Local and General.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 17, Issue 5, 20 January 1903, Page 4

Local and General.

Re-opening of School.—To the dismay of the children and the joy of mothers the local school will re-open on Monday next. Bankruptcy.—Mr W. J. Sandford, jeweller, Blenheim, has been adjudged bankrupt, and a meeting of creditors will be held in the Court House, Blenheim, on 27th January. , N Lands for Lease.—The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Blenheim, inserts particulars of land in the Birch Hill, Raglan, and Mount Patriarch Runs that will be offered for lease by public auction on Wednesday, 25th February. Mooring Boats at the Wharf.—We have had several complaints of the carelessness of people in mooring their boats ».o the end of the Havelock Wharf, though the practice is supposed to be prohibited. On Friday night, as the steamer Sw m came up the channel, three boats were moored in the fairway, and, as the regulations do not allow this, the Captain would have been quite within his rights had he swamped the boats. It is a dangerous practice and the Town B.iard should put a stop to it. Sheep for the Sound.—Last w>;ek the Messrs Mulcock, of Bulwer, were busy shipping sheep to their Stitinn. The steamtr Swan was chartered for the job and carried 350 sheep to their destination. The animals were a nice even lot of ewes-Leicester-Merino cross—and were purchased from

Mr Corbett, of Leafield. The facilitie provided at the local wharf for landing o shipping sheep are nil, and during thi operations of getting the animals on th< Swan dozns of them fdll overboard ant were difficult to rescue, Cargo for Africa.—The steamer Ken will load at New Zealand parts-for Soutl Africa under the Government contrac during npxt month. The four loading port: are not yet nominated by the contractor* and in any case .will not be approved by tin Government until the 25th inst. This give: every safe port in New Zealand an oppor tunity of securing a call from the steame provided shippers will combine and pka a guarantee of 300 tons of cargo in tin hands of the Department of Industries anc Commerce before the. 25th inst. T< encourage shipments of timber, tor whicl it is reported there is a good demand ii South Africa, a specially 'ow rat-; 0 freight has been fixed, mmely, Cs pe hundred feet, superficial. A Thrifty Parson. —The late Dr Parke; made a large income, over and above th< /1500 or /2000 that he received from tin City Temple as Minister, or from the salt of his books and sermons (writes the Londoi correspondent of the Melbourne Aajm). He charged heavy fees for lectures, sermons, 01 for the opening of bazaars outside his pwr place of worship. The limes' biographica notice hinted at his mercenary side b) saving :—" Among those whom in exaltec moments he would call 'self-conceited pedantic?* presumptuous priests,' there i; none, from the Prirnate a year downwards, who can command anything like the personal profits which Dr Parker drew from his ministry." These remark; have been strongly resented in the Nonconformist newspapers, and it is pointed out that Dr Parker often returned whatever fees he charged. Since his wife's death he has refunded to the City Temple every penny he received as salary. He was ncl always so generous. The Manchestei people who worshipped at his chapel, ovei thirty years ago, never forgave Dr Parker for accepting their, gift of /700. He announced from the pulpit that lie had had a "call" to the Poultry Chapel, London, His congregation were grieved at the prospect of losing him, and presented him with a testimonial and /700. But a few months afterwards he had another "call" from London, and he accepted it, but he did not refund the " Dead shot for dirt."—Can't live where Empire Company s Extract o£ Soa{> ise^,

•■ Dead shot for dirt.”—Can't live where Empire Company s Extract of Soag is used,

