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Pahiatua Star and Eketahuna Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 365, 21 January 1890, Page 2

Item of news on fourth page. Tenders are invited by the Town Board for metalling about 30 chains of the Mengaliao Load, also for fencing m Town Hall. Mr A. W. Gould, solicitor, inserts a notice over leader. Between fifteen to twenty settlers assembled et the Pukrmiku School on Saturday, (or the purpose of clearing up the ground. A real good begiumng has been made with this important work. Ther* is stdl a good deal of shearing to be done in the district, the bad weather having delayed it considerably. Miss M. Sedrole ha* made e very nice “New Zealand" tiag for the Athletic Society, which will be used for the first time in the procession to morrow. Crown lands iu this district are to be offered for tale on the 31st of the present month, but so far as we ar* aware not a single plan has been circulated yet. Perhaps it ie intended to issue them after the sale is over.

We have been ie,pleated to ask parents to allow their children to assemble at 111 o'clock sharp to-morrow morning (weather permitting) near Mr Wakvmau's, where the Jubilee procession will foiiu.

Attention is directed to the programme of the sports to be held et Woodville on the 29th instant, in connection with the Jubilee celebration.

To-day ha* been bitterly cold, with occasional shower*. Snow has been falling all the morning on the Tararua range southward.

The l'ahiatua Foresters arc requested to assemble at the Court room at 10 sharp to morrow morning.

There is reason to fear that the grub we relerred to a short time ago as doing great damage to onions and potatoes has not by any means finished his work of destruction yet. The ground appears to be lull of these pests, and when the potato stalks get 100 strong for them to eat down, they burrow into the tubers themselves. It remains to lie seen what amount of damage will be done to the late crops ; we hope it will not bs so great as we are led to believe it will be.

In order to give as much notice ae possible, the secretary of the Pahiatua Athletic Society announces elsew here that in case the committee postpone the sports owing to bail weather, the school bell will be rung to-morrow morning. The Alameda, with the outcotuing mails, left San Francisoo at 0 a.m. on Wednesday. loth inst., four days late according to time-table. The delay is supposed to be caused by the accident to the tram at Nebraska.

A Sydney correspondent writes: —There appears to be a good deal of prejudice here against New Zealand butter, but you will understand how groundless the prejudice is frein the following well-authenticated episode:—A tradesman here bought a quantity of New Zealand butter at 8d per lb, and failing to dispose of it in the ordinary way of business, lie removed the branJs and took the butter out into the suburbs, where he represented it as having come from the Coast, and told it for le 3d per lb. Says the Wellington Herald :—The Jubilee Committee to a man, nemine contraJtccntc, passed a resolution that the subjects of his terrific, awe-inspiring and Godlike Majesty, the Emperor of China, should be allowed to march in the procession, each caste in respective order—first the wealthy merchants of Williastreet, Cuba street, and Manners street; next the vegetable producers from the llutt and surrounding district; tiien the opium smokers, gamblers and tliimbleriggers playing on tom toms. We see no reason why they should nut be allowed to honor the day as well as other people.— Go it, John; never say die ; there is a good future before you. The F.arl of Euston, whose name it before the public just now, used to be a boundary rider on the estate of Sir Thomas Elder in South Australia, and was aferwards associate to Chief Justice Way.— Napier Telegraph. A wife will hardly- ever notice whether her husband has had his hair cut or not; but let him go home with a strange hair pin sticking in his overcoat and she'll see it before he gets out of the train. Spurgeon was once asked whether a member of a brass band could be a true Cliristiaii. His answer was: “ Yes, I think he might; but not his next-door neighbor."

In consequence of the fire-in-the-epit-toou incident in the big post office building* in Wellington a short time ago, all |H>st office official* are uow forbidden to burn the fragrant weed in their offices er allow anyone else to do so. It is to be presumed, too, that those elegant invitations to expectorate —the wooden spittoons have been removed from the General i'ost Office. It will, however, be hard on the telegraph clerk, save a Wellington exchange, whose superabundant saliva needed these receptacles, if he is obliged to spit in hi* pocket or hi* hat during office hours.

A correspondent of the London Standard publishes an account of some cricket matches which has in it something of the pathetic as well a* curious. The matches are played by the students of the College for the Blind at Worcester, who use a wicker ball with a bell in it, and are guided entirely by ear. Behind the Stum|ia a wicketkeeper clap* his hands, and the bowlers, guided by ear only, sometimes hit the wicket three times out of six. The batting ie usually inferior, the ball only been heard when it touches the ground ; but one lad often makes 70 runs off Ins own bat. An experiment was tried of a match after dark between the blind cricketers and some friends who could see, and of coarse the latter were nowhere. One realises the perpetual darkness of the blind from that little incident in a most painful way ; it is so unbroken that new powers develop themselves in the remaining senses.

