GENERAL NEWS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8881, 5 August 1907, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

The New York Herald announces that the residents of Hilo, Haiwaiian Islands, propose to tap the live volcano of Kiiauea, run the molten lava down to the sea and use it to construct a breakwater.

The Gloucester (England) muni' eipal tramways service is not the financial success it was anticipated it would be, and at a meeting of the City Council on June 5 a special committee of the whole Council was appointed to consider the advisability of continuing tho tramways as a municipal undertaking. An instructive and suggestive incident occurred the other day during the French mobilisation manoeuvres in the Mediterranean. While a sham attack was being made on Toulon, a landing company reached the He de Porquerolles unperceived, though the flashlights were constantly playing, and, hiding Ihemelves in the shadows, disarmed the sentinels and seized the principal fort before the gunners could recover from their surprise.

He did not say a barmaid’s occupation was an ideal' one, nor did he know what the Bishop of Kensington’s experience of barmaids might be, but he had found them hardworking and pure, and treated with a kindness, fairness, and consideration not always shown in places where only teetotal drinks were consumed. Ho could take the Bishop to soma fashionable dressmakers in the West End where the girls were exposed to much greater evils than those in public-houses. —Rev J. R. Gamble, London. Main coal has been reached at a depth of 1821 ft in Lord Londonderry’s new colliery at Seaham Harbour after a remarkable engineering feat. Owing to the presence of enormous quantities of water, forming a quicksand, it was found necessary to freeze the ground to a depth rf I nearly 500 it. Twenty-eight hole; I were bored in a circle about the shaft to a depth of 484 ft and freezing tubas inserted. Brine was tho medium used to extract the heat from the strata. The length of time required to form the wall of ice was 185 days, the wall being maintained for 353 days. ’ In the shaft bottom the frozen sand was so hard that it could be penetrated only by blasting. An enterprising"'West End firm has created the women’s “slip-on smoking gown.” “It is an extraordinary thing that although cigarette smoking has been fashionable among ladies for years nobody has {suggested a smoking room toilette,” | the manager said io a press roprssenj lative. “ Tea gowns have Oaen a I woman’s only standby, and they are | hardly suitable for a smoking cos- | tame. Out slip-on smoking robes | are made of coloured tussore silk for Ii the summer, and velveteen for the winter. The garment has to be-put on over the head. The * fire-side ’ slippers are made of quilted satin to tone with the gown, and are tied across the instep with satin ribbons.”