Dog-tax.—The Secretary of the Pelorus Road Board notifies that the dog-tax is now j payable and inserts a list of Registrars for the various subdivisions of the Road District. School Committee.—A meeting of the Havelock School Committee will be held on Wednesday evening, in the Schoolroom, aJ 7.30. The business to be dealt with is very important. Trout.—Messrs H. M. Reader and W. Mears have received from the Marlborough Acclimatisation Society 250 young rainbow trout, which (hose gentlemen have lib rated in the Kaituna. The trout arc fairly advanced in growth, and seem'to be quite at liom-i with the small fry in the river. Dentistry.—We remind our readers that there 'will be two dentists in Havelock tomorrow (Wednesday), Mr Powell (of E. Powell and Sons), who may bo consulted at Mrs G. Pope's, and Mr Scanlon (representing Mr Frank Shaw), whose rcoms are at Mrs Pickering's. Dust Prevention. —In accordance with instructions from the Auckland City Council, the city engineer (Mr Wrigg) has forwarded an order to Messrs T. C. Gillespie and Son, of New York, for a smaii quantity of road-bed oil for streets, for the purpose of testing its efficiency in .aying dust. A trial will be made on about 100 ft of road in Symonds Street—at an approximate cost of as soon as the oil arrives. " Cholera in Christchurch. English cholera, which has claimed several victims in the North Island, has made its appearance in Christchurch, several residents having been attacked. The disease, which is epidemic, does not appear to be so virulent there as in Auckland, but the symptoms are violent enough to keep those attacked in bed for several days. Influenza is also making its re-appearance. Political Decadence. — The spscial correspondent of the Ruw.l Mail, who was lately travelling in Cape Colony, describes the country as politically rotten. There is strong evidence on every hand, he says, that bitter racial feeling permeates every town and village. The Bond propaganda is completely in the ascendant, and the position appears to be absolutely hopeless from the 'loyalist point of view. Gold Dredging on the West Coast.— Last year on the West Coast fifty-one dredges obtained 30,00302 s 7dwts 5 grs of valued at /i 20,000. The capital of 51 companies is about but of 'his about two-thirds, speaking roughly, represents capital actually subscribed. A number of new dredges started work during th-i year, so that the return does not represent a full year's work by each dredge. Cause of rough weather.—People are at a loss to know to what cause, the recent wet and stormy weather is attributable, and may be interested o know that astrologers say that it Is all owing to the ocnip ■tion of the planets Saturn and Jupiter in tli ■'■ sign Capricomus (the se-i goat), which is a semiwatery sign, -and to the occupation ol the sun and the planets, Mercury and Venus, in the sign Scorpio, which is a full watery sign. They augur that we will have sunny weather after the sun and the planets Mercury and Venus sh-ill have shortly entered Sagittarius, a fiery sign of the Zodiac. Weighty Bullocks.—Four bullocks were killed the other day at the Longbum Freezing Works which were a record weight. Three were four-year-olds, and one was a year younger, and the weights were 13281 b, i2201b, nSslb, and 11821 b. When frozen, they weighed out an average of 11941 b, the carcases having an average of 941 b of loose fat on the inside of each. The most interesting point about the cattle was that from the time they left their mothers up to the time they were killed they were fed entirely on a Rangittkei pasture, the animals not having tasted turnip, hay, or any other special fodder. Two of the bullocks took first prizes in their class at the Palmerston North Show Expensive Potatoes.—Potatoes do not usually occur to the speculator as a basis of operation, but thehistcy of a variety known as " the Northern S'ar " is, according to Country Life, one of the romances of finance. It was brought out last year by a grower at Mark-inch, in Fife.sh.ire, who Darted with a few tons at the extraordinary price of £l-120 a ton. To this rate, which works out at about ten shillings a pound, he religiously adhered. Al this rate two pounds were purchased by a firm of dealers belonging to Bardney, near Lincoln. From these two pounds they have this year grown 1301 b., and are so pleased with the result that they have bought a quantity more at the rate of /500 a ton. A Lucky Pair.—Some week ago Lang and Hat pegged and leased some ground near the centre of the'Southern Cross township, Western Australia, where some gold had been found. They have worked the property since. A reef 3ft wide, carrying 1 oz. of gold to the ton, with exceptionally rich pockets, was lately disclosed, and last week, al 4.oft, they unearthed a patch fully half gold, Nothing like the samples taken out, so it is stated, haveeverbeen seen in the Southern Cross, the find equalling the sensational strike made at Londond rry in the early days of Coolgardie. The stuff was exhibited for the benefit of the Federal visitors on their way to the opening of the goldfield water scheme. W 1 r e less Telegraphy. M.-irconi's over-confident challenge to his rivals and critics to pick up one of. his supposed secret wireless telegrams has eventuated [cither humiliatingly for the inventor, as the Eastern Telegraph Company have published die tape records of a message to the Italian warship Carlo Alb.-rto, picked up by the company's station in Cornwall. Marconi had no scientific warrant- for issuing the challenge. 'All he was entitled to state was that it would be difficult to pick up at short notice a message which he intended to be secret.' He relied on the f-ict that his sending instrum nt in England and the receiving instrument on the Carlo Alberto were electrically tuned to give out the same number of electric waves per second, and assumed that nobody without handling his apparatus copOd get a second receiver into tune with his sender. 0/ course, he had nD right to make such an assertion, as any receiver near his sender would pick up sufficient fragments of his mess igis.here and there to show tha' he was signalling, and after that it was only a matte- of p tict adjustment for an electrician to vary the arrangement of the receiver till it captured larger and larger pieces of the messages, and finally secured them verbatim. The value of -the Marconi system in naval warfare is decidedly curtailed by this demonstration that he cannot guarantee secrecy in his messages. She slipped on a banana skin, And inl? a pool she fell, Which turned the water a beautiful blue, The reason no one could tell. But a packet of F2mpire Extract of Soap Washed the poor woman ashore, And her pocket looked like A large blue bag For she had fully a pound or more Of Empire Company's Rov d Blue In that pocket. So now y u know Why the water was turned Such a Beautiful blue But the woman is only so-;o " Arrested "—sounds horrible. Empire Company's Extract of Soap ;;rrests all dirt trora any thing, GeiiL

‘'Arrested” —sounds horrible. Empire Company’s Extract of Soap arrests all dirt irom. anything, Gent.