LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 116, 27 September 1895, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A former custodian of the Patea Hospital is now keeping a fish shop in Christchurch. Cricketers, and all interested, are requested to meet at the Borough Council Chambers on Thursday evening next, at half-past seven o’clock. Olio dark brown gelding is impounded in the Patea Public Pound, and will be sold at noon on Tuesday, Bth October, 189.1, if not previously released and all expenses paid. A Patea resident called for tenders for felling 10 acres of bush at Toko, but not one tender was put in. Surely boro is a show for some of the men who are constantly tramping the roads. The Good Templar Order is to bold a Convention at Palmerston North on the 19th November, to discuss, amongst other things, the best way of establishing lodges in towns whore they do not exist at present. The G.O.T. from Dunedin is expected to be present. Members of the Patea, Athletic Sports Association are reminded of the annual meeting to be held in the Borough Council Chandlers this (Friday) evening at halfpast seven o’clock. The business to be brought forward is set down in au udvw> Usejiijut in {mother column,

A bicycle track is being provided on •he roof of an hotel, now in course of construction in New York. The roofs of some hotels in America are laid out as gardens* A Sunday Dinner—Father of family (who has accidently shot leg of a fowl under table): ‘ Mind t’dog doesn’t get it! ” Young Hopeful (triumphantly): All light, fether ! I’ve gotten me foot on it.”

A newly-appointed French Mayor inaugurated his regime by' a notice to the following effect: —On the feast of cur Patron Saint the Fire Brigade will be reviewed in the afternoon if it rains in the morning, and in the morning if it rains in the afternoon.”

An electric fire-alarm now being intro dneed in Switzerland, acts automatically through the expansion of a metallic rod under heat. This makes an electric connection, and it is said that the alarm is so sensitive that it is put into operation by holding a lighted match near it.

A Liverpool girl, aged eleven, when caught in the act of picking ladies’ pockets recently pretended to be in a fit, On being conveyed to the Infirmary the doctors pronounced her to be shamming. Her mode of working was to play with an indiarubber ball on the pavement dipping into pockets ns opportunity offered.

A new type sotting mrchine is announced fiom Berlin, called the Plectrotypo. Its operations are entirely auto matic, the “ copy ” being put into i l , in a specially prepared slip of paper. A small electric motor drives each machine, which ca-ily turns out 20,000 ems an hour. An ordinary compositor seldom sets more than one tenth of this amount.

A little romance is reported froth Now York. When the American Line steamer New York arrived there recently, a passenger named Nystrom, who hud travelled as a man, was found in reality io be a woman. She refused to allow the doctor to vaccinate her, and it wa •> not until compelled to bare hex arm for the operation that the disco very of her sex was made. She then confessed that she had deceived the agent at (Southampton and had adopted the disguise in order to escape from hex’ husband, who she asserted had treated hr; with enmity, The story soon spread among the pa-rwiigcrs, and a subscription was got up to aid her, which realised 100 dollars.

A now bicycle tyre is being tried built on the compartment plan, says an exchange. The arrangement is such that a series of chambers rve produced in the tyre, each independent of. the other, so that in case the tyie is punctur id with a tack, or a -harp piece of glass, only part of the tyi e will collapse and the riler of the wheel can continue on his journey. If a pneu matin tyre is punctured now the entire tyre will collapse wholly, and the machine is useless until repaired. The new tyres are made of pulp produced from paper stock; and are of sufficient durability to permit usage on carriage wheels as well as bicycles, It is claimed that the tyres manufactured on the compartment plan are as easy riding as the most elastic rubber pneumatics.

It is not often that a wife is snei for the maintenance of her husband, but such a case caino before Major Keddell at Oamaru lately, when Timothy llautiigan sued his wife, who had a separate estate. Evidence having been given that complainant was sick and destitute, the wife went into the box. She averred that her husband had threatened lo take her life about ten years ago. He had only given her a half-crown dating the last eight years, and that was on a Christmas Day. It took her all her time to live, and she owed about £l7. Her income was throe shillings per week, and she had had no coal in the house last winter because she could m t pay for it. An order was made for the payment by the wife of 2s (id per week for the support of her husband, it having been shown that she had 11 acres of land with stock at Alma.

The Dunedin Star has the following on the fruit duty question : —The growers of fruit who have clamoured for an increase of duty are to bo placed in the same gory ns “ the dog in the manger ” of the fable—they will neither provide the market with plentiful supplies of good quality nor allow the community to bo supplied from uth'T colonies. The Premier expressed himself on Tuesday evening much to effect that it was absurd making such a fuss about an additional halfpenny on the pound of fruit. Does he not rouiem*. her that it was the additional straw that, broke the camel’s back ? Cupt ain Russell truly affirmed that, taking one tiling with another, tie new duty would raise the price to the consumer by KiO per cent. It is nothing, of course, to Mr Seddon, his colleagues, and the Ministerial hangers on, who all enjoy snug political incomes ; but is a very serious matter to the com - munity, and especially to the poorer classes, who arc thus practically deprived of one of their few little luxuries, and have to maintain out of a grinding taxation those who ate thus indifferent to their interests.

