NEWS ITEMS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8417, 17 January 1899, Page 4

NEWS ITEMS.

Fully 100,000 inhabitants of London are night workers. The turnover in the t-niber trade of Auckland last year is estimated at no less than a quarter of a million sterling. A scat in the New York Stock Exchange was sold early in November for °.B,ooodol. This is the largest price realised for a dozen years. The people of New Zealand carry more insurance on their lives than those of any other country in the world — on the average every male adult carries £75. Some shearers and rouscabouts at Springfield station (New South Wales) were poisoned recently by drinking tea made from sheep-dip water. They all recovered. The Feilding Fire Brigade has been empowered by the Borough Council to employ 44 men to work the engine in case of a serious fire for one hour at 2s Cd per head. One can speak by telephone from Berlin with any part of Germany for three minutes for a shilling. For a conversation with any place outside of Germany the fees range between two (Prague) and four shillings (Budapest). The quantity of dairy produce exported from New Plymouth between September Ist and January 7th amounted to 7a,2'29 packages of butter, valued at £150,438, and 2997 packages of cheese, valued at £5994. A woman named Mrs Greenan had a narrow escape of being killed at Onehunga the other day. She was walking in Alfred street, when a big calf, about eighteen months old, rushed at her, and tossed her off the footpath, and rolled her over and over, until she reached the nv'ddle of the street. It then began to butt her in the breast with its head. This continued for some minutes until some people ran to the rescue. Alluding to the ideas people in other countries hold on the subject of New Zealand, a speaker at the New Zealand Educational Institute sitting at Christchurch, mentioned the concluding portion of a letter from an American editor. It read, " When you write again will you kindly tell me how many teachers in New Zealand speak the English language T Burnett, the Harvard football player, who played centre during the second half of the game with Pennsylvania (says a recent issue of the Philadelphia Record), is a son of Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett, and is the original Little Lord Fauntleroy. Since that time he has developed into a man of muscle, with a stout arm and an accurate foot, but he still retains some of the peculiarities of the little Lord. A correspondent of one of the New Zealand religious journals, who neither approves of the present general method of administering the wine in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, nor of the "individual cup," suggests the following plan as an improvement on both : Let a sufficient number of glass spoons or spoons of ordinary metal tie handed round to the communicants on a tray first; then as the cup is passed each one could take a spoom'ul from tho chalice. A similar suggestion was made recently by the Mataura congregation to the district Presbytery, but was not acted upon. Attention is being called to a novel type of vessel now under construction at Baltimore, for the raising of sunken wrecks. The vessel is cigar shaped, propelled by a screw, but fixed with wheels on the bottom, which, driven by electric motors, trundle the boat when it is sunk along the bed of the sea. The boat is 36ft long and 9ft in diameter. The hull is constructed to withstand a pressure of 801 b. so that it can sink to a depth of over 150 ft. It is divided into four compartments, the largest accommodating machinery and crew, the second is used as an air look, the third is fitted with a hatchway and drop ladder to allow the divers to pass out to their work, and the bow compartment has a revolving search light. In an article on the breakwater and the butter trade, the Taranaki Herald says :— "Already butter is being sent seventy or eighty miles for shipment from the breakwater, which is prima facie evidence that better facilities are offered here than anywhere else. Indeed the facilities are almost perfect, and can only he improved by the Home steamers coming every fortnight to Moturoa to load. On Tuesday last the Hotoiti in a few hours took on board some three hundred tons of butter, which within thirty-sW hours of leaving the freezing works had been transferred to the lonic at Wellington, and early on Friday morning was actually on the way to London. The cost of the coastal freight from here to Wellington is, we understand, borne by the Shaw Savill and Albion Company, whom it presumably suits better to do this than to send their steamers to Moturoa. "H.R.R.," a temporary clerk, u ho is evidently behind the .scenes, writes to the "Post," stating that the temporary clerks are helpless and spiritless as compared with working tailors or navvies. "He says: — "The temporary clerk is an officer who usually performs departmental work worth from ilSo to£;)00 per annum for the wages or a little, perhaps, in excess of those of a pick and shovel man, and on this scant pay he has to keep up the appearance of a gentleman. In many cases the temporary clerk has grown old and grey in his temporary employment. Some have been twenty years in the service, others fifteen to five, the word 'temporary' meaning nothing, so that how ever they began they must now he fully qualified, clerical work involving nothing very special, as I have heard the Premier say." The writer declares, in conclusion, that ho does not knew of a department which is overmanned. Not often does Nature heiself turn impresario, and run a regular show, but when she puts- her hand to the business — as just, now at Vesuvius— the thing is always done well (says the London Daily Telegraph) and draws immensely. The great Italian volcano is in full blast, and the s-ecne, as described by eye-witnesses, presents .1 wonderful and terrible spectacle, which can be partially realised by all, but best by those who have seen and know the mountain of In c, and walked 111 the dead, stieets of the cities buried by it. At night the spectacle is reported to be one of the wildest and giandest imaginable. The whole mountain i-= illuminated by the lurid glare of the liquid streams that flow stealthily down its sides, and these streams, and their point of output, are ever i banging, so that' from hour to honr there is a varied panorama not to be rivalled. At the pie.sent moment the liquid lava i-. easily accessible, and lumdieds of people go nightly to see it. They mostly bring provisions with them, have a picnic in tin: open air, and leave for Naples at daybreak. The lava at certain points, uhere it is confined in channels, runs at a speed of from 20 to 100 yards an hour, and c.uiies with it blocks of old lava and scoiia. It is described by those on the spot as a burning ice tloe, anil the guides, and occasionally some of the mote intrepid visitors, step on to one of the moving block.-, and ride on the lava stream for a distance, measured, however, only by feet, for the soles of the shoes will not allow of a piolongod journey. Night tours are organised to t lie crater, and the funicular railway is then illuminated by the electric light, lending additional beauty to the wild and tk:\ icciic.

