News and Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 16, 15 July 1893, Page 5

News and Notes.

A petition against the weekly halfholiday being fixed for Wednesday has received 9000 signatures in Christchurch, including shopkeepers and farmers An ostrich farming’ company has been formed in Christchurch. It is said that the young Earl of Dudley holds the largest assurance ever effected on any one life, the amount being £1,200,000. The whalers of Dundee are forming a company with a capital of £60,000 to conduct operations in the Southern Ocean from the Falkland Islands. By floods in China 10,000 persons have been drowned. A heavy thunderstorm passed Over Auckland on July 10, during which Edward Egan, a labourer, who was standing under a verandah, was knocked senseless by lightning and was unconscious for two hours. The Department of Agriculture is issuing a circular inviting people, and especially local bodies, to plant trees, on Arbour Day, 4th August. A drunkard who was before the Wellington Court recently, begged the Magistrate, with tears in his eyes, to issue a prohibition order against himself, wdiich was at once done. During the demonstrations in connection with the marriage of the Duke of York and the Princess May of Teck, the Marquis of Tillibardine was thrown from his horse, and injured his spine. A man was killed in Fleet street by falling from a house top, and a woman was suffocated in the crowd. In the Strand a coping stone fell, and a number of minor accidents happened, soldiers and women fainting. A petition signed by 25,406 women in favour of the franchise beinggranted to women has been presented to the Legislative Council. The petitioners also expressed the hope that they would be enabled to vote at the next general election. Owing to all the returns from ticket-sellex ; s not being to hand, the City Band art union drawing has been postponed to the 27th inst. The management are in no way blameworthy for the delay. An old man named “ Clocky,” well known in the district as a travelling clock repairer, and who has lately been rabbiting in the Hedgehope district, was found in a destitute state in a hut on the 7th inst. by Mr A. McDonald, who took him to his house, where the poor old fellow died next morning. Thirty persons have been drowned at Skegness, Lincolnshire, through the capsizing of a yacht. The maritime strike continues in Sydney, but the places of the deserters are being filled. Out of the 400 seamen who have left their vessels about half have been arrested for desertion. Thirteen thousand Catholics in Montreal attempted to demolish the rotunda of the Protestant missionaries owing to the latter stigmatising them as idolaters, but timely warningprevented any damage being done. The roads in the Provine of Murcia, Spain, are strewn with the corpses of victims of cholera. The Moscow Gazette says that Bussia will neglect no chance of assisting the inhabitants of India to overthrow British rule. Lord Low has closed the record in an action at the instance of Donald Sutherland, Provost of Bathgate, against the North Eastern Railway Company. Pursuer (we learn from the Glasgow Herald) sues for £IO,OOO as damages for injuries sustained in the Thirsk railway collision on the morning of 2nd November last. Defenders admit the accident, but deny that pursuer sustained injuries of a serious or lasting character, and plead that the damages claimed are grossly excessive.

In the course of a letter protesting against the sale of ' the railways, a correspondent of the Sydney Herald points out that the private ownership of lines in the States has not been conducive to the public good, and adds : —lt is obvious that the tendency of the spirit of the age is against the placing of public services in the hands of private corporations, and in favour of taking any that may be so held into the hands of the State or local authority. It might be well to point to what is being done in Great Britain, whex-e, in the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Aberdeen, the electric light services are worked by the municipalities. By such means investors in such services are protected from having their securities made the sport of Stock Exchange gambling, as is so much the case with the shares and bonds of private corporations. A cyclone in lowa (U.S.) killed 100 persons and destx-oyed half the town. A Maltese etoker saved H.M.S. Camper-down from foundering by closing the water-tight doors in a compartment at the risk of his life. A tragic affair has occurred in Wellington. An old gentleman named Spreat, who lived with his two stepsons, named Sanderson, quarrelled with them about cleaning the footpaths. Spreat, who suffered from epilepsy, and was very irritable, chased the young fellows through the house with a poker and knife, and they telephoned for the police.. Before they, arrived, however, Louis Sanderson, to save himself from attack, fired at his step-father, inflicting injuries from which he died a few hours later. He exonerated his step-soh from blame, and at the inquest a verdict of justifiable homicide was returned. In the thiry-eighth annual report of the Registrar-General for Scotland, it is stated that in the middle of the year under review (1892) the estimated population of Scotland was 4,063,452; of these 1,961,401 were males, and 2,102,051 females. The Chinese are gradually extending their sphere of enterprise in Melbourne (remarks the Melbourne Argus). Lee Tet is. the successful tenderer for the right to sell fruit from the Ist July to the 30th of June. 1896, at the Spencer-street railway station, at a rental of £175, at the Seymour station at a rental of £lO5, and at the Port Melbourne station at a rental of £162 10s per annum. Every 12 months 2172 ships are wrecked, and 12,000 lives lost. The value of the vessels and cargoes that the sea swallows is fixed at twenty millions per annum. A conference of the Falkirk district co-operative societies took place in the Public Hall, Denny, recently. The annual report set forth that there are eighteen societies in the Falkirk district, with a total membership of 11,533; increase on previous year, 753. Total sales for the year, £448,293 ; increase, £25,377, Profit, £74,867; average dividend, 3s Ifd per £l. Madame Antoinette Sterling declares she has never met such musical people as the Australians. “ They have a magnificent ear, when they once hear a thing they know it. Great singers will come out of Australia. ” Within 50 years the average expectancy of life in France has increased from 28 to. 454 years, and, in the days of Queen Elizabeth the English average was but 20 years. With such pastimes as cricket, tennis, and rowing (observes an English contemporary), one would have thought that “ young gentlemen” of Oxford would have ample means of recreation. But, no ! It seems that they prefer to take a cat into field, and there hunt it with five or six terriers until one of the dogs worries it to death. And yet we boast of our civilisation ! Tke “ young gentlemen ” were fined £1 and costs..