It will be rememberer! that about a year ago a cable message narrated some particulars of a barbarous outrage on a woman in the Island of A chill, Galway. It now appeal's that 'ho perpetrator of the offence was arrested but escaped from the police and was only recently brought to trial. The Times of 19th July reports that the tiial of John Lynchehaun, a' Castlebar, for the attempt to murder Mrs Agues McDouell in the Island of Ac’iill, concluded on Wednesday. The details sworn to by Mrs McD.,iinel!" and other witnesses showed an amount of barb !ri f y on the part of the prisoner which was | almost incredible. Bho lived in London, and bought a small property in Adi ill. The prisoner hud been in her service as bailiff, but did not give satisfaction. At the end of three months she clismis od him and served him with ejectment notices. On the night of October Gth she was all alone and in bed in the bouse, when she was aroused and locking out saw that her stables were on fire. Prisoner came to her and asked for the keys to let out the burses. She gave them to him and was returning to the house when he dragged her into tbq burning building-and made a. determined effort to throw her into the flames, In the struggle she fell and ho tried to strangle her and struck her a tremendous blow ou the bead. Bhe became insensible and remained unconscious for several days. The frontal bone of her bead was fiucturod. Her nose was bitten off, also a portion of ber lip, by human toetb. One of ber eyes was destroyed and the i other was permanently injured, The jury found Lynchehaun guilty, and be was sentenced to penal servitude for

It was said that at the beginning of August there were 70 rile men in Stratford. Now good men cannot be got at 6s per day.

An eccentric lady of property, who resided alone in Dudley, England, re cently died. She had quite a mania for possessing drapery and millinery goods. The sale of her effects included 20 dozen underclothing in silk, satin, wool, and linen; 31 ombroided petticoats; 66 silk, satin, and white skirts; 150 pockethandkerchief-’, 150 pairs of gloves, 40 nightdresses, 60 pairs of sheets, 9 dozen bolsters and pillow linen, 30 eider-down quilts -1 df zai cooking aprons, 7 dozen pairs cf stockings, I I umbrellas, 36 pairs of boots, a 0 drosses, and 33 shawls. N Z H’-'raid says: panics now being formed whose presei.t resources will be exhausted before the work nf thorough prospecting is begun, and it is quite certain that dining a period of relaps)—and a sharp set-back in company promoting is inevitable—no calls will be obtained. What we want to direct attention to at present are these two points—that to carry on merely prospecting operations by means of a corn pany, is an expensive and wasteful system, and that there is danger to a great industry unless strict precautions are taken. Mere company promoting is not prospecting. The Pope is a remarkably good chessplayer. hi fact, it is on rare occasions that ho is defeated at the game. There is one priest in Rome who is usually the Pope’s adversary. This priest—Father GSellu —has played chess with His HolN ness for 32 years past. When Cardinal Pecci was raised to the Papal throne, Father Glella, who was residing in Florence, received an invitation, “ Pearson’s ’’ assures us, to proceed to Rome and take up his quarters in the Vatican. Ho is a magnificent player, but is s) hottempered that the Pope (-f en impioves the occasion by a little homhy on the virtues of resignation and meekness — London Evening News.

A Japanese lady’s visiting dress often costs 200 dol., not including her hairpins, which are always a most important item. As the fashion never changes, both dress and pins are handed down from mother to daughter. In each city the women wear a colour peculiar to themselves. In Tokio it is blue; Kioto slate gray, and so on. Japanese women have strange ideas of adding 'to tiheir beauty. They shave off their eyebrows, and have pencilled ones with an exaggerated arch. They paint th'dr lips a vivid crimson, with a patch of gold in the centre, and their faces a chalky white. The peasant girl, of course, cannot afford all this decoration, and must be content with her own rosy cheeks and tanned skin.

We recorded on Monday last an accident in crossing the Fatea River at Matemateaonga, whereby three pack horses were drowned. The late rains Hooded the river considerably, and the carcases of those animals came down stream, bringing up opposite the Railway Station, one floating quietly between a steamer and the wharf, another “laying out ”by the bridge piers; the third was not noticed. One has since gone ocean wise in pursuit of oblivion, and will, no doubt, turn up again on the beach to en liven and interest the neighbourhood ; the other still clings ro the bridge pier, waiting the kindly interference of the County Council, as controllers of the bridge; and, judging from appearances, the sooner the carcase is set at liberty the better.

The eaonnm.n amount of wood now used for making paper every year may he judged from the fact that the Petit Journal, which has a circulation of over a million copies a day, an 1 is printed or, wood-pulp paper, consumes in a twelvemonth’ 120,000 fir trees of an average height of Ofift. This is equivalent to the annual thinning of 25,000 acres of forest This enormous amount of wood is reouircd to form the raw material for a single paper! In Sweden, Austria, and Germany—the great centres of the production of wood-pulp—the question of the destruction of forests is, say the Field and Fireside, becoming a serious one, so serious, indeed, that unless some now material come into use before long the printing press will oat up the forests of Europe.

The island of Scio is blessed with a Judge whose homely wisdom reminds one somewhat of Sancho Panza dispensing substantial justice to his good people of Barataiia. The other day it fell to the lot of the Greek Judge to decide two actions for damages brought against the local railway company in consequence of u collision. A man had lest an arm, and a young woman had been deprived of her husband. The Judge awarded 0,000 piastres to the man for the loss of Jhis arm, and 2,001 to the woman for the loss of her husband. At this there were laud murmurs, whereupon the Judge gave bis reasons in these terms : “ My dear people, 1113' verdict must remain ; for you will see it is'not a poor one. Poor Nikola has lost a arm, and nothing on earth can restore that priceless limb. But you (turning to the woman), you are still young and pretty. Yon have now somo money; you will easily find another husbend, who possibly may bo good—porhaps better—than your dead lord. That is my verdict my peplo. And it must go forth.”