GENERAL NEWS.

Colonist, Volume XLIX, Issue 11987, 13 July 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

GENERAL NEWS.

Recently a large swarm of bees found tbeir way into Kirkbride Ctmrcb, Cumberland, during divine service, which had to be brougnt to a close in cod sequence. A dumb tramp 65 years old has been arrested at Berlin for begging by means of a pbonogiapb. <■ He visited private houses, and the machine poured out a heartrending tale of its owner's misfortunes. A man named Transier, of Bennington, Kansas, bas been fined and ordered by the magistrate to remain in bed for seven days, for intoxication. A policeman escorted him to bis home and put him to bed. "The Rev. Or Francis E. Clark, founder of the Society for Christian Endeavour, has been travelling for some months in South America. He visited the west coast, addressing meeting in Peru, Bolivia, and Chili. Hm then crossed the Andes. to the Argentine Republic. A doctor who gave evidence at an inquest at Warning Camp, Susses, said he remonstrated 3 with a moMw,.*j* -improperly feeding her intent 'with' -biscuits, and she replied: "Well, doctor, I ought to know ; I hava had thirteen cbildreD| ana buried eight. " Mr Douglas Lysnar predicts an invasion of rahbits into Poverty Bay unless steps are taken at once to keep them in check ia Elawke's Bay. Weasels are busy at the fish hatchery aDd Otago Acclimatisation Society's reseive at Opoho. The peasants have been attacked, a number of the Japanese teal have been killed, and the little pests burrowed into the quail's enclosure and killed them in nne night. 'Joseph Dwight, the sod of a pro- , fessor at Havard, has entered the Trappist Monastery at Lonsdale. Rhode Island. He is only twentyone years old. A witch doctor in the Vrhyeid district of Natal bas been sentenced to hard labor for eighteen months for causing the death of a native whom be "doctored" for insanity. The victim was placed in a hole wherem a fierce fire had been kindled, and water was thrown in to generate steam. a San Francisco message says that a Bupposed desperado killed by the police after a running pistol fight was Count Otto von Waldstein, of Austria, who fought in the Boer War. The police thought him a murderer, on whose track they were, while the^Count thought them to be bandits. A strike of domestic servants, the first of its kind in Italy, has broken out at Arzignano. The girls, whose organisation is perfect, demand higher wages, a 10-hour day, and extra pay for overtime. By a recent edict, the cultivation of opium in China must cease entirely by the year 1917. The crop is reduced by one-tenth each year, and all those using opium in 1917 will be banished. j Father Vaugban,tbe noted London ! priest, said the other day that the Socialists bad to learn that they could no ranre play the game of life on their scheme of things than one noold play the game of chega with udwns only.

Considerable attention is being given to tho phosphate rock deposits discovered in the Kapunda district. South Australia. The deposit being opened up promises to be a large body of high-grade rock. There are indications that the industry will assume large proportions. Canada has begun its fiqht with the electric trusts. The Dominion Government has been co-operating with the towns to link up a national municipal service of telephones. On a referendum no fewer than sixtyeight of the Manitoban municipalities voted in favor of public control. Ad American piano manufacturer who made a visit to Madame Patti's home in Wales says that, the diva has enough pianos and organs scatterfed through the castle to stook a music store. Most ot the instruments were gifts from makers. A jury at Melbourne has awarded £459 to Robert Adam, an art decorator,, who claimed £1000 damages from the Knowles Automobile Company for injuries received through being knocked down in the city while cycling by one of the company's motors. Finger Print Evidence. — Is the "finger print" system of identification fallible after all? The question is suggested by the remarkable coinoidence which is reported from South Africa (says the "Tribune"). It is stated that the finger-prints of two prisoners, who are awaiting trial at Capetown and Bloemfontein respec* tively, are identical in every respect. "If 'this statement can be trusted," said a well-koown criminal lawyer, "a grim prospect is opened up. If the finger prints of any two persons are once proved to be absolutely alike the system on its present basis falls to the ground, as it affords the posgibility of wrongful conviction, and a new order of Beck case. The most recent text book on criminal law advise discretion in dealing with finger-prints. The Coooling Chamber. — During a critical time in the Civil "War, when the Senate bad been particularly obstructive, one of his ardent sympathisers burst in upon him and hotly denounced the Senate, and finished his tirade by asking:— "What's the use of the Senate, anyway?" Mr Lincoln was drinking a cup of tea. In his homely fashion he poured the tea from the cup to the saucer and back agiun to cool it off, undisturbed by his caller's vehemence. "Well," said the man impatiently, "what'a the use of the Senate?" "I have just shown you," was Lincoln's answer, and onne more the tea was poured out. The man looked puzzled. Then a great light broke upon him. "You mean it enables the public passion to cool off. " The greatest of American Presidents nodded and drank his tes. What May Happen. — In his presidential flddresa at the annual meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, Sir Hugh Bell, casting bis glances into the future said that beyond doubt, we, wfao stood on the threshold of the 20tb century, might look forward fo gieat and far reaching changes before the nest hundred years were run out. New forces were again placed within our reach. It might well be that the steam engine would be as obsolete as the horse gin before the 20th gave place to the 21st century, and that the new machine would be in truth the beat engine toward which the first experimenters worked. Even the electric telegraph appeared to be obsolescent. If he to-day looked forward, what form might his guess of the future take? How in a hundred years would the great swiftly-gliding ship of those days be propelled? With little, or mayhap with no machinery on board, with barely any crew, she would speed on her way drawn by the electric force generated at Niagara and transmitted over the Atlantic by wireless telegraphy. She would cross to New York, take her cargo, and return as she came. Strange as this forecast might seem, H was no more incredible than that which had happened since 1807. : " Results of Lonely Lives. — Mr S. Mauger, a NBW South Wales legislator, who has been visiting the Northern Territory of Australia with the Governor-General's party, in a letter written to a resident of Footscray, Victoria, comments as follows on the solitude of the lighthouse keepers on the coast:— "When the Federal Government takes over the lighthouses, something will have to be done to make brighter and more tolerable the lives of the lighthouse keepers. Witbin the last few months thfi keeper of the Lady Elliot, committed suicide, and, more appf lling still, the keeper of Port Douglas, Low Island, took two bpautiful children of bis own into n flat-bottomed boat in the middle of the nigbt, in a mad tit, and has never been beard of since. All these social questions must be faced and dealt with,"

Dr L. Cockayne(says the Lyttelton Timßs) is busily engaged on his work on the vegetation of New Zealand, ov "The Vegetation of the World." He expects that it will be completed in four months. Tariff Proposals.— Sir Joseph Ward told a deputation of farmers that he was unable to divu'ge what was intended in the tariff proposals of the Government. The main principles of the alterations had already been decided upon, and he hoped when the proposals were submitted the country as a whole would see tbat some discrimination bad been exercised in the desire not to clog or hurt any industry or section of the community. It would be iot the public to judge whether ife was a revenue tariff in the ordinary sense. Exciting Wheat Buying.— Scenes of extraordinry exoitement were witnessed in the Chicago wheat "pit" on May 13fch. One house employed as many as thirty brokers to buy. Other bouses gave buying orders for millions of bushels. When the dollar "mark" was reached, hats, trading cards, and even coats were thrown high in the air, while the farmers and their wives who filled tne galleries cheered to a deafening extent. Nevw were there so many farmer spectators. Many of the brokers emerged from the struggle in the wheat "pit" with their clothing torn to shreds.