NEWS ITEMS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8410, 9 January 1899, Page 4

NEWS ITEMS.

The city authorities request Auckland residents to be careful in the use of water and avoid waste. The overflow at the western springs has ceased. Letters from America announce the death of " Professor " Kennedy, the mesmerist, which occurred at Chicago on November 16th, from Bright's disease. He was 45 years of age. The Northern Natives propose to send a representative to England to interview the Home Government upon their deprivation of important concessions granted them under the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi. Mr H. Aitken, who has just entered upon his fourth year as Mayor of Oamarn, died last week. He had undergone an operation about two months ago, and never recovered. He was an old resident of the town. A United Bands Association contest is being arranged to be held in Christchurch in 1900, and promises to be exceptionally interesting, inasmuch as it is probable that Australian bands will compete. Several Victorian and New South Wales bands liave already*intimated their willingness to take part. The Palatine Fire Insurance Company of Manchester is retiring from business in this colony. The number of offices in New Zealand, however, is not to be reduced as the Law, Union, and Crown Insurance Company of London, an old-established company, is coming in with its head office at Wellington. Mr Holmes, flax export, will be general manager in New Zealand. With regard to circuses visiting Christchurch, the proposed new by-law of the City Council places them in a different position to what has hitherto existed. No license will be issued to any circus until the marquee or tent in which the performance is to be given has been erected. and until the accommodation for the safety of the performers and public from fire h.ivc been approved by the Council. Further, if the tent is pulled down the license lapses. The earnings for the past year of the Colonial Consignment and Distributing Company, Limited/ as shown by the balance-sheet submitted to the annual meeting of shareholders, recently held in London, were £37.462 Ss, from which has to be deducted for depreciation, balance of preliminary expenses and debenture interest, £11,026 12s, leaving a net profit of £■26,435 16s. This sum was allocated as follows :— 6 per cent, dividend on cumulative preference shares, £4000 ; Kinking fund for redemption of debentures, £,53g-2 10s ; and 6 per cent, dividend on the Company's ordinary shares, £13.300 : leaving .t'3o7:i"(Js to be carried forward. The expectations of the directors have heeu realised (luring the year in bo far that there has been a considerable increase in the Company's business, both as regards the number of consignors and the actual weight of meat handled, and the directors hoped next year to make a return to the shippers from* the Consignors' Distribution Fund, provided the business increased in the same proportion as it had done during the past year.

A aood advertisement in a good paper will always bring good results. Advertising is the greatest of all modern engines for facilitating business. — Bates. The rivalry between Lord Salisbury and Mr Chamberlain was the subject of an article contributed to the Independance Beige by its London correspondent on November 24. The writer declares on good authority that at a recent Cabinet meeting lord Salisbury's desire to yield on the question of Fashoda was over-ruled by his imperious colleague, who is now virtually master, and directs England's foreign policy with the more audacity that ho is not officially responsible. He sums up the situation by the aphorism, " Salisbury reigus, but Chamberlain governs." A remarkable case of sleep-walking occurred in Wellington last week. Early in the morning, a lady, who is said to move in good society, was found wandering about two miles from home, attired only in a nightdress. Her somnambulistic ramblings have been a source of grave anxiety to her friends. It is not so long ago that a lady was encountered by a constable, taking a morning stroll, in a somnambulistic state, in Custom House street, and narrowly escaped being arrested by a zealous and vigilant member of the " force." Colonials who have had the good fortnne to receive postal packets from Holland recently should take care of the stamps if they happen to bear the image and superscription of the young Queen. Her Majesty, who is gifted with a fair share of vanity, has just called in and ordered to he destroyed the whole of the first issue of her reign simply because she is displeased with the treatment accorded to her hair in the portrait. It is drawn too tight behind the ears, and makes her " look like a school girl." The suppressed stamps will, of course, be valuable in the eyes of philatelists. The Canadian Government are about to try the experiment of utilising dogs for carrying mails to the Klondyke. A cargo of these animals, bought at an average cost of 30dols. each, has been landed at Quebec from Labrador and Greenland, and will be despatched immediately by the Canadian Pacific Railway to the other side of the continent. The dogs number 140, and have been picked for their training, speed, and weight. They will, of course, be harnessed to sledges. The London correspondent of the Post commends to the notice of New Zealand orchestral societies an orchestral piece written for the Gloucester Festival by a very young Anglo-African musician, Mr Coleridge-Taylor, called a " Ballade in A minor," a work not only of talent, but of genius ; and also a symphonic poem of rivers from their source to the sea, by Smetana, the Bohemian composer, entitled "Vltava-," representing the course of two rivers which is described as " entirely delightful." The English press is lamenting in leaded type over the alleged fact that the British workman is growing lazy. He is described as being " no longer fairly or even honestly industrious." As an instance, one paper, on the authority of a leading contractor, states that, owing to the way in which daily-paid