GENERAL NEWS.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume VI, Issue 708, 12 October 1898, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

The Taranaki Acclimatisation Society is distributing 10,000 trout--1000 rainbow and 9000 brown —in tbe streams in and around Ingle wood. The inquest at Parihaka on the body of the Maori woman who was run over near Pnugirehu last week was the first held in Te Wliiti’s stronghold. A verdic of Accidental Death was returned.

A strange and w, .d atmospheric effect was noticeable mi tbe Tararuas the other night. Ah> g space, nearly a mile, was lit up in tb >ugh by an eleetrio light, the -mi v looking bright and beautiful. Grab uvly the space narrowed until it bee uni but a small shaftand tliendisapp i red altogether. Some people thought it was owing to the brilliancy of Von •:«, but that will not account for the strange light. Can anyone explain ? asks the Leader.

Tbe Silvorloys eb ese factory on the Bangitikei line lia3 been permanently closed up and the plant has been removed to Pukekoa, near Hunterville, where, wo are pleased to state, the above w, 11 known brand of cheese will be tu-uied out under the supervision of Mr Allan Skerman. It is to be regretted (says the Manawatu Times) that the industry has been discontinue ! in the district, espocially as it has 1, en carried on for the past eighteen years. The closing of the factory, Mr Skerman states, was due to tlio action of a number of suppliers banding together and demanding pur gallon more for milk than was paid by the N.Z. Farmers’ Dairy Union last year. It is estimated by the chairman of the Napier Chamb r of Commerce that the combined revenue of the trawlers working in tlio bay will shortly reach over £17,000 a year. Orders against foraging were very strict at one time in the army of the Potomac. A young soldier was bailed on his way into camp with a fine goose slung over his shoulder, and required to give an account for his possession of it. “ Well,” said lie, “ I was coming through the town whistling Yankee Doodle, when this confounded rebel of a goose came out and hissed me, and I shot it.” Some very remarkable observations have been made in Java on tbe increase of temperature in certain plants at the time of flowering. In one case the temperature in the flower was 31deg. Fahrenheit above the temperature of tho surrounding air.

In the Invercargill Supreme Court the action of W Jhristie v. 0. »eily, contractor, was neard on Thursday. This was a claim for £3OOO, claiming damages under the Employers’ Liability Act for injuries sustained through alleged defective scaffolding. Mr Justice Pennefarher found for the defendant.

A Maori deputation of one which waited upon the County Council on Monday, after putting its case before the members—the grievance being that persons took gravel from his pit other than the Council, which was the only body which had power to do so wound up:—“l don’t mind you fellows, because I can't stop you.” Tbe “fellows” looked grateful. The price tbe Council pays for the gravel is 8d per yard, but the native nanted to charge those who had taken gravel without authority 23 6d per yard. “ Next time I charge him five bob ” was the native’s parting shot as ho withdrew. —Taranaki News. The scent of man has been the subject of a number of experiments by Dr A. Betlie, who gives liis results by the new number of the Archie tier i/esamten Pln/niolayie. Dr Betlie, in one particular, extends the Jager theory even further than its original projector ventured to do, and affirms that every human individual has his or her own peculiar scent. Not only a dog, says he, but a man gifted with an except onal na-al sensibility, can detect a man by his distinct and individual smell. The doctor made an experiment with a person thus exceptionally gifted. He brought this wonderful “ smeller ” with bandaged eyes into a room whore more than 20 persons of his acquaintance had been collected, and the smeller detected and named every ono of them correctly, by deliberately putting his nose to each in turn. The “ human scent,” according to Dr Betlie, is not born with us, but is acquired. Professor Jegar’s theory, as many will be aware, is that the personal scent of a man has an ethical value, and he takes certain texts of the Old Testament to be actually as well as figuratively true. Dr Betlie is not inclined to carry his operations beyond the scientific into the moral provinco. He believes that there is a characteristic “ family smell,” of which each member of a family more or less partakes, and which they do not quito lose even when they aro separated from one another “ by continents or oceans.” Meanwhile, ho warns against coming to hasty conclusions upon a matter vihich is still only in a tentative stage, especially as a man's individual scent is so very much conditioned by his social circumstances and by bis pe-sonal habits and manner of life.