OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 8 July 1903, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

In London each day 400 children are born, and 250 enter hchool for the first time.

An inch of rain meana that 101 tons 4fi water have fallen upon every acre of soil. Gilded sixpences were passed on Saturday in Masterton for half sovereigns. The Yongala, a new 15-knot intercolonial steamer for the Adelaide Company, ie to leave London for Sydney at an early date.

The Auckland Eleotric Tramways Company has decided to seek parliamentary powera to incxeaso the width of its car 3 from 7ft 6in to Bft.

Fifteen designs have be&n received for the new town hall and municipal theatre, Invercargill, some hailing from Melbourne, Sydney, and Baliarat.

In order to keep in touch during the> winter months, two Invercaxgill bowling clubs have decided to hold euchre parties throughout the wint&r.

Captain Roderdque, of Riverton, has (says the Western Star) discovered an extsnsive tin lode in Stewart Island. Some time ago he sent a sample to Professor Black, Dunedin, but that gentleman has sent no reply as yet.

The members of the New Zealand Band now in England were shown over the Bank of England premises shortly after their arrival. They experienced the somewhat tantalising pleasure of looking at 12£ millions sterling in gold.

The- first whitebait of fhe season made its appearance in Christ-church on Monday from Leeston, Canterbury. They were caught in a stream running out of Lake Klesmero into the sea, and probably constitute the earliest catch on record.

A laundryman, employed on the steamer Delhi, and known as Bana, was found dead in his bunk recently at Sydney. The door of his apartment was securely fa6tened, and und&rneath the bed were two large boxirons filled with charcoal, the fumes of which caused his death.

The 'Westport Coal Company stipulates that a doctor's certificate of sound health shall be produced before miners are engaged by them. This provision is made in consequence of the company's liabilities under the Workers' Compensation Act. the company having decided to accept the risk of accidents themselves.

A correspondent of the Malaura Ensign mentions a somewhat curious coincidence in the fact that the iirst customer to partake of a drink at the Stony Creek Hotel when it opened on. July 1, 1884, al=o had the last drink in the. house on Tuesday night before tho bar waa finally dosed.

The vi=iitOT& to t-lie Sydney Free Public Library la^t month allowed a considerable increase over the previous month. The number of wsitor^ to the reference library wa= 17.569, the number of books lent from t'x- ". <-"'< • library branch was 12,042, and the ( -- i the newspaper loom totalled 33.615.

The annual report of the Ne.v South Wales (lovernment Sann^i Rank shows that in =nite of the drought the biinine«s of the bank has iiioreawd in every direction.

A< cording to a decision by the committee of the Municipal Association of New South AValc, municipal council* hare no power to gne pennw=ion for the erection of balconies over public footixitlvs.

At Waimate on Tiu>-day morning J. Ravenhall was charged before the court with cruelty to animals. Tt was stated that Rn\cnhull was ualLmg along the road, when tv\o doa;-) ru-lied out and attacked his dog, which \\ as old and toothless, and unable to dc-fend itself. To protect In-, doc<. Raveuhall kicke<l one of the other dogs with Ins boot, and it duxl from the ti.jurv Tlie ijoneli. 'ocint; thai tlitre v.\i-> no miration of killing the do 7 d'-mi-.=cd the ea^e

On tho Ti'^lit which caw the e!o-ing of 'he "1 educed" pu^hcliouscs a stone found it= war into a hoii-o not far removed from oue of Ihoau hold's, incidentally shattering a large front window in its progress. The occupant of the Loose, from the fart that ho happens to be a prominent no heen = c advocate, deems -* 1 -' "-n.- P than a coincidence, and has gnen tx i n; police information which may lead to further deiolopinei't'-.

Tue lnoiiuinput erected in the Balclutha C'emotpry In the ct.zons <.f Belclutha and rcri(lunt~ of adioni.uj* dictnclh in remembranre of the late Dr Gibson Smith was unveiled nn Wednesday afternoon by Mis> M'Ncil, ■nife of the cLaiiinau of commit ice.

There were about 200 persons pres3nt. The monument consists of an obelisk of polished Peterhead red granite, on a base of bluestone. The monument is 16ft high, and the work was carried out "by Messrs Bexgamini and Reid, Dunedin.

A little girl, aged seven years, named Mabel Speers, while leturning homo from school at Norahville (N.S.W.) with her brother, aged eight, was accidentally burned to death through her brother playing with matches that had been given him by some of his echoolmates. When the girl's clothes became ignited she ran towards home, and in a few minutes every stitch of clothing was burned off her. The child dirid about four hours afterwards.

