NEWS ITEMS.

Colonist, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8280, 21 June 1895, Page 4

NEWS ITEMS.

(From our Latest Exchanges.)

In iheMaharabar* district (Hawke'e Bay) a great deal of totariis sill bsing cat into sleepers, and one saw mill there is employed almost entirely in cutting sleepers. The Government p>y 2* 63 for each Bound sleeper delivered at the railway, and this (says 1 Napier News ') should facilitate the work being taken up with even greater vigor. _ i Says a Liondon paper : — " In conneotien with the provision made in the ntw Education Code of 1895 for the better practice of physical exercises amongst the children attending the elementary schools, the Education Department has ruled, in reply to a query pat by the editor of the ' Schoolmaster,' that expenditure on footballs, skipping-ropes, and other adjuncts to suitable games will be considered, legitimate application of the public funds of the school." The * Bush Advocate ' states that in the absence of the Weber postmaster recently a registered letter in the office was opened and three £1 notes stolen, the letter being replaced in the pigeon holes. Enquiry by the police and Foatal authorities has failed to throw any light on the matter, as it was of coarse impOßsible tv truce the notes. The tommander-in-Ohiel of the Japanese Army, Count Yamagata, who has proved snoh a brilliant leader, sprang from very bumble origin. He is the son of a working man, and the fact that he has risen from the rank of a private soldier to his present pobition U ail the more remarkable when the exclusiveness of Japanese Bociety is considered. • Madcap Violet.' which Mr William Black considers the best novel he has yet written, was published as far back as 1876, although it still finds many purchasers. A few Snndayß ago a clergyman in Ireland made the following announcement : — " Next Sunday, in thie churoh the Rev, Mr — will renounce the errors of Borne for those of Protestantism." The latest boy preacher, who is spoken of as a wonder, is seventeen years old, Mark Sexton (of Missouri), who can talk faster than a Congressman in a tight place oan think. Young totara trees have been grown successfully for some time by a settler at Maharahara, Hawke'a Bay. They do very well under cultivation and should be more extensively planted, as totara is one of the most valaable of New Zealand timbers. Probate of the will of the late Mr T. M. M'Laughlin, the well-known mining speculator, of Reefton, has been granted. The value of deceased's estate is £21,000, and the succession duties will amount, (says Westport ' Times ') to a little over £2100. The Russian Mediterranean squadron has joined the Pacific squadron, and have arrived at Nagasaki. The iron-clad Nicolai I. is also en route. The arrival of the last named ship will bring the number of large fighting ships up to five, namely, the Admiral NaMnoff, Admiral Korniloff, Pamiat Azova, Nicolai I, and Vladimir Monomak. In addition to this there are in all about seventeen cruisers and gunboats of various sis is, which bmig ihe fleet up to no 1« 3S than twentytwo ships-of-war. Says a Dublin papf-r — It is reported t hat Mr Rochfort Maguire has settled £8000 a year upon hi 3 intended wife, Miss Peel. Although this large fortune represents lucky investments of recent years in South African ventures, it is a mistake to suppose that Mr Maguire "began the world" without means. While at Oxford he was noted for generosity in money matters, especially to fellow-students who were temporarily unable to pay their " debts of honor." The • Christian Outlook * understands that the BBv Mr Gibb, after " doing " the Holy Land, made his way Home via Naples and Europe, arriving in good health on the 13th of M&y. Ha will be in tima to be present at the meeting of tna Scotch Assemblies. The Bey. J. B. Hawthorne (Baptist), of Atlanta, G»., preached over a telephone wire on a recent Sunday to audiences in Atlanta and adjoining towns. The experiment is said to have been a success.