labor takes its time, a house that ten years ago could be built for £500 now costs £750. In the good old times, it is said that it was considered a fair thing for a, bricklayer to lay SOO or 900 bricks in a day, whereas now, although he could work up to 1200 if he liked to hustle, his average has fallen to 300. Queen Victoria recently expressed her views on the marriage of members of the English aristocracy with American girls. She confessed she at first viewed these marriages with some anxiety, but added that her fears had since been completely allayed, and the Queen now thinks that American girls, from the breadth of their education, independence, and rapid changing life, are better able to adapt themselves to the new environments than the more stereotyped English girls. The Queen also thinks it unfair to insinuate that mercenary motives are the frequent cause of the marriages of impoverished nobles to American heiresses. One of those repetitions that history so frequently happens upon is contained in the announcement that the services of all extra clerks in the Government employ are dispensed with as from Ihp 31st March, with a view of making new arrangements. On the 31st March, 1569, or 30 years earlier to the very day, an exactly similar siep was taken by the Canterbury Provincial Government, then under the Superintendence of the Hon. W. Rolleston. But it applied to the whole service. Every man in office under the Provincial Government was given notice of dismissal as from that day. Only the most capable and efficient officers were reappointed, some even of the heads of departments being allowed to go, and a reorganisation was made that had noteworthy effects upon the official history of the colony. The " new woman" was the cause of an extraordinary scene in the Strand on November Bth. A lady emerged from one of the side streets dressed in a novel but somewhat picturesque costume, probably for the purpose of advertising a cycling dress. She was full past the bloom of youth, and if her hair was not naturally grey, it was at any rate powdered. She wore a tailor-made Roman toga of gray cloth, which reached to her knees, with an elaborate frilled collar, black stockings, which well set off the lower limbs, tight laced boots, and a little straw black hat. The lady was soon surrounded by a crowd of hobbledehoys, who hustled her considerably. Sorely beset, she made a dash for an omnibus, but the conductor refused to allow her to get inside. Two gentlemen remonstrated with him, and said he had nothing to do with her clothes ; to which he responded by declaring that he would not have his trade ruined by a "guy." After another severe tussle with her rowdy tormentors, the lady managed to get inside another omnibus, amid the jeers and gibes of the crowd, and made her way citywards, where, she said, people were more civilised ! " A New Zealand Shuffle " is the heading given by the Investors' Review to the deuate, which is reproduced, following Mr Duthie's question in fhe House of Representatives as to the refusal of the London Stock Exchange to give a quotation for the £2,700,000 three per cent debentures then proposed to bo floated. To introduce the subject the paper says :— " Of the facts there can be no doubt. The application was made to get this £2,700,000 of three per cent stock added to the public debt of the colony on the sly, and when publicspirited men opposed the transaction the Government withdrew the application, and il has not since been renewed. Mr Seddon could not deny these facts. He simply enveloped the transaction in a cloud of meaningless words, and insinuated that we have some personal hostility toward the colony. He himself, however, is the greatest traducer, and one of the worst enemies its inhabitants have ever encountered. Ib is quite true, as he says, that he has no personal acquaintance with the editor, and that at least is not his fault. When he was here last year ru tiling it as a 'Jubilee Premier' he and hangers on of his made unsuccessful attempts to enable us to include him among the number of our acquaintances." Dunedin was shocked last week by an extraordinary adventure in which four young persons were concerned. A St. Leotvml's correspondent wrote to the Times :— " On New Year's Eve two boys and two girls, apparently in their teens, secured a dingey and rowed out to the cutter Defence, lying at anchor. They had with them a good supply of provisions, clothing and books. They remained quietly on board for the greater part of the night, but about 4 a.m. on Sunday they slipped the anchor with a considerable length of chain, and set sail for some imaginary land, All went well until opposite the St. Leonards railway station. Here the cutter, with its living freight, became fast on top of the retaining wall, and there she lay from early in the forenoon until 6 o'clock in the evening. The owner of the cutter arrivedon the sccnednring the day, and kept watch on his property until the tide made, when the Defence was floated off and anchored at the new jetty at Burkes. A large crowd assembled to witness the landing of the party. The two boys had a blush of shame on their faces, but the girls seemed quite indifferent. It would serve no purpose to publish the names, but it may entertain your readers to learn the provisions with which the youthful people had provided themselves — namely, one oOlb lug flour, one 251 b bag oatmeal, four tins preserved mill;, eight loaves bread, several tins of preserved meat and various other articles. " In a subsequent issue the Times said : It appears that one of the two girls who were concerned in the escapade on the cutter Defence on New Year's Eve left a note at her home before leaving intimating that the two intended to die together The matter was reported to the police, but nothing could be learnt of their whereabouts until they were found on the Defence, stranded on the training wall at St. Leonards. Each of the girls was about 17 years of age, while their companions of the opposite sex on the voyage of discovery were considerably youuger — mere boys.

