OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 12

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Land afc Petone is selling at £50 per foot. It was once sold at £1 per acre.

German locomotive engineers receive a gold medal and £100 for every 10 years of service without accident.

■Seventeen applications were leoeived for the head mastership of a small country school in South Canterbury.

Wellington has been taking come three million feet of timber per month, but the demand has fallen to a million feet.

The surplioe and stole of an Anglican clergyman were feloniously removed from the vestry of a Gore ohurch last weok.

The number of women applicants for cadette positions in the telephone exchanges of tho colony is estimated at ,'aboufc 3000.

Mr C. M. Hope died in the Dunstan Hospital on Tuesday, the 7th inst., from typhoid fever. His body was brought to Dunedin for intermont.

A movement is on foot among the farmers of Inchclutha and Stirling to acquire a storekeeping business at Stirling, and run it as a co-operative concern.

The Taieri County Council at a special meeting en Saturday considered in committee the Waipori Company's request for the council's con-sent to the passage of thebill.

Bread is being sold by a co-oporative concern in Inglewood, Taranaki, at 5d per 41b loaf. South Canterbury bakers have lowered the price to s£d for cash from Monday.

Russia has the most rapidly increasing population of any country in the- world. The growth during the last 100 years has been a fraction less than 1,000,000 annually.

A resident of Timaru, Mr John Brown, has a black currant bush in his garden bearing berries in various stages from greenness towards ripeness — the second crop on the bush this year.

On a largo farm close to Tima.ru 150 hoad of poultry were u'aintentially destroyed last week through a barrel of phosphorised pollard, which was mistaken for something else, being thrown out to them.

In a recent Wellington paper the following advertisement appears: — '"£2 given to any person securing for married man employment, clerk, night-watchman, or work of any kind; urgent case."

Mr L. Fretwell, of the Gore branch of the National Bank, has received notice of his promotion to the Wellington office, and leaves for his new position on Friday.

A large number of civil servant® in Wellington are incapacitated with influenza. In one Government department about onohalf tho staff are absent from duty. Influenza is aleo nrevalent in most of the

inland town 3in Otago.

A resident of Masterton recently received an account from Wellington for threepence. The amount was remitted and a receipt returned, the postage both ways costing theWellington tradesman twopence and ihe Masterton resident one penny.

"Ihe Taieri Advocate suggests that there is a profitable field for enterprise in the running of motor 'buses between Outram and Mosgiel, and says that with plenty of cheap electric power an electric tram may some day run between the two places. A British provision merchant at present in the colony says if potatoes are cheap at Home the demand is for bacon, but ->f potatoes aro dear a greater demand sets m for butter. Bread and butter, in this ease, takes the place of potatoeß and bacon. In a case at Auckland where a man named Donald "Wilson was charged with being present at the Auckland racing meeting, a detective described defendant as a racecourse gue&ser, who makes his living by going- about with drunken men ar.d people from the country.

The local paper states that influenza is still raging in Cromwell, and seme of the victims are having a bad time. Half of the local pest office staff is on the ?ick list, and on some of tho dredges tho men are working long shifts owing to the number of those incapacitated from work by la grippe. Pie^idente in North Canterbury *are complaining that a large number of '"travellers" who profess to bo seeking work inolude in their occupation " breaking and entering and theft."' A correspondent to one of the papers advises residents to keep their windows properly closed and fastened.

The Inangahua Time's says qiuto a number of men have crossed the Tasinan Sea, and are in search of employment in the district. Many others come from other parts of New Zealand, and there aro not a few Australians, so that just now the Reef ton labour .market threatens to be glutted. It was stated some time eince th.it a caso

