariner?. The first lot printed (700) sold rapidly. and it was found necessary to nrint sevpraj hundred additional copies in order to me-et. the demand. Captain Blackhurr.c is now eiigag'-<.l in compiling another edition, which will b? issued in November. The Harbour Boards throughout the colony are to be asked to furnish the department with any new <lata respecting thp-ir harbours which may be of interest to mariners. The Native Kuao, who has been thp leader of fclie opposition to the- land at Kaikcbe bning handed over to the Manri Land Council to deal with, claims to bo the principal owner of one particular part of tho block, cal'lfld Tautoro, a, big volcanic hill wi'bh a cu>ter. The crater eoutains a beautiful lirttie lnke. the sides of the crater being prettily clothed with fp-ras and trees. Tlvers are a number of email islands in the lake. Thma islands are ancient Maori burying-places, and Arc, therefore, tapu or nacred. The block a.bout which the diVufcs has arisen is (states the Poverty Bar Herald) very large, and it would prolia.bly have been better if ifc had been dpalt with in smatfer arras. "Tho influence of present-day Clan Societies penetrates further than one would imnirine," says the Weekly Scotsman. "Afc the Clan Mackay tours in the Reay country some of the guests have travelled far to be present, a case in point being that of Mr H. A. Mackay. of the. Mail and Guardian newspapers in New Zealand. _ Thia gentleman has been writing his experience* in the New Zealand press since bis return, and speaks with enthusiasm of his tour in the land of his forbears. A certain Misa Key was also among the Mackays when the» dan visited Polmont thre^ summers aero. ■She journeyed from Sweden, and satisfied those -prose-nt that she was a descendant of one of the Maekays who had gone to thafe country to fight in the battles of Gustavus Adolphus. Key was the form in which the name of Mackay had been there changed

Last Saturday week a gentleman driving (towards Lawrence at night discovered, only (just in time, that some miscreant had deliberately placed a ladder right across the road. Bad he not noticed it and had driven into it a "bolt" would in all probability have occurred, which might have resulted fatally to the driver. Such manual folly deserves Severe nu.nifiluxie.nU

The first meeting of tho newly-created Wyndhain Choral Union was held last Wednesday evpning, and it is said that some very promising talent wae revealed.

The following school committee has been elected for Purekircki :— Mcssr? George Gillespio (chairman', George Sinaill (secretary), A. Shi'-'ls, A. M'Cahnan, aud James Siiiie.