MISCELLANEOUS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5022, 1 June 1889, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Prince of Wales has engagements booked for every day of 1889. At Malta no licensed house is permitted within fifty paces from the door of a place of worship. Churchill County, Nevoda, is in danger of breaking in two. A crack has recently appeared three feet wide, several miles long, and how deep no one can find out. Important beds of coal, 4ft to Sft thick, and of excellent quality, have recently been discovered in the Crimea. Mr Labouchere genially describes General Lord Wolseley as “ a perfect gas-bag of self, conceit."

Artificial coffee berries are the latest trade swindle. A certain proportion of ground coffee is mixed with chicory, acorns, &c., into a paste with suitably coloured water. The mass is thoroughly kneaded, and is then passed into a machine which stamps out a prodigious quantity of beautifully formed coffee beans, so ‘ life-liko ’ that experts cannot detect the difference. These artificial coffee berries are to be mixed by retail dealers with natural berries in the ratio of about 25 per cent. Belgium still holds its own as the most drunken country of Europe. On an average each man, woman and child consumes yearly 240 quarts of beer and 13 quarts of spirits. It may be that Bavarians drink more beer than that, and Russians more spirits, but taking both together the Belguim record is unrivalled. The Government is at last aroused in a sense of the evils of the situation and same restrictive laws are to be put in force. The right to collect by legal process debts incurred in drinking-houses has been abolished; it is forbidden to sell drink to persona under sixteen years of age; and to sell anyone liquor until be is drunk is made a crime. The effect of these laws will be looked for with interest.

Mr Moss Jonas will sell on Tuesday next at 0, Waller and Go’s shop, the whole of the stock of envelopes, papers, books, and fancy goods etc., and on Wednesday, at his rooms a lot of superior household furniture. A meeting of the committee of the N Z. and South Seas Exhibition will be held at the Council Chambers, on Tuesday evening next, at 8 o’clock, Messrs Kernohan, McOabon and Co announce in another column that owing to their lease expiring at the end of the month, they are giving greater bargains than ever.

Mr D. Owers, in an important notice in another column, announces that in order to celebrate the installation of the electric light into his shop he purposes giving away to-night useful articles in the shape of sugar basins, butter coolers, crockery ware, etc. The Garrison Band has been specially engaged to play to-night. His notice is well worth reading. The inspector of nuisances—or is it the duty of the police ?—someone at all events—should try to abate the nuisance caused by people throwing dead fish into the streets. Terb. sap.

The hospital steward desires to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of illustrated papers and other reading matter from Mr Malthus and Mies Clarke ; also a large parcel of linen from Mrs Fitzgerald. Mr Beetham has upset the election of all the members of the Halswell Boad Board, on the ground that the name of Thomas Sutton, one of the candidates proposed and seconded for election, was omitted from the polling papers, and by reason of this mistake of the returning officer, the return of votes given to the various candidates was wrongly slated. This morning a football match, between teams representing the combined Public Schools and the Timaru High School, took place on the S.O. A. A. grounds, which ended in a draw, each side scoring a try. Bell obtained the point for for the former, and C. Collins for the High School. The sides were pretty evenly matched. For the former, Bell, Alf. Werry, and Mackay showed the beet form; while for the latter, Collins, Bilton, G. Stubbs, and LeCren were the most prominent. A meeting of the committee of the S. C. J. 0. was held last evening at the Qrosvenor Hotel. Present Messrs B. T. Bhodes (President), Grade, Meikle, and Mahoney, and the secretary Mr P. W. Eiby. The Spring Meeting was fixed to take place in September and the programme committee were instructed to prepare a programme. It was resolved to increase the total amount of added money by £l5O, over the amount given at last Spring meeting. This business having been disposed of, the secretary was requested to leave the room for a while, when the committse resolved “ That the secretary be presented with a bonus of £lO for his services to the club during the present year, and that he bo recommended for a rise of £lO to his salary for tho future," Wellington has a good deal of difficulty in maintaining its Athenamm, and one ol its difficulties is the unfair competition of the Parliamentary library. A subscriber, speaking at a meeting the other day said that peraonally t he would bo glad to see that library open to all the public, but he did object, when going through the streets of Thorndon, to seeing people carry away books who had no connection whatever with Parliament, while others were debarred by the very regulations from visiting the library. Ho was told 300 or 400 people had the handling of the library in the recess, and they were the very folks who wore best able to support the Athenamm, but, on the principle that so largely obtained in Wellington, they preferred to get their literature‘‘onthe cheap,” by sponging on the Parliamentary library,