| of American boote, en route by rail from ! Lyttelton to Christchurch, had been, rei li&ved of some of its contents on the - journey. It now transpires that four pairs of boots had been extracted before the case left the ship at LytteJton, and that | the shipping company is paying the imporI ter's claim. A large amount of pilfering is said to | take plare at horticultural shews in Christ- , ohurch. In on© case two women went upon i the 9tasre, ,md one of them secreted a couple of pots of ferns under her mantle, I dividing the spoil on getting outside the ! 1-all. The matter has been referred to the ] incoming committee to endeavour to put a ! f-lop to the practice. 1 On Friday, 10th inst., when the Sierra j was leaving Auckland a passenger, who ' arrived late, made a desperate effort to get !on board after the shin had cast off. lie 1 made a jump from the wharf to the ship, i which he just succeeded in reaching, and a ! dozen, willing hands hauled him on board, ' his tin trunk and a number of paper parcels • being thrown from the wharf after him. j The Riverton paper is informed that th-a . final request of the Orepnki Shale Company | to the Government will be to grant them ! an annual bonus for three years of £5000, I a 1 - a guarantee that the Government will j not hamper the development of the industry. j At a meeting of share-holders in London, it J was resolved that if this assistance was not j forthcoming nothing further would be done. ! Mr J. Macguinnoss, while ploughing on i his farm at Little Rakaia a few weeks ago, ' excavated the skeleton of a human being, j supposed to be that of a Maori. The 1 skeleton, which was in a gcod state of preservation, the teeth and bones being ; complete, !has been handed over to the j Christohurch Museum. It is supposed the i body was embedded where it was discovered j for many year=. The Southland papers state- that a man named Whitehall, Whittle, or Whitehouse has been missing from Mokomoko for a iveek. The missing man, with others, left S Invercargill to re-turn to Mokomoko on j Tuesday, 7th inst., and at night, with two ( other?, slept in a hut, but in the morning jho was gone. A bottle which had contained whisky was found outside the hut. So far no trace of him. has been discovered, but it is not thought that anything untoward has occurred. The chief of the Dunedin Gaelic Society, who is fairly well known in Christchurch, on Monday night( 15th, issued a challenge to th« Scottish Society of Christchurch, which it is probable will bring out a most enjoyable evening. Chief Dugald M'Phs'rsoit intends bringing up to Christchurch the choir, pipers, sind dancers of hi? so-cie-ty ; in order to show that Otago can produce champions in all tiiese departments. Thn challenge was at once accepted by the chief of the Scottish Society, and the trial will take place ut an early date. — Christchurch Press. The Rev. A. Cameron, as treasurer of the Jubilee Fund, has received (says the Out- | look) from the Lawrence Deacons' Court ! the sum of z>ibs. This makes the capital 'of the Jubilee Fund £9500. Under the. will of a gentleman lately deceased the fund is lively to be increased by about £200, and it ia hoped that the £10,000 aimed at will shortly be totalled. It should be- borne in mind that the interest from this fund goes ! to strengthen the hands of the Church Ex- | tension Committee, the whole of the revenue derived from the fund being paid over to I that committee. I At Npwtown, quite recently a constable on beat finding the street door of certain premises left open had his suspicions j aroused, and entered to investigate* with a dark lantern. The- occupant heard tho [ intruder, and. concluding he was a burglar, ! ran with all speed to inform the polioe, and, finding another policeman, the latter approached the place, and, with the- assistj ance of others, resolved upon making a. : frontal and right and left flank attack, but the reapijearanc© of the first constable an. early period of the arrangements upset what promised to b© an excitdng adventure. Ai ICaka Point, Port Molyneux, on Monday, 13th, Mr Geo. Miilar, who had served as a letter-carrier and sorter in Dunedin for 40 years died very suddenly. He was in his usual health when h« rose in the morning, but during the forenoon he apparently took a fit, and died instantaneously. As ho. complained of a pain in the chest, it is thought the cause, ot death was probably heart dkesso. Mr Millar retired from tho postal service two or three years ago, and tcok up a house at Port Molyneux. His first wife died some years ago, and two years ago he married a daughter of Mr I). Dunn, Romahapa. The piofitable nature of Manchester's municipal gas undertaking is evident in the estimates of current receipts and expenses

- presented to ihe Gas Committee. Last year j the profit, after payment of £70,000 to the> city funds in relief cf rates, left a surplus of £25,197. It was estimated that on the basis of the present price of gas, next, year's profit will be £73,639, making £98,836 in all. It; was proposed to devote £52,500 in relief o£ j the city rates, appropriate £13,650 for cxi t&ntion works, and reduce the price of gas , to ordinary consumers from 2s 6d to 2s 4d.. i The balance of £3176 will be placed to the | credit of a contingent fund. ! The usual weekly meetings of the Otokia j Social Club have been carried on in the school, but owinsr to the boisterous weather the residents of the. district have not ventured out much lately. The club is now in poss^ession of the vacant premises lately owned by Mr Jepson as a store, and tho committee is putting forth its best en- . deavours to satisfy the wants of the district. j A shooting gallery is being- erected, and two | of the rooms are set apart for indcor I amusements, while another room will be I kept for leading, etc. The rooms will be> open every evening for the benefit of tho - public, and the club should supply a longI felt want in th© district.