OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2627, 20 July 1904, Page 12

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

A chemistry class has been established in connection with the Kaitangata technical classes.

Wanganui expects to have its new water supply from Okehu (some 15 miles distant) available in a month's time.

The white Leghorn pullet which took fir«t prizes at the Imereargill and Riverlon shows was sold at Invercargill last week for £b.

The sum of £200 has been raii-3il in Westland for Mr and Mrs Cosgro- o, whs recently lost homo and family so lamentably by the landslip at Brunner.

.Samples of a new pattern of handcuff which the Police Department propose to adopt are being forwarded to the police inspectors throughout the colony. 1 A correspondent of a northern contemporary «ays lie has found the sprinkling of cheep's blood around trees to be an effective barrier to bheiv injury by hares and rt-bbit«.

The Timaru Borough Council has been advised by its solicitors that gas companies' mains and sei\icts and reticulation pipes aie liable to be rated. This had been decided by the High Court of Australia.

At tho monthly meeting of the Gore branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union a deputation was appointed to wait on one of the local clergymen snd urge the use of unfeiniented wino in the> churches.

lhe Nelson Corporation has under consideration a scheme for the classification of its street workmen. The object of the scheme ii the payment to gooci men of Es per day, and less capable men a wage? according to their merits rather than bo dismissed.

It is stated that tho Bruce Rifles hine c old the Volunteer Hall and site in Union street, Milton, to Mr Andrew M'Laren, butcher, for the sum of £400. A sub-com-mittee of the lines has boe-'i appointed to secure a new site, with a -\ ic-w to crccii.ig a !oi-l,o>- building.

At the annual meeting in Clifford's Inn Hall. London, of the Friends of Russian Freedom, Dr Spence- Watsou said that in England there wore Russian spies colieaguiirg with the police, gomi> to people's lodgings when the people were out, opening drawers, examining papers, and taking away letters.

The Chmtchim-h Pro-* states tint in cons.'quenor of the difficulties of gcttins green flax and of carting it at this time ol i ye'ir, some of the- nnll-ov.-ner^ in the Kaiapoi d.&tiict hava decide* to suspend operations, and it is expected that in Noith Canterbury frcm £0 to 100 hands will be lender^d idle for n time.

Mr A 11. Hislop, of Wellington, is rt.'-od lo ha\e in his possession a pie-ec of .^ilk tapestry worked by the hands of Mary Queen of Scots. Mr Hislop purchased it upwards of 30 years ago from the late Rev. Donald M'Lean. 1 re-bytenr.n minister, of Kampden, Otago. Mr ML.an demoted the proceeds to church work.

Tho Clutha Free Prrss sa}-s a motor car from Dunedin, containing a lacVy and gentleman, ran away going' dov^ n WhitcJaw's Hill, near Balclutha, on Monday, 11th. The brake would not act, and the cocupants were thrown out and tho car rather badly smashed, necessitating its being brought to

Balclutha and entrained.

Tho West Coa<-t Chaiitable Aid Board on the sth inst. accepted a tond-er for supplies to tho Ro^s Ho-sjutal with the ie-.?r\ation that the commititjo satisfies iNelt that tho bes-t goods would be supplied. The reservation was made owing l>> POiiie of the members pointing out that the piices quoted in soto instances were under rost unco.

A man who has just toured the Auckland goldfields told the To Aroha News that generally a more hopeful fee-ling piovail» than ha^ been noticeable for a long time past, e^pochJlj- a: Thames and Te Aroha. At Wailu tlvna- are forging ahead, while Karangahake is faiily li\e!y. Coromant'el, he slated, is jim now the quicte-t part of the peninsula. «

Hie Dunstan Time- say.-, that work on the Otiigo Central railway is being gradually pus-hed onward?. List week a fre^h batch of 30 mon weie shifted on ro the Chatto Creek section of the line. Chdrto Creek is now beginning (o as.-vino the piopoiiious ol P, credit <izcd t'-v s' ;,,, j.i!,] tl"? ao< •• •• ':'nd.ition in the Ice il hosiery is ti:.c.i to itutmost capacity.

At Waimate on Fnday evening last an old wooden building at tho back of what aro known as Price's Buildings, and which wps used by Messr« Manchester and Co. as a furniture factory, was destroyed by tire. Tho building was insured for £150 in the London and Lancashire, but with the tools