Mr McKorrow thinks New Plymouth will have a grand harbor some doy, if the people only go in for it. A splendid port and a harbor of refuge. They need, he says, to run a rubble wall to the Sugar Loaves, and hire the big dredge from Dunedin for six months, to clear the sand out of the harbor. The Priestman bucket dredge they iSijVe will not help them much. At the mayor’s ball in the Wellington Garrison Hall on Queen’s Birthday, the Gulcher Company undertook the lighting of tho hall. Outside the building a small steam-engine, lent by the Corporation, drove a dynamo. In the centre of the hall hung a 400 candle-power lamp; near the pavilion was suspended a cluster of ten lamps, each of 16 candle-power; while 36 lamps of similar power were hung in various part of the hall, including eight in the supper-room. Mr Menteath, M.H.R. says the colony must not take much credit for the fact that the exports last year exceeded those of the previous year by a million and a half, and have since been kept up or increased. The increase, he says, was not due to increased production, but to tho effect that there had been an increased demand for some products and good prices had ruled ; staple products had not increased in volume or extent. Our imports, however only amounted to £5,900,000, and as, wo bad borrowed £2,000,000 in England last year, £2,300,000 had remained at Home. Thus ws had lost instead of gained capital, leaving in England this year, £4,000,000. According to an expert in Rangitikei, the cost of producing flax per ton some 18 years years ago at the mill was not lees than £l7 per ton. Since then mill machinery has been so improved, and methods so simplified, that good fibre can be produced to-day at' a cost of £lO per ton, or even less. Letters have recently been received from Home from the manufacturing centres, such as Bradford, in which it is stated that New Zealand flax is being steadily used more and more, mixed with other fibres, in quite a number of factories, and that by means of new machinery it is confidently believed by experts that it will be in much more steady demand than heretofore.

About a fortnight ago, says tho Wellington Times, some unclaimed luggage was sold at tho Wellington railway station. Among the articles sold was a coat, purchased by a resident of the town for 13s. In the pockets of the coat were a pair of handsome gold bracelets. On Monday last an owner was found for them. A well-known lady, who is the owner, had not missed the bracelets until a few nights ago, when she required them, and to her astonishment they were no. where to be found. It was then remembered that some bracelets had been found among the goods sold at the station. A few inquiries resulted in the purchaser being found, Tho lady, anxious to get her property back, gave the buyer £5 for his bargain.— As the quiet spoken young man who was Mark Twain’s fellow passenger on bis “Idle Excursion might have asked, “Had the lady ever seen them before ?”

The following incident, narrated by the North, Otago Times , would tend to show that the security of banks as repositories for deposits of cash is sometimes doubted by even intelligent people. Some time ago a person who held a position in a church in Oamaru had occasion to leave for the Old Country, ‘but previous to doing so he turned all bis property into cash, and that in the shape of sovereigns. On his return to the colony he heard casually that ah attempt had been made to break into the church he formerly had been connected with, and eagerly asked for admission to the sacred edifice. On his wish being complied with he proceeded to a part of the church where one of the flooring boards had been let loose, and from beneatli the board drew out a bag contaiug about 200 sovereigns. He evidently thought the church a safer place than a bank to deposit his cash in.

A Dunedin paper says One of tho debutants at tho City Police Court this Monday, morning was a resident of Titnaru who had caused some commotion on the tongue wharf yesterday morning. His faculties being iu a state of suspension owing to repeated doses of barley juice he had a vague idea that he could get to Timaru by water without assistance and commenced his journey by dropping into the harbour between the wharf and tho steamer Centennial. There was a frantic rush of aspirants for the Royal Humane Society’s medal, but it was soon seen that the Timaruvian had been sobered by (/'iq shock and was as much at home ia the water as a duck. In fact he was getting on swimmingly, so much so that at first he scorned to use the rope that was lowered to him. Getting a little chilly after a time, however, be took a grip of the rope and was hauled up high, but not very dry, and placed under the protecting care of a friendly constable.

The N pier T tjrajih says it will coma as a surprise to the people of the district to know that next year they will have to pay a harbor rate. The breakwater was to be a “ productive work " j that is to say, it was to earn all the {interest on the cost of its construction, and in conjunction with the revenue from endowments provide funds for harbor administration. The breakwater was to cost a certain sum of money, and was to be completed by a certain time. —The Oamaru Mail remarks on this We condole with the Napier people 5 but for their information we may point out that with them history is merely repeating itself. The people of Timaru and Oamaru know how to meet such surprises having had to face them on a number of occasions. And so, too, will our Napier friends before they have done with harbour construction In order to prepare them for further surprises we may say that as yet they are only given novices at the game of loan raising and paying interest on the same. We old stagers in Oamaru hardly raise an eyelid when asked to sanction sums of any magnitude, and rather enjoy the fun than otherwise. The Napier people may rest assured that their harbor works will not be completed for the amount estimated, and that, too, within many thousands. It is those everlasting contingencies that play the mischief, for they are like the vault of heaven, illimitable.—Wo ask the Mail to republish this paragraph leaving the words “and Timaru” out of it. As a matter of fact we may know " how ” to meet such suprises as a harbor rate, but the implication is that we have had such a surprise. Thank goodness we have managed to amuse ourselves without requiring that particular kind of fun. The noted quality of the Coffee made in the Calcs of Turkey, France, and America is chiefly due to the fact that only Fresh Boasted Coffee is used ; so that none of the volatile oil and other essentials are lost. Ask your grocer for Anderson’s Coffee, and you will have a beverage alike refreshing and stimulating, as it is fresh roasted and ground at the factory, Tiraarq.-^fApyT.]