An incident of the fighting in Chitrat is tola by a Potban prisoner :— pi 11 The, mullahs and chiefs talked to- h getber* and decided that they shonld ai creep upon the eDemies in the nipht d and fall upon them when the night r< was darkest. And every man, vent d willingly, for the gunß were Borely b needed. There were 2000 hillmen c who set forth that night, to brawl np a to the soldifrs' camp. We lay for a hours in tbe wet fields, with the rain p falling steadily, waiting for onr chief 1 <p give the signal for tbe great rush. I Word came round from cfcief to chief lj to be ready, and ©very man crouched & graeping hiß weapon to inn forward, c But at tbat moment a devil's gun fi boomed forth, and lo I instead of bullets and balls coming oat. there burßt £ over us a mighty light, bo great that I we thought the night had suddenly s become day. And we crifd aloud to j Allah to abate his wrath against us, x and when tbe great light faded we all c hurried away, and even our mullahs c had no word to fay " The explanation given is that in oider to guard c against any sadden night attack on ft the camp the British had fired a etar t shell. When such a eh^U bursts it c shows a brilliant magnesium light, i vividly illuminating the surrounding £ connfry, and it was to such a peaceful method of defence that Ihe British j force owed their escape from an on- s slnught in the dark, which might have < resulted disastrously for them. \ A sheep breeder states tbat sheep j Buffering from iDtestical worms— the ( ordinary worm, Strongylos contortus ] — oan be effectually cured by placing j them in a small paddook where the ( pasture is eomewhat bare and feeding ( them for a short time on dry chaff . with a small qaantity of crushed ] maize io it. The feed should be given , in feed boxes bo consferuotad tbat the , food is not exposed to tbe rain. This ; advice, it is stated, is not mere theory, but the result of hard won experience. The Committee set up to relieve the cases of destitution caused by Balfour'a swindles, are met daily with appeals for help from all sidrS, the plight of some of the people whom Balfour victimised being of a particularly painful nature. There are two thousand names on the books of tbe Rflief * und, and the total losses sustained by these amount to over £750,000. A contributob to a Melbourne paper gives ttie following, n3 the the New Zealand ' Table!; ' sayß snob a brogue was never beard in Ireland — " I was coming oat from tbe Davitfc reception on Saturday when an inspector ol pavement whose clothes at any ra'e. had saen better days remarked. " It was a glorious demonstration wasn't it ?' I told him tbat it was all an Irishman and a patriot could desir?. Then the national spirit of ebstioaoy ' Ruz widin f im.' 1 'Twas notbin'to what it ehud o' been.' he declared energetically. 1 Shnre we ehud o' had bands o' musicianers playin' trou the stbreets.. an' iadin' citizens carryin' b&nuerg. I d o' mode wan wid yez mesilf.' " F- bty-one millions sterling, according to Sir John Pender, is the sum that haa been sunk — the term, it will be seen, iB an appropriate one in th?B connection — in ocean telegraphic cables. At the present moment there are eleven cables across the Atlantic, belonging to five companies, and these alone hava coßt nearly fourteen and three-quarter millions. Tho3e who talk about " nationalising " things may like to nets that here at least the capitalist dees not get by any meana tba beßt of his bargain with the public, as the interest ho gets on bis oapital is considerably less than half that paid on consols, that is to say it is only 1 per cent. The three companies, the Eastern, the Eastern Extension, and South African have alt gether 51,825 miles of cables, and au aggregate oapital of over ten millions, on wbioh dividends of from 5 to 7 per cent have been paid since the lines wore formed. To a correspondent of Cassell's Saturday Journal, «3ir John has been giving some instances of rapid ocean telegraphy. Thuß, during the bombardment of Alexandria, the pnblic were kept informed hourly of events even to the minutest detail, and there was no delay in transmitting messages in spite of the immense increase o! business. When, in 1872, Lord Mayo was murdered in the Andaman Islands, the news was confirmed by a special message in a few n mutes. Professor M. H. Limon, a specialist in sheep diseases, has recently visited the Kaipara district, where he has made a nnmber of ' post mortem ' examinations, the result of which only confirms his previous opinion, that sheep disease was prevalent in some parts of the Auckland district. Dwight L. Moody was ones a travelling salesman for a Bhoe houso, and was a first-class drummer. He began evangelical work in 1860. Fottr men employed by the Wimmera (Victoria) Shire Council to destroy the noxious weed stinkwort, have (says the • Age ') been poisoned on the arms and face by the weed, which has a peculiar effect on the system, causing the body to swell rapidly. Their joints at the wrists and elbows became quite black, and the arms and hands covered with a number of large white blisters. The burning of the Canadian barque Annie Stafford, at Dieppe, is traceable according to the evidence supplied to the Dominion Department of Marine and Fisheries, to peculiar, if not un paralleled, causes. It seems that the < vessel carried as ballast 50 tons of flint stones, and while lying alongside the quay the pitching and rolling of the vessel produced friction between the 1 stones, and this is supposed to have originated a spark or sparks, which ignited the ceiling. As the Annie Stafford had previously carried petro- \ leum cargoeß, the interior woodwork < would, of course, be very liable to take fire. In a section of the English Press a 1 dead set ' is being made against the t Duke of Cambridge for the purpose „ of getting him to resign. The princi- i pal objections to the Commander-in-Chief in the eyes of his Radical critics are that he is a member of the Royal Family, that he is old, and that : he is too well paid. • Altogether the Duke seems the luoky recipient of ' about, say, £25,000 per annum from ' the publiq funds. I