At Dunback lost Saturday night (says the Palinerston Times) a number of young, men called at the Junction Hotel, Dunback, and on the landlord refusing to allow a "shilling in" they left tho hotel in a body, and returned about 11 p.m. •On admission being refused they proceeded to wreck the licensee's property. Some- spouting was torn clown, a buggy seriously damaged, and a load of chaff belonging to another person wa3 strewn upon the road. The matter was put in the hands of the police.

A correspondent of a London paper says : " Visiting my son last summer in a village in the Roumanian Mountains, we bought a sheep for 3i 9d, and later obtained Is lOd for tho fleece. Chickens were 2a 6d a dozen, eggs five a penny. Two pounds of delicious mountain strawberries, in a prettily woven basket, cost 2J>d, basked; included, and for a big bouquet ot lilies of the valley a peasant boy demanded the equivalent of one-fifth of an English penny. This is lesa than 100 miles from Bucharest, one of the prettiest, but one of the most expensive cities in Europe."

A smart "opium catch" was made in Wellington on Friday night by Detective Cox. The detective suspected that a Chinese shopkeeper iv a certain part of th© town was bringing tins of opium to Haining street. Seeing the Chinaman leave his shop and proceed in the direction of that quarter. Detective Coy stopped him and searched him on suspicion. The suspicion was confirmed when two tins of opium were found on tho Chinaman. Proceedings by informatiott on the charge of having opium in possession will l>e taken in duo course. — Wellington Evening Post.

Mr Harold Selby, who wac formerly a member of the. New South Wales Sixth Imperial Bushmen, and later a lieutenant in the Scottish Horse Soouts, has forwarded fiom tho Transvaal, where he is now living, to his mother in Invercargill two interesting mementoes of the late war (says th« Southland Times). The> one is a Kruger sixpence dated 1896, nnd the <sthor 13 a paperknife, which was given to him by a Dutchman, who had been a prisoner of war at St. T elr>na. The Boer had carved it from part trl a tree winch grows on Napoleon Bonaparte's grave in St. Helena.

The St. Petersburg police report the discovery of a secret society whose members are pledged to commit snicidp on their thirtieth birthday. They contend that the average duration of life is 30 years, and that any man who lives 1on;&i1 on;&i does so at the coit of other individual. Candidates for self destruction, when tiny reach their ■thirtieth year, were immurrd alne in \aulta with so'emn ceremonies. It \\a-> while one of thfoo tragedies was in pi ogress that tho police Mirpiiicd the mrmbers Numerous persons have- f.illen mcmith to tins superstition, and tho pock'v is said to have blanches in Kirff and Ode--a.

Sir Jd-cpli Waid has rreehed a long an ii!tei(".tin.c letter from a leading mfinbei of the IToUfO of Comni'in-,, in which the w liter snvs —"Politics are very unsettled ln-re The Go\ eminent is determined to get nd of Mr Brodrick, but he- is obstinate' and '•trong. but wrong I expect a sniaih any day. How it will rome I don't know. Chamberlain la the only man tn command confidence. Wli^n we go to the couutiy wo shall be l>rateu. but the OpposL tion is =o contempt il<'° th it w p 'hall T»*» back vc-iy «ruii There :u o tlfoiU amoi.g the young bloods to get up a Cliambeilain-J{fi-fb<"iy Ministry, buc it will be \try

disunity "

An " unreViearbp-d incident ' occurred cliniiig the perfoimanco of '"For the Term of His Natural Life" at the Theatre Royal by the Mnjpioni Company on Thursday uight (savo the Chriatchuu-h Pros:.). During

r scene in which three convicts are starving on an island, to which they have escaped, one of the trio, driven desperate by hunger, springs at one of his companions, with the intention of killing him. A member of th© audience, evidently affected by something stronger than hunger, made a dash for the stage, exclaiming, " Stand off, you brute, or I'll kill you ! " Fortunately, he ■was quieted, but it was some time before the audience- regained its composure.

Chief-inspector Goyen and Mr Rogers (architect to the Education Board)- paid a visit to the Port Chalmers School on Friday to ccc Mr Smaill's steam-heating- system, which has been temporarily fitted for heating two rooms of the school. Messrs Bauchop, J. Thomson, and Warren were also present. Steam was raised in three minutes, and ia 10 minutes all the piping (252 ft in length) was heated and the rooms made comfortable. These present expressed themselves as highly pleased with the results.

A petition from W. W. Green, of Masterton, for an inquiry into fclie-ciroumetances of his dismissal from tho position of car-painter in tlie Railway Department has been presented to the House. He alleges personal feeling on the part of the officials 1 , states that a departmental inquiry into his case waa improperly conducted, and affirms thut he has grounds for believing that hie statement ai the inquiry was tampered with after he had signed it. — Wairarapa Times.

