OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

During last year two thousand patients vere treated at the Women's Hospital,. Sydney, and not a single death occurred. ---Two Japanese maids arrived in Auckland by tiis Wiminera the other day from Eydney under engagement to Auckland idies. It has been discovered that 15 to 20 drops of oil will form a coating sufficient to prevent the evaporation of v,-ater from fire buckets. In view of the danger of earthquakes, .snly iron, and wood are to be ueed in the construction of 200 new churches and schools in Calabria. At Falmouth there lives a blind man who, by the sound of the contact of billiard balls, can tell tjie character of the ' shot and the run of the halls. At Market Rasen, I^ncolnshire, recently, a gentleman iriuy had become a magistrate had before him in ocnrt sn old scnooM mate, who had become a. tramp. Each householder of Bnancaeter {Nor* '• folk) baa received 6s as his share of the , portion* or the income of the golf dab i set aside for the use of the links. i A cat which was taken from Newcastle to footing recently disappeared two days 'later. It has now been found at its olds, horn«. The distance is 280 miles. _ It is likely that a eiarfc will soon be made with the work of turning the Mount Cook Barracks, Wellington, into a suitable build ; rtfr _ ?or tb<s Dominion Museum. The Archbishop of Kingston suggests that the best km to ston juvenile smokinor

i is for the father to fill an old pipe with ' shag tobacco and make the boys smoke it. Many Japanese towns are co infested with rats thai cargoes of cats are being shipped from Europe. Recently 5000 cat* were embarked at Hamburg for Yokohama. 1 Two of Feilding's. professional nien have adopted the fast cure for feodily ills. It is stated that they have been nearly a week without food already, and are still going well. A. man who was fin-ed in the Wellington. Magistrate's Court, and went into the office of the court to pay, asked one of the officials to find the " clerk of the course " for him. In. tbo ~R.-risgfa.Ti Duma, the "Minister for Ways- of Communication stated that during • the year 1908 no fewer than three million free tickets were granted to railway officials. One- kauri "stick," a special order for a ship's "mast, -anas taken out of a North Auckland, busk- lately which, attained the unusual length, of 80 feet and was guaranteed flawless. Pro-riding foe the taxation of bachelors and spinster* .at four times the rate of married men and women, a bill has been introduced to the Danish Parliament by the Government. According 1 to the Dominion, the pastor of one of the Wellington churches cannot remember any winter when he had more destitute people appealing- to him for help than he has now. The crew of the armoured cruiser St. Louis mutinied at Toulon, declaxine- the calves'

heads supplied for dinner were uneatable, and threw* their as well as their • knives, forks, and plates; overboard. Lcrd Rodetdale, ' who celebrated his seventy second birthday the other day, is famous as si landscape gardener, and has been, the ' King's chief adviser in all garden improvements at tße royal residences. The work of deporting- the kanakas from Queensland has not ye* been completed. A email number aire now being- gathered in Brisbane. They will be seat away aa soon as steamer aocomimodation can Be found. An ingenious chemist of Austria, has ' invented a. seJf-ligihfing- cigar. It is tipped with a. chemical preparation, and wEen rubbed against a heed substance, such as a wall or the sole- of a boot, it ignites like a jnatoh. / In a general way it is true o£ the European oounitr»ea that those which have th>& lowest birth rate have tfes lowest death rate, and conversely, where the moat feftbies &re born there the most i babies die. American fruitgrowers have been striving unsuccessfully for years to evolve a seedless persimmon. They have now obtained ctratin'gs from Nbirfch China, where seedless persimmons have been known for generations. Vessels of_ the German, navy have been equipped with a novel life-saving apparatus resembling a husje basket with its ■ sides made of rope ladders lowered over the e>de. Several persons can eHmb in at the same' time. Frank Clark, the globe-trotting tramp, arrived in London recently on-, his seventh tour, round the world. Ex-newsboy of New Yorfc and able-bodied seaman, Clark has wandered since 1883, and, according to his own statement, has covered 250,000 , miles-. * ; The millionaire, Bulce of Westminster is said to possess a rr agnifioeiit .set of silver plate. ,which is declared by experts ;to be tiie finest in the world. But in the ■ matter of quantity his Grace of Cumber- ' land k alleged to hare as much as 12 tons! Billy, a sheep which diedr near Leicester at the sug* of eight years, was used by its owner, Mr G. Stretton, as a "stalking- . honse " while shooting rabbits. Bill» would 1 stand perfectly still while Mr Stretton sihot over" his back, and would follow him like a dog. President Jfellieres has broken down a French tradition by abandoning official evening' dress on a hundred -mile triumphal motor-car tour in the .South of France, i He wore the more comfortable jacket suit" and small felt hat, his suite gladly following his example. According^ to a statement published by Ihe New York Sun. bribes amounting to n« much as £100 are paid for posts on United States Government transport vecsels.frambiing is rampant, and whisky and morphine are freely sold to the soldiers by the stewards. At the annual meetingr of the Royal Normal College for the Blind Lord Kinnaird mentioned that the reports of the past three conferences had been taken down by blind stenographers, transcribed by blind typists, and prepared for the printers by blind persons. A considerable number of live hares are being netted in the Rangifcata district at present; and are bairn? sent to coursing clubs all over the colony for oauirsinj? purcoses. Last week one lot which had just been ca-ptured a day or two before was j consigned to Auckland. j Of the eight sleeping cars which were ordered for the Main Trunk service, six have been completed, and are in commission. The remaining two are almost ready to leave the Pefcone workshops. Only tha final touches a.re wanting. Temperance farmers in the Barnstapk district are petitioning the town council to provide them with a business room a(- the market so that they will not have tn zo to the pu'bliohoiase for the payment of mouoy or the passing- of cheques. I At least one clergyman in the Hutt Valley has a distinct vein of humour. In a^ermon recently, he said that it was " fortunate St. Paul did not live in these days, foT instead of his beautiful epistles, posterity would have nothing but a collection of souvenir postcards." The Marine Department has be?n nofci- i fi-sd by Captain BcUone. of the Hinemoa, that during his visit to Tauranjja last week he found tha* one of the buoys in the I Stella. Channel had beon perforated by a bullet. The maximum penalty for damaging buoys and beacons is £200. i Accordinij to a roenjopandfuotn attached to th© diraft of the Irisß National Schools \ (Heating and Cbeemaing Bill) there is no authority for heating SiatiJonal schools in Ireland, and ' each pupil is expected to I bring an of turf for that purpose. As an instance of existing " slackness." a Wellington employer of aboat 4& hands informed a renresentative of the Dominion that his weekly wages-sheet this time last I year was £130. At the present time it was £90. There was practically no work in hand, and little prospect of any coming in. A bill making it compulsory for proprietors of liquor saloons to post up in their bars photographs of all the men living in their iicishboirrhood who are known to