Some consternation was occasioned playgoers at Napier recently when a horse, which was supposed to gallop across the stage, frightened by the discharge of firearms, turned suddenly round and carried his reluctant rider down a flight of steps, reaching the bottom without injury. Luckily the curtain was rung down for the close of an act just then, and both players and audience had an opportunity of composing themselves. The stage at the Theatre Eoyal is, says the Hawke's Bay 'Herald' hardly built on circus lines, and Mr Darrell of course runs some little risk in asking the wild equines of the Hawke's Bay prairies to face the music — and the shooting. Bishop Stanton, of Newcastle, New South Wales, is alarmed at the number of divorces now being granted. He says the recklessness with which young people, whose characters are unformed, rush into marriage is only equalled by their haste to seek divorce. A travelling pedlar of patent churns called at a farmhouse the other day soliciting patronage, and learning that the lady had a churning of cream on hand, was anxious to churn it. • The lady said that she had a patent churn already, but the man insisted that his was so much better that he could get 21b more butter from the cream than she could from her churn. She said, llf you can I will buy it.' So he left the churn promising to call and prove it next morning. The lady put her cream into her own chum, and brought her butter, took it out, and poured the buttermilk into the vendor's churn. He came next morning and churned and churned, but no butter, and he exclaimed at last : ' There is no butter in this cream.' * I know it,* said the lady, « for I ckurned It in my own churn ; but I wanted to see you get that other 21b.' There was no sale and no further conversation, Says West Coast 'Times I—The1 — The Premier has a variety of duties thrust upon him, but one he was called upon to perform at Kumara recently fairly " takes the cake." He was accosted by a man engaged breaking road metal for the Survey Department who said — " Mr Seddon, I know you are a fair man, I want you to measure some stones for me." The Premier did not deny the tribute of praise but demurred to the task. The man explained his reason— "Jones has been measuring the stones for the Survey Department and makes the quantity too little ; if he measures the timber for royalty the same way the Government are losing thousands of pounds in royalties every year. I know you are a fair man and will see justice done to me." Even a Premier is human and consequently he could not resist the appeal. A party then set out for tha scene of operations, consisting of the Premier, the Eesident Engineer, the Overseer, and an interested public. Arriving at the heap of broken metal, the tapejwas used, and sure enough, it was found the man had not been allowed full measure. This put the others on the thorns of doubt, and they insisted theirs should be measured also. The tape was again requisitioned and all iovmtl correotly measured except one man, who had been allowed too much. Mr Seddon says it is his most singular experience since he has been Premier, and he doubts if any other Premier has a similar tale to tell. The master of the ship Imberborn which has arrived at Sydney from London, sailed through 600 miles of icebergs. This chain of ice mountains extended from the 19th degree to the 81st of east longitude. The course of the ship was repeatedly altered, the vessel heading south from 42*80 south to 45* south latitude in the attempt to get round the gigantio masses of ice. They are directly in the track of shipping bound to Australia^ _^_._— -—