NEWS ITEMS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9099, 18 March 1901, Page 1

NEWS ITEMS.

George IV. was crowned at Westminster Abbey on July 19, 1821, the expenses of which were £238,000. The King's dress alone coat £24,000. At the instance of the Health Officer the Wanganui Borough Council has decided* to proceed with the erection of a plague hospital, the Government finding half the cost, estimated at about £600. A" tourist who missed the evening train on Monday from Palmerston to Wanganui en route to the river trip, whose wife and children were aboard the ordinary train, chartered a special train costing him close on £40. The demand for domestic servants m Wellington shows no signs of diminishing. Messrs. H. P. Lomas, of this city, have already sent 34 girls and young women to the. Empire city, who all received engagements m a few days after their arrival. The firm has been dsked to send SO more domestics North. — Christchurch Press. In the course of his recent speeech at |Te Awamutu the Postmaster-General (Hon. J. G. Ward) referred to the subject of penny postage. The postal revenue of the colony, he said, for the first 10 months of the present financial year was £276,782, and was estimated to reach £503,416 for- the whole year. Last year's revenue was £488,246, so if the, estimate was correct, there would be an increase of £15,000, notwithstanding the present lower rates. .- He had always been convinced that) the loss would be more than made up by increased business. For January and February this year there had been no loss at all, and if it went on like that there would be none at the end of the year. Writing Home from Providence Siding, ou December 16th, Private W. MUIb, of the Montgomeryshire" Volunteers, - says that on October 7th they were given new clotues, but, on their departure for their present post, they were given to understand that if they wanted, any moreclothes they must pay for them out of their own pocket. Some of the men had their boots nearly worn out", with battered helmets, and shirts hanging through their breeches, and it was the resolution of one and all to do their duty m the same apparel that Adam wore, rather than spend a farthing of their money upon clothes. They had been m the country for over nine months, but during that time they had not had a single pair of socks from the army. An Auckland correspondent writes: — The crime of child abandonment has lately been on the increase. Some of the children have been. found alive, and some dead, evidently strangled. So far the detectives have been able to do little m the way of detection, and the offenders aie stul at large, although m one case f-.tre should have been little difficulty m tircing the offender. The lenient way m wiii< n the destruction of these children h»s been regarded is not calculated to prt tect the lives of these helpless infants. Th-jv have been found on the beach, m tlm wattr tables of the streets, m soap I ixcs ::> the cemeteries, and on the street j-a*»i«fpt« ; and m the great majji'cy u f cr.»*» m the past this has been - c ve'.h impunity. Some people are m t-\ ur ..' a foundling hospital, while otht-is i.< 'd I4iat it would only aggravate tbr. «-vjl of illegitimacy. A large quantity of hydraulic filtn^s lately arrived at Devonport, to be used for the completion of the hydraulic system for the 12-inch guns of the new battleship Implacable. The Implacable is the first ship to be armed with the new .50-ton type of 12-inch breech-loading gun, which is without doubt the most effective weapon ever adopted for use m the Navy. This gun, of which four are to be mounted on the Implacable, is 41.5 feet- m length, and has an effective range over a distance of ten miles. Its powerful character will be best understood when, it is stated that the projectile — weighing 8501b — when it leaves the gun, travels at the rate of 2600 feet per second, and would penetrate a plate of iron 43 inches thick if placed immediately m front of the muzzle. These- new guns cost £10,000 each, and the mountings and fittings necessary for working the four mounted on the Implacable cost another £50,000. The German Emperor, who is keenly interested m technical invention and discovery, has had submitted to him a lecture by the manager of the Berlin Electrical Works, dealing with the possibility of making all the principal railway lines electrical. A syndicate has been formed tc study this problem, with a technical committee and a committee for working the traffic affairs, and the result of the conferences of the committees will, it is believed, become apparent during the present year m the working of a "Bghtning" railway, the military line from Berlin to Zossen having been placed at the disposal of the company by the War Minister, General von Gossler. It is hoped (says the Berlin correspondent of the Daily News) to attain a speed of from 125 "to 160 miles an hour with electric cai*., one of which is already being built. The carriages, which look like sleeping cars, have accommodation for 50 persons. If the trial succeeds on the present 30 kilometre track, the time will not be far distaat when Hamburg may be reached fiuni Berlin m a little less than an hour, tlte cars starting at intervals of a quarte- or half an hour. By increasing the sj.eed for express trains, which here is vow on an average of 60 kilometres an hour, to 250 kilometres, the electric expresses "consisting only of one large car, the ideal railway of the future will have been reached. The Emperor has promised to promote the undertaking by all th^ means m his power. . ,' . No rabbit rate is to be raised m Hawke'u Bay this year.

