News and Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 5, Issue 33, 20 November 1897, Page 11

News and Notes

At the last meeting of the Southland County Council assent was given to the proposal of the Invercargill Borough Council as to obtaining land for a new street on the north side of the hospital. Two-thirds of the American senators favour the annexation of Hawaii by the States. Poor old Shakspeare ! Fred Lee of no settled abode, and who appeared to be paralysed down the left side, appeared before the Warington magistrates recently charged with being drunk and disorderly. The Chief Constable : We know nothing about the prisoner, except that he seems to travel from place to place begging on the strength of his infirmity. —Prison : I beg your pardon, sir. I recite Shakspeare’s plays in public-houses for a living. —Lee was sent to gaol for fourteen days with hard labour. The N.Z.L. and M.A. Co. have sold Almodell estate (1002 acres) the property of the late Mr William Scoular. Mr S.R. Merrett was lately charged, under the Factories Act, with having a man at work on the Wednesday half-holiday. Mr Hall submitted that a slaughteryard was not a shop within the meaning of the Act, and the magistrate concurred and dismissed the information. Thomas Huntley was found dead in a cave below Dunbar Cliffs. He had fallen over the cliffs, and and although severely hurt, had crawled into the cave to escape the rising tide, and there expired from cold and exposure. Two young fellows courting the dairymaids on a farm near Glasgow scrambled to the top of an outhouse on the approach of the farmer, who, believing they were burglars, discharged his gun. Both were severely wounded. The farmer was arrested, but was admitted to bail. It is reported that a number of natives in Africa, engaged to gather rubber, destroyed 20 villages and chopped the hands off 200 villagers because they did not supply sufficient rubber. A championship regatta is to be held at or near Dunedin during the Otago jubilee celebrations in March next. Wellington bakers intend to raise the price of the 2lb loaf by a halfpenny owing to the high price of flour and the demands of their workmen. A New York watchmaker recently performed the feat of drilling a hole through a common pin from bead to point. During the height of a thunderstorm in Cambridgeshire two girls were returning from school when they were struck by lightning, and one, who was within two hundred yards from home, was killed, while her companion was rendered unconscious. The same day a little girl named Collins, aged nine years, the daughter of a labourer, was killed by lightning whilst sitting at tea. Her little brother was also knocked down and rendered unconscious, but recovered. His body is marked with the complete outline of a tree, the branches being shown distinctly. The lightning came through the roof, making a hole in the ceiling. The curtailment of expenditure, and the carrying out of none but important and urgent works, is to be the rule in Victoria, whose revenue is on the downgrade owing mainly to a shortage in the wool clip. A carpenter named J. Robertson rode down a hill in Wellington on his bicycle, and being a learner and having no brake, he lost control of the machine, and crashed into a telegraph pole, death being instantaneous. The pole is at the bottom of the hill, and it is said that a number of accidents have been caused through its dangerous position.

J. T. Morton, the well-known oilman, has bequeathed haif-a-million sterling to missions and charities. It is understood that the hanks doing business in New Zealand will at an early date make a charge of 10s 6d for opening a current account, and another of 10s 6d every half year for continuing to keep it. A fatal accident occurred during target practice outside the harbour by the Bombay Defence Fleet. While the torpedo boat 102 was circling the targets on the star-board beam, Pettyofiicer Hodges brought a three pound quick-firing gun into action, and the combination of the recoil with a heavy swell threw both man and gun overboard. A gallant attempt at rescue was made by Singlernan Patterson, but a heavy sea was running, and Mr Hodges and his rescuer were thrown against the side of the boat. Patterson was compelled to relinquish his hold of Mr Hodges, who sank immediately. Henry Pumphrey, foreman at Whitley Brickworks, was cleaning the machinery of some clay, when his neckerchief, which was tied in a slip knot, caught in the cog wheels, and the noose was tightened so quickly that he was strangled before assistance could be rendered. At Wrexham, a collier named Joseph Hughes was fined 10s and 15s 6d costs for stealing mushrooms. The chairman of the bench said it had recently been decided that taking cultivated mushrooms was stealing. The owner of the property said he cultivated the mushrooms by salting the field, but trespassers stole them all.