Wa have received several enquiries iseys the Napier Telegraph* respecting the action of tha Waste 1-ands board in connection with disqualified applications for seeii n 1, block XIV., Woodville. AB we hav* gar to ns v is. the* rhe form of sppli.

cation does not set forth tbat a deposit is liable to forfeiture; if it be proved the* the applicant ie ineligible to take up land, then the Land Board has no right to for. fan a deposit. Tbete is nothing in any Act to give the Board such authority. The instruction from the Minister of Lands to the Commissioner ol Crown Lands at

Napier authorising the forfeiture of deposit* appear* to us to be an iinpnJeul and a wholly illegal assumption of power. Any person whose deposit has been forfeited under the circumstances of this case should take legal proceedings to recover his mousy.

The cost price of tobacco annually imported into the United Kingdom is but A 3,000,000. but taxation of one sort or another amounts to iD,000,000, and whan we have included retail profits and cost of tha apparatus required by smokers, wa uiay put down cost of smoking to the British and Irish public at T1C,000.000, being nearly T 3 per head per annum of the adult male population of the United Kingdom. A party of bee keepers and fanciers met with a somewhat unusual adventure last summer iu England. Mr Murray, of the Colliery Board Schools, Diptou, along with other gentlemen, were making pre paratlons to convey some half-dozen hives ot bees to the moors and fells at Waskerley. During the process of (lacking them tile bottom accidentally fell off one of the hive*. The bees came buzzing out eud ferociously stung the parly, and also clung tenaciously to the horse, which had alreadybeen yoked to the cart, the result being that tlie bewildered animal bolted. The rest of the hives being disturbed by the jolting of the cart hundreds of bees found their way out of them, surrounding the occupants of the conveyance and the horse, stinging all in a dreadful manner. The insects likewise fastened themselves upon a lot of school children, who were being driven through the village upon a bay cart. However, Mr Murray and one of bis companions were left lying upon the ground in a stunned and almost unconscious condition, while the horse had not travelled much further before it fell to the ground succumbing the same night to the effects of the stings. A curious complication in connection with a marriage has occurred in Brisbane. An illiterate couple repaired to the registrar to have the knot tied, but that official discovered that the fair one was under age. He bad therefore to refer them to the magistrate, before whom certain oaths as to the noil-existence of a guardian had to be taken. This over and some necessary papers signed, the magistrate assured the couple that all was right now. They ought to have brought the papers back to the registrar, who would have performed the ceremony, but they concluded from the magistrate’s assurance that they were duly made one, aud they acted accurdin.' The next incident in the story arose after the birth of the firstborn, which the proud father duly registered. Then the registrar discovered that the couple were not on his books, and took action against the parent fur registering as legitimate the birth of a child which was illegitimate. It took some trouble to explain to the couple that a ceremony of marriage had not been performed in their case; but when this was brought home to them the result was singular. The “ wife" refused to be legally married and elected to separate. She was tired of her bargain, and hailed with gladness the chance of relief from it.

A murder trial which for magnitude and horror could scarcely be matched in the criminal annals of any country is about to begin at Gros-Betcherk, in Hungary. The accused, who number no less than eighty, are all women, and they are charged, either aa principals or accessories, with poisoning the husbands of about half of their number. The whole of the prisoners are natives of a village named Melanose, which is inhabited by a Servian population. If what is stated be true, it has been the practice for many years of the women of the locality to get rid of obnoxious husbands by poisoning them, the drugs for this purpose being all obtained from two old women who had a local reputation as fortune-teller*. These mysterious deaths of unpopular husbands have been going on for the last seven years.

I see (says a writer of gossip in the P.M. Budget) that Miss Nelly Bly, the well-knowu American “ newspaper woman,” is on her way round the world. Bhe will not take six months, nor yet two years, but will endeavour to make a record in seventy-seven days, beating old Jules Verne by three days, or is it two ? Miss Bly called on Jules at Amiens a day or two ago, and he told her it would take eighty-two. Upon hearing this Miss Bly is rejiorted to have shrieked “ Great Snakes I Good-bye, Jules, ole man, I guess 1 must jest skedaddle,” and vamosed to catch the train for Brindisi, whence she takes ship for Colombo. Miss Bly will return to her New York grazing ground via San Francisco. The object of the journey is to prove that an unprotected female can traverse the world without help from anybody, speaking only the English tongue.