Ibe excessive drinkers -lias, been passed by the United States "Excessive drinkers," tbos identified, must not bs served. r In deciding a quarrel between neighbours I over a dividing fence, Dr M'Arthur, S.M., at Wellington, held that an agreement about a fence overrides the Fencing- Acf r and he gave judgment for the man who, in accordance with, the- agreement, pnt up a fence in excess of the requirements of the act. A curious £ree grows in one of the numerous islands which are studded about the Pacific Ocean. It grows, at its full height, to nearly 30ft, with branches spreading- like a huge umbrella, yet it is completely leafless, the species having never been kno^-n to show signs of a single bud. Wellington housewives, says a city paper, notioo a great disparity of prices for any given " out " at different shops within a f stone's throw of each, other. welj fcsd beef can be- bought at one shop for 4£d, across the road for sj>d, ■ a few yards further on for 6£d, and at the customer's. door for Bd. For inadvertently omitting to attach a penny receipt stamp on January 1 to a , document which settled an account for oxer" £2, H. T. Bettgetr, at Rangiora ..court, Wa^ finied the nominiail amount of Is wrflwufr costs. It appeared the'aearant had reached the Public Txusfcee's office, where the omission had been defected. The Shaw r Savill» and Albion Company has decided to despatch its laxgs steamer Aotea to Nelson for^ Load-ing purposes. The ! visit mil take- place this month, and a. I quantity of frozen meat will be shipped. ! The successful manner in, which the- Rakaia i worked the port lead* to- the- belief that I Nelson will Before- 'long -receive regular visits1 from vessels of the largest elasa trading to New Zealand. At the North ' Canterbury Edtrcatfon Board's meeting on the 16tEt inst. the Building Committee's report included a. statement 'that ffie master v,t Roffestoit shonW' contribute ' tbwferds fcfete >cost -._ o§ a, waakhoeee. Dr- Bight entered a. protest against the principle of compelling masters to contribute fcowaxds buildinga, and on his motion the matter was , referred back to the committee.' ■ - - ~' ,~ r \ The Southern Cross tmdisrsfeunids that a smelting and refining nlant for treating the black sand on the beaches and other material will shortly be erected at Qpepuki. The promoters of the venture are men of wide exnerience, and with the raw material available they expect to make a big success of the business. A site- has been secured in the township, and active operations will begun as coon as possible. There is now on view in Christchurch a most ingenious model of St. Peter's at Rome, worked to scale. It contains no fewer than 320,000 pieces" of wood, and has taken Mr G. Pefcersen, the constructor, nearly five years to complete. It/ is a full-size model occupying a table' 16ft by Bft. and standing 10ft high. At "Wellington- on Wednesday Alfred' FarreM was charged at the Magistrate's Court with t-nespassing on the Trenthiaan racecourse. He was fined £5' and costs, but on it being pointed out iihat the costa were unusually heavy, aggregating- to £9 14«. the magrotrafce ireduoed the fine to £1. Swarms of bees have- often, been found in the most unlikely places, and a queen bee who led her itribe in Christchurch North the otner day was evidently more eccentric than usual. A gas-fitter who went to a private- house to clean a. large fras lamp w-as considerably surprised to find the globe full of a living mass' of bees 1 . The Poverty Bay Herald states that a sample of ihard black q.uartz has been received by the Progressive League from Gold Creek, at the present head of the railway construction works,' and 1 steps are to be taken "by the association to ascertain the suitability and extent of- the. dis1 rict as a source for the eupply of • road. metaL ■ ' • A. fiat race took place afr the Cust sale on Monday between an auctioneer and a buyer. The- distance was a hundred y"ard»; and both the .contestants (says the Lyttelton Times), were heavy-weights, tHe auctioneer turning: the scale at 16st and the stockbuyer at 14st 61b. Each had many admirers; but fh© auctioneer gained the lead early, and won as he pleased. % The Moi-se signalling apparatus it to be introduced at ihe principal • lqokKPtrir stations along New South,-, Wales l_cqast shortly, with ths object of reporting- vessel^ passing at night. An officeivqf the Navigation D-siparfcment has paid a visit to some" of the signal stations for the purpose of reporting to the department on the question of arranging for the insfcallation. It was mentioned by iiie president of the Institute of Marine Engineers afc a meeting this week that there "was complete harftnony in the relations o£ employers and employees. The institute, he eddedy was the fiiafc ,. body to giegister under the Arbitration Act, 'and -yet haia ' never had occasion "to appear before that court. Thef membership in New Zealand was over 1000. A scratch crew of whalers on the 15th landed two right -whales, a bull and a cow, in the South Bay. Kaikoura. after a ehort ! cha^3. Tha -v. Ha lea were close in to the