A patent has been applied for to extract and manufacture spirits and oil from kauri soil and refuse. 'There were about 3500 landless natives {m the Waikato, Thames Valley, and Tauranga districts, who lost- their land by confiscation. Mr John Frankel, a dentist, well-known m Dungog (N.S.W.), suddenly dropped dead from apoplexy live other day while performing an operation on a patient. A smart .youngster came to light m Wellington last weeek. Asked to name New Zealand's chief export he promptly replied "Contingents," and scored heavily. He knew the Park was full of that kind of produce. . An indignant wife, m applying for a maintenance order against her husband, at Lyttelton, explained to the magistrate Xhat her husband went to balls without ncr, went to the races ,and played the accordion. He also drank, but this she seemed to consider a secondary matter. Among one of the contingents of home-ward~-bound Canadian Volunteeers, who were entertained at Liverpool Town Hall by the Lord Mayor, was Private Molloy, of the Canadian Mounted Infantry, who lost his sight by a bullet passing through both temples. A touching feature of the proceedings was a speech by Private Molloy. The census of the British Isles will be taken on the same night as the New Zealand census. There will be employed m the work 2061 registrars,* about 40,000 "enumerators," who will deliver and col-ledt-the schedule, and 200 clerks to work up the results m London. Ten million ocupiers'. schedukar^teve been" printed. The cost of the 1891 census was .£92,000, and this year's census will considerably exceed that amount. Each enumerator receives a guinea, and 3s 6d per 100 names after the first 400. Engineering has an instructive article on the value of a "Pennyworth of Coal at Sea." This is the result of work achieved by two steamers, Inchduru and Inchmaro, belonging to the Inch line of steamers, owned by Messrs. Hamilton, Fraser, and Co., of Liverpool. The engines, constructed at the Central Mat-, me Engine Works, West Hartlepool, are a modification of the quadruple-expansion five ■ crank advocated by the late Air Mudd, and fitted to the steamer Inchmona. The working pressure has been increased to 2671 b per square inch, and the steam is .superheated to 'a temperature approaching 500deg. Fahrenheit. The general 'result was that on a trial extending from Hartlepool . to Dover the coal consumption was at. the unprecedentedly small rate of .971 b per indicated horse-power. If we increase this to lib it amounts to 154 tons per day for a ship carrying 6170 tons at 9$ tons, or to 13£ tons at nine knots. In other words, one ton is carried one nautical mile gn an expenditure of about onethird of an ounce of coal. Taking coal at Home at the rate of 15s a ton, one ton of cargo is carried over 550 miles for an' expenditure of Id for coal. In connection with the Auckland boating fataliay, Heed, one of the survivors, states that he and James Pert were the crew of the fishing boat Swift. They were proceeding to the craft m company with May Mills and Mary Campbell. They had been drinking about town during the evening. When at the railway wharf a large wave came, causing 'the dingey to roll. This threw Mary Campbell on top of Pert. The dingey capsized. Reed was a good, swimmer. May Mills could also' jswim, but the others were unable to do so When the dingey capsized Mills grabbed Reed round the neck, while Campbell seized hold of her and Pert took hold of Campbell. All four sank together, but Reed managed to loosen his hold of the girl, and they then rose to the surface. He then struck out for the dingey, b.utit sunk when all were holding on to ifc Pert and the woman were then crying out for help. Reed swam m the direction of the scow Flora to try and secure a dingey to rescue the others. He told Mills to swim ashore, but being hampered by her clothing, she was unable to do this. Reed safely reached the scow, but found that there was no dingey. Then he lapsed into insensibility, and knew nothing more until yesterday morning.