Influenza is again upon the warpath, milking its periodical tour of the world. The cablegrams have informed us that it has broken out with a good deal of vim- 1 lenco in America, and as it Ims hitherto reached us by the American route, its reappearance in the colonies may probably shortly be looked for. The Electrical Review (New York) says' Tesla now proposes to transmit without the use of any wires, through the natural means — the earth and the air — great amounts of power to distances of thousands of miles. This will appear a dream— a tale from the Arabian Nights. But the extraordinary discoveries Tesla has made during a number of years of incessant labor make it evident that his work in this field is ready for a practical test on an industrial scale. The success of his efforts means that power from such sources as Niagara will become available in any part of the world regardless of distance. Wallatb, who was released from prison the other day, inserts the following in the Taranaki Herald :— I would that I could better express that sense of gratitude which I feel towards those of you who have showed such sympathy and kindness, i both to myself and parents. It is im: doubledly due to your untiring efforts that lam home to-day. I was om:o wild and foolish, but had long ago repented, and am now determined to live a good, just, and honorable life ; and I feel by doing this I can best show that sense of gratitude which I feel so deeply. I sincerely trust that the future will redeem the past. That a single short sentence may sum up a whole situation was well illustrated by an incident in the Dunedin Court recently, when three Chinamen were charged with furious driving. There was much argument amongst the parties concerned as to the merits and de-merits of the case, but one of the defendants. Louey Ling, stood afar off and looked on surveying the proceedings with a pensive smile. "Anything to say to the charge 2" asked the senior constable. Briefly Louey Ling replied : "Too muchee Ulkee ; how much I lined 1" And then the Court laughed. The Figaro the other day gave some interesting information concerning the precautionary measures which are taken at the Paris Bourbon, in order to secure the arrest of any person who might be fcolish enough to attempt an outrage. Near the Speaker's chair is a little electric Bwitch, which the Speaker alone has the right to touch. Once turned on this switch starts a number of bells ringing in all parts of the Palais Bourbon. Should these bells ever ring the sentries have orders to at once close the gates and to let no one in or out, not even a Minister. At the same time the galleries are closed and the corridors and staircases blocked— in fact, no one can move until the person wanted has been discovered. The sky-colored vest worn by Charles I. upon the scaffold has just(says the London correspondent of the Age) been sold by auction for the sum of 200 guineas. The stains of blood have been religiously preserved by a succession of royalist owners, and the top button had been removed, so that the King might more easily bare his neck to the executioner. There is no doubt that in his last sad days Charles Stuart comported himself with great dignity, and that, even in the opinion of his enemies, admiration for the man did much to redeem the faults of the King. The incidents of his trial and execution have made him one of the most picturesque figures in English history. The price given for the relic is considered low, for there if no doubt about its authenticity. England will be fittingly represented at the forthcoming great exhibition in Paris, although she does not propose to spend in exhibits as much money as some of her rivals in commerce. "England" in Paris will centre about the British pavilion which is to be erected there. Some time has been taken up in discussing what architectural character this building shall take. Above all things, something typical of England was required. At last the committee entrusted with the selection of the piece of architecture to he copied has come to a decision. The British pavilion in Paris will be in every exterior detail a reproduction of Kingston House, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts. This mansion is considered to be one of the handsomest examples of seventeenth century architecture in England, while the house has many historical associations. The replica to be erected in Paris will provide accommodation for the Prince of Wales, when, as is 'expected, he visits the exhibition. Except on those occasions the house will be open to visitors. A correspondent of the Daily Mail notes that as soon as electricians are able to store the same amount of energy in lib weight of battery as can bo obtained from lib