OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Mr E. Stead, of Now Zealand, has won. the £SO and £l2O pigeon-shooting handicaps promoted by the Gun (Jlub, London, A Palmerston North breedeir of Holstein Friesian cattle lias just refused an offer of 75 guineas for an eight weeks old calf. An old Frenchwoman, who had for years slept during the day, in order to watch her money during th© night, ventured out marketing recently and was robbed of 10,000 francs. It is now over six months sine© the young man James Kingdom mysteriously disappeared from Master ton. Not th© sligntcet clue has yet been obtained as to bis whereabouts.

The Federal Sugar Commission of Australia will be a costly inquiry. Its president receives £3OOO a year, and £3 a day for travelling expenses. The other members get £3 a day, with 25s travelling expenses. A goods train notrthward Ibountl contained a rather unusual consignment in the shape of five truck-loads of boss (says the Palmerston .Standard), which the owner was shifting from Masterton to Normanby. Twelve boys sent out from England by the central body, London, to take up farm work in New Zealand, arrived at the Bluff on Dec. 25, and all have been placed in Southland. The boys range in age from 16 to 18 years. ■. ■ In the Victorian County Court last week a jury awarded a boy named Harold David Middleton £950 damages for the loss of a leg, sustained through being knocked down by a tramcar belonging to the Melbourne Tramway Company. He claimed £2000.Serlby Hall, near Retford, the stately homo of Viscount and Viscountess Galway, possesses the distinction of being the only nuitv.ii-v hospital established in England by authority of the War Office for the recept ni wounded in the event of invasion. It is under-stood that Mr J. Brown, Ag.icuri.ural instructor to the South Canterbury Board of Education, has been chosen to fill an important position in the Agricultural Department of South 'Australia. If Mr Brown accepts the position he will leave Timaru shortly to take up his new duties. Just before the holidays one of the Wanganui postal clerks was unfortunate enough to lose his month’s salary from hie pocket. As there was no response to the advertisement of the lo 6», the staff of the office, by v- subscription, made up the amount, an instance of true Christmas feeling and good comradeship. Again last month Gisborne registered the largest birth-rate for the various boroughs of the Dominion, exceeding Napier, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Timaru, and Invercargill, all with larger borough populations. The births at Gisborne numbered 60, Invercargill next with 42, Timaru 38, Palmerston North 37, Wanganui 36. As showing the change of opinions today as compared with tho ideas of 20 years ago, Mr Lindsay mentioned at the meeting of the South Canterbury Board of Education that the authorities did all they could now to encourage swimming, but when he went to school boys used to get caned for going away swimming. A lino of lambs killed at Feilding abattoir last month for tho Christmas trade averaged the heaviest turning tho scale at 721 b. For this time of year these weights will take some beating. Tho lambs were bred by Mr Moore, of Awahuri, and they are a good sample of tho stock-raising capabilities of tho district. A cablegram received from London by a Hastings sharebroker of the Hawke’s Bay Leather Rubber Company is of a highly encouraging nature It states that tho rights of the invention have been sold for a very largo sum, and that a deposit of £IO,OOO has been made. Tho sale is subject to a satisfactory trial of the process.

Tho Hokonui district is a very prolific) pig-hunting ground this season, several parties having made visitations, with satisfactory results. On Christmas Day a party consisting of Messrs M‘lntosh Bros., Crowley, M'Killop, and Hughes secured five boars and two sows. The biggeot boar was possessed of a pair of tusks measuring eight inches. A young man named Jeremiah James Power was found aboard the steamer Whangapo after she had left Westport for Auckland, and stated as his reason for stowing away that he had no money. He was travelling on the steamer without paying hks fare, £3. Ho was fined £5, in default seven days in gaoL The Duke of Fife is tho only man living who began a meal as an earl and finished it its a duke. The meal was his own wed-ding-breakfast at Buckingham Palace Hia title was Earl of Fife, but Queen Victoria announced during tho reception that she hud raised her newly-married grandson-in-law to tho rank of a duke. Fifth sons born into families living at Bawdsey. a Suffolk village of 400 inhabitants, will in future bo born lucky. Sir Cythbort Quilter has announced that h© will become godfather tp each fifth son born on tho Bawdsey estate, and invest £5 in the Post Office Savings Bank in tho infant’s name, to accumulate until tho age of 21. Round about Rotorua tho saw-milling industry is making rapid development. There are now seven mills within a radius of a few miles, the output being about a million and a quarter of superficial feet of

sawn timber every month. Th© principal timber is rimu, which is practically all being sent to various parts of the Auckland district. An intending female passenger to Auckland attempted to take a little dog on board the train at Palmerston North, wrapped up like a baby, but the porter looking after the barricade on the platform had suspicions. He mado the woman undo the shawl, which was wrapped round the poodle, and did not allow either to board the train, it being too late to consign the canine to the dogbox The offer of £2OO a year and £SO passage money has failed to attract any serious competition in the Old Country among women teachers qualified to fill the position | of instructor in domestic science under the Wellington Education Board. So reported Mr J. S. Tennant, one of the board’s in- | spectors, who is now travelling in England jon extended leave. Further negotiations j are in progress. In a fish-shop in Armagh street, Christchurch, late on December 26 some young I men were having a discussion. Things evidently became rather heated, for, it is stated, one man produced a fully-loaded revolver and threatened trouble. The weapon was enatched from him, and the proprietor promptly rang up the Police Station, but the man got away after being chased for some distance A message to th© Melbourne Argus from Tallangatta states that a few days ago Mrs J, Jenkins undressed a child in the kitchen at her home, telling her to run off to bed. The little one pleaded for a light, but the mother replied that there -was no need, as the bedclothes were turned down. /The child persisted in her request, and finally Mrs Jenkins accompanied her to the bedroom with a lighted candle, to find a large black snake coiled up on the pillow. Th© Wanganui Education Board’s truant inspector proceeded against a settlor at Mangaweka for failing to send his four children to school. Tli© defendant’s plea was that the permanent teacher had gone away for a time, and he did not like the relieving teacher, therefor© h© kept th© children horn©. It came out in the evidence ‘ that defendant wag a member of the School L Committee. The magistrate could not ac--1 ccpt the plea, and he inflicted fines which, j with costs, totalled 22s 6d. I A woman who- has started a jiu-jitou school in London is doing a rushing business, according to the newspapers of that city. Qno of her pupils is a woman of 65 years, who has a great fear of being robbed. She feels quite able to tak© care of herself now, she says, and, incidentally, eh© has got rid of her rheumatism. Seif-supporting women who have to go about alone, and even ©chcolgirls, who hav© found that they need to be able to protect themselves from annoyance, are taking the course. A lady who is a visitor to Oamaru, although a resident of Otago for 47 years, had never, until the other day, sine© her departure from the Old Land, seen a railway train, let alone enjoyed the pleasure of a railway journey, had never before seen a motor bicycle, and only once in the distance a motor car. On her arrival in Otago in the days of th© gold rush she settled in on© of the mining townships, and until her advent in Oamaru this week had never travelled far from her own neighbourhood. Her view of a larger world has don© nothing more than create in her a desire to get back to £h© seclusion of her country home.—Oamaru Mail.