NEWS ITEMS.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11554, 15 February 1906, Page 4

NEWS ITEMS.

Tbe breakwater at Patea has been completed to a distance of six hundred and seventy feet. . The Manager or* the Stdte Poultry at Mtlton says .there will be 1000 young birds availably, for. sale at the Farih.rioxt ihoritli; Thi§ is the Ingest riuihber the Farrii haS yet been able to put on the market; "Ddjitaiii J^artingtoii has announced his intention bf giving Glossop £30, jOOOfqr the erection ahd endowment of a convalescent home. No fewer than eight members of the new British Cabinet belong to the legal profession, an incident which is without a parallel in the annals of legal and political history. The first day's advance sale of tickets atthe LyricTheafcre, New York, for the Bernhardt visit amounted to £3920. and the police had to maintain order. The seats booked by mail totalled .£6200. Here is the pithiest sermon ever preached: "Our ingreßS into life is naked and bare onr progress thorough lifo is trouble and care, our egress out of it we know nofc where, but doing well hero we shall do well there; I could not tell you more by preaching a year." According to the Dunedin Stock Exchange list the dividends paid by dredging companies lasfc year amounted to £102,446, and by hydraulic sluicing and quartz mining companies to £19,203. Taranaki farmers are considering tbe question of doing their own stock auctioneering and saving commission Sir Donald Curries offer of £20, 000 to Queen's College, Belfast, provided a similar sum was raised locally, has led to a remarkable response, the amount now stands at over £70,000. Professor J. MacMillian Brown told the New Zealand University Senate that some of the English! written by certain of our graduates w&s a disgrace to the university. The mound bird, found in Australia, builds the biggest ne9t inthe world. It makes moundß sometimes as much as 150 feet in circumference, in which it buries its eggs sft deep. Some autograph-hunters' tricks are revealed in the December "Connoisseur. " George Eliot waa taken in by a lady who enlisted her sympathy in fictitious social workAt every important railway centre in Prussia a special carriage has been placed for the convenience of invalids. The carriages have beon specially fitted up for the purpose. Sir Edward Elgar, the lecturer on music at Birmingham University, has tho courage ef his opinions. While acknowledging that oratorio is at present the backbone of English music, he says that there are too many brainless singers— even the chorus singers of Germany are of superior education to most English soloists. Sir Henry Irving's unique collection of theatrical, art, and literary treasures brought remarkable prices at auction this week (writes a London correspondent on December 23). The sale lasted five days, and realised no less than £18,852. The work of "inoculating calves against blackleg is proceeding apace in Taranaki. It ia estimated that Mr Deem, stock inspector of the Hawera district will put thorough 20,000 before the end of the season.