OMNIUM GATHERUM

Otago Witness, Issue 2921, 9 March 1910, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM

M tie jpossible for one person to vote Tor f\? (sliiferssot London parliamentary alates.The ivsflue of toys and games -exported j[iom tfbo United Kingdom in 1908 was £72,306. The 652 registered trade unions of Great-, ©ritain foav.e a total jne-mbership of A Baptist church in Santa Rosa, Calijforriiit, was built from the wood pi a .single' jredwoo.d jbr.ee. In ; some- .of .the Swedish "hotels -wprne„v #XS> hidi-rates because shey ©a* Sees than men.. 'JFJfce Chinamen of Wanganui ;have just •]hpspital funds. jFi.fteen million -trained men in Europe iready to flv at each other's throa;fcs .in tthe- <eyent .of war ]Bpoks <aro kept at Russian railway statins .specially for .the registration of pas(gengers' .complaints, jka&t -year "(Oyer 17,OOQ,OP0ib of iohaeety oMiti m&s " imaj^u.factured W th§> JJ.nited fengA9m\^ r 1 e '«^P c> - r i e< ?-- x . ■_, , ". '.,, <O.Re flrra in th<? Westpor.t dis.gpwater and Bryan--p.aid in S>T«i?*?" .£BOOO. m ■■ ..... . . ~ W^r t thT&s>r^ ; eaSt of Australia fe <feg reef to % world. It K f»£r 10QO flffite fens :» n <s ?° •"#"* w : i<fe ,_ WW Liyerpoo! during {to

against residents of Stratford and district for breaches of the Noxious Weeds Act.

Mr A. Holt, of Herby, has received from, the North of Ireland a fully-grown bull which stands only 32in high and weighs 2£cwt. A schoolgirl, nine years of age, was killed at Cirkelbach, Austria, by the blackboard suddenly falling on her while she was doing a sum. Rents charged by the London County Council for tenements in working-clas? dwellings owned by it average 2s 10£d a room per week. Prize-money totalling £2OO is to be given at the- Auckland musical and literary competitions, besides a. 55-guinea piano, challenge shields, etc, A beggar woman named Mayer, who- died Of starvation .at Schwainungen, Austria, ■was found tj> have £2500 hidden in the ! at-tie \where she lodged. j Sir Edward L. Williams, the engineer , »nd designer of the Manhestcr Ship Canal, died on January "., at Altrincham, Cheshire. H.e was jo his 82nd year, I The .current number of the Gazette eon- | iiftins a special order authorising the Queensj town Borough Council jfco borrow £1250 to : ipi'ipyide fox acetylene gasworks. As a class, criminals between 16. and 20 ; m$ 2iin below the average height of the . jgeneral population of the same age, and j weigh approximately J4lb lege. I 'The windows in the streets along ihe* Jin* of route of the funeral procession of tihe late King of the Belgians fetched a* Hj'jtgh .as £4O "for a single balcony.

Complaint is made in Timaru of passing motor oar 9 disturbing church services on Sundays, the tooting of horns being the feature to which exception is taken. A workman's dwelling, • with hot and cold bath, for half-a-crown a week, is the latest prospect held out by the erection of the Sutton Model Buildings in. Glasgow. According to a notice in the Gazette the Minister ot Lands has reserved 953 S acres in various parts of the Dominion as additional endowments for primary education. A lad named Menkes, whilst walking in his sleep at Orange, New South Wales, fell out of a window to the ground, a distance of 22ft, but was only slightly injured. At a big Anglican Church at Adelaide on Sunday morning there was not a single male adult in the congregation, and the verger had to carry round the collection plate. A deserter from the French artillery was acquitted by the court-martial which tried him at Le Mans- for the curious reason that he had deserted to serve his country in Morocco. . A valuable find of opal has just been made in Queensland. A party, after sinking to a depth of 4ft, came on a pocket of opal, which yelded £6OO worth of the precous stone. In Germany, if a doctor is wanted suddenly in the night, one goes to the nearest emergency station and fetches one of the several doctors who are always doing their turr of night duty The planet Venus has become a morning •star again, and is again visible in the daytime. She is about an hour and a-half ahead of the sun, so that she crosses the moon line about 10.30 a.m.

A party of Gore gentlemen paid a short \isit to the Tararua cemetary on February 25. They found the fences in good order, but the long ryegrass in many instances was as high as the tombstones. A representative procesision of the cripples in Barcelona attended the funeral of a spinster who had been lame and had left a large sum of money to be . distributed among all the cripples of the town. Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, who commenced hs Career as deck boy, has been appointed by the Cunard Company to succeed Captain Pritchard, the retired commodore, as commander of the Mauretania.

H.M.S. Pioneer, third-class protected cruiser and drilkdiip for .laval reservists in New Zealand, is expected to sail from Sydney for Auckland on March 16. The cruieer will subsequently come southwards. It is understood that no steps have yet been taken by the Government in regard to the representation of the Dominion of New Zealand at the Festival of the Empire, to be held in London in May and June.

Mrs Russell Sage has just forwarded m the American Bible Society the donation of half a million dollars which she generously promised fiome time ago, on condition that a similar sum was raised for the society in smaller contributions. Since the installation of electric lighting in New Plymouth, almost every housewife in the town does her ironing with an electric iron. The method is cheaper, more convenient, quicker, and cleaner than any other yet placed before the public. An English doctor whose patients are scattered over a wide district, takes carrier pigeons with him on his rounds, and sends his prescriptions to the apothecary by their agency. He also leaves pigeons with distant families, to be let loose when his services are needed. m The Wanganui Technical School site is to be offered for lease by tender. A rental of little short of £IOOO a year is expected for the land, and if this estimate is reached it means that over £12,000 will be available for school buildings for the borough of Wanganui. It will interest those who consider the dairy farmer a hard taskmaster to know that the co-operative butterbox company, at Eltham. gave its employees, a number of whom are members of the local rifle corps, two days' holiday in order to visit Wellington in connection with Lord Kitchener's visit. During the pa6t few weeks an umisually large number of crickets and other insects have been worrying lives out of people up Dargaville way," and on February 25 small red ants appeared in millions in. different parts of the district. One settler, on the way from Waimate to Dargaville, was attacked by legions of them, and he was, glad to reach Dargaville. Citing the incident as proof of the assertion that fruit-growiner is not all profit, the Mount Benger Mail savs that the other day a cow at Coal Creek started to e a* some apples. One was too big to get down its throat, and stuck. Attempts were made to get the apple ug or down but without success and the peor animal died. An annoying feature is that the owner was offered a good price for the cow the other day but refused to sell. K. bankrupt who was being examined at Whangarei the other day (reports an exchange) was so closely questioned with reference to his business transactions that lie became irritated, and said, with indignation, that in the last bankruptcy case he was concerned in a million and a-half had been involved, and there had" not been

half the fuss that there had been over the paltry £3O or so that was then occupying the attention of the court. At Mr G. Cruickshank's usual periodical magisterial-. sitting at Stewart Island this week, the principal business was in connection with old-age pensions. One of the applicants for renewal of a pension was a man, 90 years of age, who walked over to the court from his home—some two miles distant. He was very hale and hearty, and his Worship welcomed the nonagenarian as a living testimony of the invigorating qualities of Stewart Island's climate.