A proposal is on foot to send .1 picked team of Maori haka and poi danms, whare- t builders, canoeists, and carvers, lo the 1 Kail's Court and Parisian Exhibitions. 1 It is reported in loyal circles tliat the ' Goveriiinent contemplate appointing a ' second stipendiary magistrate in Welling- [ ton in order to deal with the increase of ' business caused by the Old Age Pension < claims. An exchange says : Winning racehorses , lire generally bays, chestnuts or browns ; , and for every hundred winners among ( them are fifty chestnuts and thirty browns. | There is 110 record of an important race . being won by a piebald. Lieutenant llobion. the hero of the : .Mcrrimac incident, has refused £10,OUil for a lecture tour. He pajs that prior to tins war a lecture by him would have been : worth ,)0 cents. He feels that he has no right to use his performance for the betterment of h's financial position. The Post strongly approves of Dr .Scott's suggestions at the meeting of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association at Auckland, relative to elementary instruction in sanitary science in Ihe public schools, ecrtilicates for successful examination in the same at the Universities, and the establishment of a central Board of Health for the colony. Since ISS1 — within less than 50 .years, that is — Australia has added nearly £400,000,000 in viigin gold to the world's treasure chest ; and there is no sign that tins amazing output of precious metal is exhausted. The volume of gold production during the last few years, as a matter of tact, steadily increases, and during the next .)0 years Australia will probably add more than another £400,000,000 sterling to the world's stock of minted or unlimited gold. A daring gang of footpats have recently been at work in the principal streets of Melbourne, and several citizens have been brutally assaulted and robbed in main thoroughfares. The other night, shortly after 11, George Anderson, employed at Antonio's Hotel, was set upon in Bourke street by two men. They suddenly caught him by the throat, and dragged him up a riuht of way, and, after nearly choking him, rilled his pockets, taking a watch and chain and 10? in silver. They left him in an exhausted condition. A gruesome affair is reported from a township named Guy Fawkes, in New South Wales. A man named Offord, son of a Sydney tradesman, blew his brains out. The body was kept a couple of days for the coroner's inquest. A coffin was then constructed, and when the body was taken to be enclosed, it was found to have swollen so considerably that it would not go in the coffin. A "small drapery case was procured, and the remains doubled up, incased therein, an'] placed on a slide and drawn away for burial. On arrival at the locality of the grave it was discovered that the box was too large, and two men accordingly stood on the top and forced it below the surface. The burial service was read by a young man, a resident of the locality. No clergyman was present. A correspondent of the Daily Mail tells an amusini* story of a red-tape tangle on a French railway. An unfortunate " promeneur" took a return excursion ticket from Le Mans to St. Malo. At the end of two days lie returned to his work, but was met at Le Mans with the objection that his return ticket had expired. Back tie was sent to St. Malo, where it was found that an official mistike had been made, and he. was booked again for Le Mans without a ticket. Arriving there the second time he found that no notification had been received, and a second time he was taken back to St. Malo, where, to make things worse, he was locked up for travelling without a ticket ! At last, the tangle got undone, and the third time he got through the barrier at Le Maus all right. But even the third time was not a luoKy one, for he had overstayed his leave and lost his employment. The science of astrology, according to the Bishop of Christchurch, has been revived in this century. In the course of an interesting description of the learning and scientific attainments of the "Magi," or wise men of the East, described in the Bible as having followed a star to Bethlehem, he said that, as we learned in the Book of Daniel and elsewhere in Scripture, they were employed by kings and princes, and were the scientists of their day ; they were students of political economy, social science, and national science. Thoir knowledge was probably very imperfect, yet from the very little we know of them we were more amazed at their success than their failure. For instance, they were astrologers, followers of that old philosophy which has been revived in this country, ami, for aught he knew, in Christchurch, connecting the movements of the heavenly bodies with human life. He went on to say that many of our terms were borrowed from these old students, and that we were students of their beliefs and observations and the like. They had attained a marvellous accuracy of observation, an:l, considering their instruments, were quite as capable observers as this century could produce. The " meat tea," or " high tea," as it is called in England, so popular moreover in the colonies, is being warred against by several eminent doctors, who have nothing good to say about the sense of people who persist in taking tea with a meat meal. Dr Andrew Wilson would like