of coal, the motive power of the naval and mercantile marine will undoubtedly be electricity, from storage batteries carried in space now occupied by the bilges, and working three or more propeller shafts coupled direct on to dynamos running at about 1500 revolutions per minute, controlled from the bridge, and requiring not more than one or two attendants, even in the largest vessels having battery power sufficient to take them half way round the world without re-charging. As it is to-day it seems as though we are only one remove from electricity, for the water tube is fast taking the place of the ordinary boiler, and shipowners are beginning to think of discarding the cumbersome and complicated marine engine for simple turbine motors making from 2000 to 3000 revolutions per minute without the least vibration, and developing 100 indicated horsepower per ton weight of machinery, as in the case of the Turbiua. Her Majesty has recognised signal deeds of heroism by conferring the decoration of the Albert Medal upon Richard Wright Toman, engineer of her torpedo-boat destroyer Foam. On August 3rd last, while the Foam was carrying out her full speed trial at Malta, the mean pressure cylinder burst. Mr Toman at once ordered everyone to leave the engine-room, and ran to main throttle valve and endeavored to shut it off, getting badly scalded in consequence, He afterwards shut off the main stopvalves of the boilers in the stokeholds. Then, thinking all the men were not out from the engipe-room, he went down into the volume of steam and succeeded in getting out only after two attempts. When he reached the deck he turned on the fire extinguishers to the boilers, his hands at the time being almost bare of skin. Thence be again went to the engine-room to search for anyone who might not have been able to escape, and he got out only after two attempts, and in a condition which necessitated his being at once removed to the hospital. Mr Toman's action, says the London Gazette, probably saved the lives of all on board. The London Globe does not like the new marriage law devised by the NewZealand Parliament. The changes proposed are not likely, it thinks, to be of much benefit to the colony, since it is the universal experience that neither happiness nor morality are promoted by facilitating divorce, and the suggested law obviously opens the law to collusion in every direction. These things, however, the Globe recognises, concern New Zealauders alone. What concerns England is the confusion into which the New Zealand Act is only too likely to throw the Marriage Laws of the Empire. It is proposed that anyone shall be entitled to the advantage of the Act who has been domiciled in New Zealand two years. The Globe points out that a New Zealand domicile in no way affects an Englishman's nationality, and is quite certain that the English Courts neither would nor could recognise divorces granted on some of the grounds scheduled in the Act except possibly in the case of persons whose marriages took place in New Zealand. Thus those unhappy people who obtain a domicile in the colony in order to get relief from their partners and probably to make a second dip into the matrimonial lucky bug may be divorced in New Zealand but will remain married in England, whatever the colonial Courts may pay, and their position and that of their children will, according to the Globe, be most intolerable. A stringent law, having for its object the combating of tuberculosis in cattle, has been passed- by the Danish Government. Under its provisions an annual grant of .£5555 is to be placed at the disposal of the Minister of Agriculture to assist owners of cattle who wish to apply the tubeiculin test to their herds. Live cattle can only be imported via certain stations fixed by the Government. Immediately after importation tho cattle are to be tested with tuberculin by the veterinary police, such tests to be completed within five days after landing at late3t, and those that have reacted must be slaughtered under official supervision. The expense of establishing the necessary quarantine stations and the cost of the tuberculin test will be defrayed by the Government. Cows attacked by tuberculosis of the udder must be slaughtered ir, accordance with the law. Tho owner receives as compensation one-fouith of the value of the carcase, calculated according to its weight and the current price. If any portion of the meat is declared by the veterinary officer to be unfit for human food, the owner further receives one-half the value of such part. Dairies will not he allowed to deliver milk or buttermilk as food for animals unless it has been previously heated up to 135deg Fah. In- • fractions of the law are puniahable by j tines, which go to Lhe State.