were said to be worth £300. The police consider the fire -\\as purely accidental. During a discussion at the meeting of the South Canterbury Board of Education on Tuesday on the London School Boai'd's scheme for the interchange of letters between children of the board's schools and of children of schools abroad, it wao stated that this scheme was already in operation, and that some of the pupils attending the Timaru Main School correspond with Boer 1 children. fc ' Blenheim and "Wellington householders nre inquiring anxiously for the whereabouts of a per-on who has been selling a stainremot ing composition at 2s per tin, with a promise that six cups and sauce-is would follow the purchase of each tin. The cups and saucers havo not mac 1 © their appearance, and the itinerant salesman's present address is unknown. Some householders in the south aro also interested in the matter. A correspondent writes to ono of the Clutha pape-rs suggesting that if the wafceis of tho Molyneux cannot be harnessod for the creation of electrical energy tho power i mining to waste in Pueraa River should be secured. He draws an optimistic picture of the results that would follow to tho district by the introduction of electrical power, and says that in tlio near o future Balclutha might easily have a population of 10,000. /•- Two interesting relics of Wellington's past are in possession of Mr T>. Gillespie, of Tmakori road. One is the original flagflown by Colonel Wakefield on his arrival away back in 1839 as the representative of the New Zealand Company. It is a 6ft by 4ft St. George's banner — red cross on a while ground, and in the top loft-hand corner is a small ietl cross on a blue ground with a white star in each square. — New Zea- ' land Times j When the Queen of England, daughter of the King of Denmark, \jas tho Princess of "Wales, she attended one afternoon a food show, at which wao a disp'ay of butter tbat pleaded her groatlv. She praised the butter, and to its exhibitor she said: ''Denmark sends us the best butter, doesn't vThe dealer =miled, and shook his head. "No, your Royal Highness," ho answered gillantly, "Denmark s&nds us tho kest Princesses, but Devonshire sends us the best butter." The Australian "Women's National League, which was formed a few months I ago in Melbourne, has upwards of 1000 member. Its branches, are bu=y organising in the suburbs, and a country campaign is to follow. The primary objects of the body are to support loyalty to the throne, to combat State socialism, to educate women in politics, and to protect the purity of I home life. In its programme, however, opposition to Stato socialism is the dominant note, and with the use of the franchise it^ chief sphere will probably be in Federal politics. At Raefcihi, a small bush settlement 17 mile"? from Pipiriki on the Wanganui River, a Crown tenant has a .signboard prominently displayed on his holding on which the following wording- is written in bold capital letter 0 : — "I'd sooner be a peasant beneath the Russian Czar, than be hunted by a Land Board like the little cookies are." The holder has a grievance against the Wellington Land Board for keeping him up to tho mark in regard to improvements, and in addition to tho above lines he has several other sentences written, which refer to " creeping commissions and crawling rangers." and belauding Iri>h landloards as compared with the "Wellington Board. A disputed will ea?e wa« commenced in the Melbourne coiuts nn the 4th hist, before Mr Justice a'Boekott. The- ca\eator is Dr William Kilpatrick, the testator's <on. who alleges that the deceased manifested symptoms of insanity in 1872. The estate was valued for probate purposes at £1768, and under it tho ca^eator does not benefit. ! He is only referred to once, and i*f the i following teim^ — "To my '•on. Williim I Kilpatnck, who ovir-, me o\er £1900 and j interest, I remit the whole, with the exception of £500, which my executrix n>u->t I insist on his pajmg. a- =he may decide. He must aUo return the jeuelleij illegally in his possession or foifcil the '■urn of £200." The Clutha Leader «avs -.— "The Catans railway extension, which wa? de'Clare'l by I Sir J. G. Waid on tho lOrh of la -I month 'to ho opened,' is not yet opened for fcrs^c. T i re~*.< : ~<- t . reyr'VTt ,t' is r\.e m b ''ail ol I. "■■ SL-ttU". th"i f „i\Lja'Ap 1 of timber, etc . over the extension by means of the balla-t tram ii permitted, but at rates which a saw miller resident thca-e informs us arc practically prohibithe." As tho opening of tho railway to the terminus will causo a largo amount of additional traffic en the adjoining roads, residents of Ratanui, Houipapa, and. neighbourhood f.ra

petitioning the- Government for a grant to metal the main road<s within a radius of three milevs of the Catlin's River Railway Station. A Nelson City Councillor (Mr J. Rollet) went on a shooting excursion a few days ago with a jounger brother, and on the return home the latter poked his gun into a clay bank, with the result that a wad of clay was left sticking in the muzzle of the gun, a single-bariclled breech-loader. The boj" forgot to clean it out, and a morning or two later the councillor, noticing a bigflock of sparrows, called for a gun, and his brother brought him Che single-barrelled gun. Not noticing anything amiss, Mr Rollet fired the gun, with the result (says the Colonist) that he was knocked on to his back, had both shoulder and cheek bruised, and his face spattered with gunpowder. The gun barrel he found to be split for three inches down from the muzzle, and a piece, also ai, the muzzle end, about two and a-half inches long by half an inch wide, was blown clean out of the barrel. The force of the explosion was so great that the stock was broken clean in tv. o between the lock and grip. y At a teachers' conference at Adelaide on the 4th inst. Mr H. P. Gill, while lecturing on "Plane Geometrjs" pointed out the erroneous methods adopted in the State schools and colleges of South Australia in general, and Adelaide m- particular, in regard to instruction in the science of geometry. In support of his contentions, ho satirised the present methods of iustruction in the following lines from " The Owl": — They taught him how to hemstitch and they taught him how to sing, Arcl how to make a basket out of vanegated stiing, And how to fold a paper so he wouldn't hurt his thumb; They taught a lot to Percy but he couldn't do a, sum. They taught him how to mould a head of Hercules in clay, And how to tell the difference 't\v\.xt the bluebud and the jay, And how to sketch a horse in a little picture frame, , But, strangely, they forgot to teach him how I to spell his name. _i_