During- the trial of a half-caste Maori afc Horshain Police Court, Melbourne, recently, a sensational incident took plaoa. Th» accused was charged with vagrancy, and when Constable Black was giving evidence- the prisoner, Charles Gilbert, suddenly struct him. a violent blow, breaking; his nose. Accused was sentenced to six months for vagrancy and three months for the assault.

In making inquiries as to the correct name of the man- who wns knocked down by tho north train at Christchnrch on Wednesday night, Mr W. R. Haselden stated at tho inquest (says the Press) that it was meet important that the full and correct name of a deceased person should be- ascertained. On a recent occasion, at an inquest, the deceased's name was given as comprising only one Christian name. It appeared subsequently that he had two Christian, names, and 'as he had been insured, considerable trouble had ensued in making the statutory declaration as to his identity.

The Tuapeka Times has the following- :— The Premier must be the recipient of some strange, if not amusing, requests at times. In November last he was written to by a local schoolboy, who asked that he should send him some> stamps for his collection. On Thursday last the juvenile stamp fiend received a very civil not© from Mr Seddon, in which he explained that press of business and his- absence from Wellington prevented him replying eooner, and he regretted that previous applicants had a lien on all Ilk used stamps for some time to com©, but he hoped he- would be more successful in some other quarter.

A woman whose husband had been unable to find, work appeared before the Wellington Benevolent Trustees on Tuesday (say 3 the New Zealand Times) to ask for help. She had four children, aud they had that <lay been evicted from their home by tho landlord. "A real Irish eviction?" queried the chairman. "Yes," the applicant for relief replied ; "he [the landlord] took the doors off yesterday, and to-day our furniture and other things were removed to th© back yard and the street." It was elicited that the husband had been injured three* .years ago, and had only partially recovered. The trustees thought it was a deserving case, and agreed to pay rent for the applicant. The Timaru Herald of Friday' i date saya: — The behaviour of a few of the onlookoraat tli&matc'i which was played in the pai'k on ThuT*dav was a disgrace to mankind, and if the Rugby Union fix any mere matches to be played there they should ask, and if necessary pay for, two policemen to be on duty at the park. The language used by one young man in particular was so foul that had it been uttered within the hearing of a police offioar he would have been arrested on tho spot. His name wa9 taken by one of our staff who was- at the match, as complaints were made at such disgraceful language being used within th© hearing of tho many email boy 3 who w-ere present.

A gas explosion occurred in a private house in Auckland last week, by which. scriotus damage was done. Tho lady of the house, Mrs Payne, with another young lady, were in the room at the time, the gaa being lit, when Mrs Payne, thinking the chandelier was hanging too low, pushed it up, when the explosion took place. The whole room was enveloped in flames,, the curtains and everything inflammable in the room took fire, the roof was partly blowu off and every window in the house smashed. Luckily the other inmates of the house rushed in, rescuing the two ladies and extinguishing the fire. The injuries of both lakliea were slight under tho circumstances, burnt eyebrows and burnt hair being the re3ult of their unpleasant experience.

Messrs Wilson and Whitmore, of Invercargill. have patented throughout tho world an ingenious label clip for parc&la, suspenders, bicycles, etc. The clip can be supplied with the labels at little or no cost; m other words, the difference in price between label? with the clip and those without will be bo trifling that, in view of their convenience, clip laheh =hould take the place of th<v;e with eyelets. When a parcel has been made up the label can be attached to the string in the fraction of a second with one mo\cnie-nt, and it will rot become detached Tke clip has been shown to the railway authorities, v>ho belie\e it will be found of immense service in the case of biey< les, etc., as the addressed label can be attached to any part of the bicycle with a string with little or no loss of time. There chould be a future before this patent. Wo have inspected a sample packet of pirtorial plavmg enrds ju^t landed and patented by M-essrs Muir and Moodie. There are two pack 0 , and on tho far? of each card is reproduced a pretty little picture. The \icws have been well chosen — lakes, sounds, mountains, and Nat've life being well ropre-&eritr-d, — the whole forming a complete littlo album of New Zealand ecc-nory Some considerable ingenuity has been displayed in perfecting the dc-ign so a a to combine trie P'ctorial with the plavinjr uait of the card, nnd this has been pitpnlod tliroughout tho world *- " soiivnfr for t'nr comin? season they <- -rt.>-nlv c-nir?ii(l a l oacly sale, and the diHnbut'on of \UozC, cai'd^ in thto 071 Country th'-i'ld Ind to advert iso New Zealaid to somo <-<-„>- ■<Wab!e extent. Tho fir=t s'lipmont of 51000 has bron purchased by M< =■ rs Bilkind B>o=.. who have m.->de arrangements and secured tlio right.-, for Nrw Z-,iUnd and Au-'.ralia, ar.d have opened a di^ol in High strcot.