to sec the meat tea abolished as a barbarism unworthy of a civilised nation. Apparently he does not think much better of those who indulge in it than if he were content to eat raw meat like their prehistoric ancestors. " Tea and coffee," he says, " taken with meat will arrest digestion, and many cases of digestive trouble are to be traced to the habit of taking these beverages at dinner as part of a solid meal." Tho doctor does not quarrel with the custom of indulging in tea and coffee at breakfast, because fish and ham are not so greatly affected by these fluids as is butchers' meat, the steak and chop of the " high tea." This kind of meal he calls a " physiological mistake," and urges that we should abolish so unhygienic a habit. As a general rule, it is better to drink water with tho meal, and if cofl'ee or tea is desired, to take itat least an hour later. But the doctor believes that a great improvement would take place in people's general health if they would restrict their tea or cofl'ee allowance to one cup oul}', taken with the morning meal. Captain Malian, the distinguished American naval oflicer, is contributing to the London Times an interesting series of articles on the late war on the sea, and its lessons. Regarding the " bottling "of the Spanish fleet at Santiago, he says : — " Few realise tho doubts, uncertainties, and difficulties of the sustained watchfulness which attend such operations as the 'bottling' of the Spanish fleet by Admiral Sampson ; for ' bottling ' a hostile fleet does not resemble the chance and careless shoving of a cork into a half-used bottle— it is rather like the wiring down of champagne by bonds that cannot be broken and through which nothing can ooze. The blockading of the Spanish squadron, says Captain Mahan, showed the correctness of tho report made by a committee of British admirals to the ell'ect that to successfully blockade the enemy's fleet your ships must be m the proportion offive to three. Sampson's proportion was seven to four— "a proportion not dissimilar." All rules of war,' he says, " which is not an exact science, but an art, have this characteristic. They do not tell one exactly how to do right, but they give warning when a step is being contemplated, which the experience of ages asserts to be wrong. To an instructed mind they cry silently, 'Despite all plausible arguments, this one element involved in that which you arc thinking to do shows that in it you will go wiong.' " Apiopos of the fact cabled last week that l."> 7,000 persons had received exemptions from vaccination, the following remarks of a London correspondent arc of intcrc-t : — The spread of the anti-vaccina-tion craze is earning serious alarm amongst doctor*, who vow and declare that unless something can be done with that unmitigated fool and nuisance, •■ tluMoivcientious objector,'' we >h,ill be in the midst of an appalling epidemic of conlluent hefoie we know where we are. On what ground the "conscientious objector lo \ai:ein.ition deserve-, special conbidciation 1 'nave never been able to make out. He i- not oiiginal. To every s-ensible sanitary law, sime the world began, theic hare licen "conscientious ol.ijector.-i.'' The Christian .Scientists have ■"con-cicntious objections" to medicine. Lots of us have cuiifcicutioiis scruples with regard to many minor things, tea, or perhap:. whiskey, or pu-Mblv sausages. Yet we are only' considered "faddists." I could easily advance six sound theorems demnuhtiatin:,' the linnioi.il influence of Geiman sausages. I lilt 110 one would domoie than sneer at my lofty put pose. Nevertheless my aviiments would be cogent beside those of the anti-vaccin.itioii "cranks." For what is his contention '.' .Simply this : That bei iiu-p owing to L-arelc.ssncss a certain number of children are blood-poisoned throusrh bad 1 lymph, theiefore there .shuidd "be no vaccination. As well might we say that because .1 certain number of cases get mismanaged in a hospital, therefore there should be no hospitals, or because a percentage of doctors are. duflcrs, theicfoic thcic should be nu doctors.

A statement has been made in some of the Australian papers regretting that nobody thought of taking the eyes of the victims of the Gatton murders and examining them microscopically to see if they retained the image of the persons who committed the outrage. The idea, according to a recent article in the Lancet is absurd, and has originated in the wellknow 11 experiments of Kuhne on the visual purple of tho retina, in the course of which he showed that by making special arrangements the cross-liars of a window focused on the retina could be brought into relief, but no well-defined images of the external world are cast upon the iris, and none, therefoie, could be preserved. Moreover, as no arrangements were made to prevent the further action of light after death they would if formed be certainly obliterated as the image on a photographic plate would be if permanently exposed. The only mode in which an image impressed on the retina could be rendered visible would be to adopt the method of Kuhne — viz., by exposing the eye previously kept in the dark for a minute or two to an illuminated object, then cxterpating it, opening it, and immediately plunging it into a solution of alum. The image develops in t.he course of 24 hour 3.