F rocks, and were easily procurable, only i the oow showing any fight. The. catch is. I estimated as being -worth from £500 to j ±1700. The bull is 70ft long, in rather poor condition, and the cow is 60ft, in good con1 diiion. A " great many whales have been seen passing Kaikoura lately.-Tarana-ki, according to Mr R. Gibb, Government apiarist, has the doubtful honour of being the only part of New Zealand in which the large wax moth is fourwi. This pest ; o£ beekeepers,, while" in the caterpillar tfliage, eats through the comb, Bestroyinjr a" lot with the brood within; but it is- not very difficult &> gat rid of it if strong Italian: bees are used, and" care taken* to j keep the bottoms of the hives free from j cracks. I Auckland has "a, reputation for assisting ! those in distress 1 , and the latest instance 1 comes from Ponsonby School A family of children atccnding the school had the misi fortune to lose its breadwinner 6uddenly, i being left in poo? eireumstaneee. l*ed by the teachers, the children showed their sympathy with; tneir schoolfellows in^a praci ticaL manner, contributing their pence to- . war ds a collection,, which reaE&ad upwardsof £13. " - \ ' A Taranalcf farmer named" Mullafiy had an extraordinary and .painful experience recently. He was attending a sjck cow, and had raised, her to her feet when she charged Mm. He tripped over a root, and' the cow fell on. him and immediately* cxi pired.' It wa3 some time before .Mr Mul— I lahy could be removed faam his awkward j position, as his wife was the only other • person- present at. .the time. Several j broken sibs and; a' sa-yere bruising were j the results. '" ■ ■ I The schooner Concord, wiioh arrived at Honolulu, last month, had secured an mii teresfeing- relic of the days of Bulljr Hayes 1 in a brass swivel gui?, wnlc& was part of , the equipment of the- famous pirate of j the South Seas. Th& gun, -which: ©lust ; weigh at least 501b-, is of solid brass. It is j blown open at the breechv evidently by a charge which, waa too heavy for the- metal. In addition, the scihooner ■had < secured several old swords, which, were also part of Hayes's equipment. ■' i An inebriate brought before the WelHng- | ton 'Magistrate's Court the other day ' wasoharge<| as a first offender, although in the ! days gone by he had run up a total of 121 j convictions. "A record list, your Wor- , ehi/p," remai'ked Station-sergeant . Darby. i Lately, however, the man with the formidable record had " been goodj 'anid "became ' legially a first offender. His 122 nd convic- | tion was entered that day, and he was in I addition fined ss, with the usual alternative of 21 hours' imprisonment, Despite the if act fcfoa* the Christmasvacation is etill about six monti&s 1 ahead, school teachers are already evolving: plans t for a pleasant asod ■pocofttaibls holiday. Tbe [ Dominion." states th%.^ an interesting prof posal ias been, circulated by the Westport [ branch of the New -Zealand Educational I Institute suggesting that a.rra.n'pexnents be f made with -tihe TDJiioti Steam' Ship OomI pany for the cßartsringr o£ a steamer to i convey about 100 teadhers to the West [Coast Sounds.. The Nelson., branch of tfee j institute has decided to co-operate in the { scheme. . '