The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15,1897.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 11024, 15 September 1897, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1897.

Mr W. Nichols hag r been elected secretary to the Societies Band. Mr E. L. Stanford, Oommiisioner, held a sitting of tho Native Land Court to-day (Wednesday). J Mr W. W. Tanner, M.H.R , will take charge of a bill in the House, extending the municipal franchise to adults. Master Jack Garry, tho young violinist, made a moat successful appearance before an Auckland audience on Monday night. The annual general meeting of the New Plymouth Cricket Club will be held at Mr C. T. Mills' Office on Monday evening next at balf-past seven. In Mr T. G. Leech's letter on municipal matters in Monday's issue, ho inadvertently omitted to state that the Bank of England Loan to the City of Glasgow was at 2 per cent. Mr Corkill acknowleges with thanks a donation of £1 Is from the Unity Tent of the Rcchabitos towards the fund which is being raised in connection with tho recent terrible mining disaster in the Isle of Man. Captain Edwin wired at 12.32 pm. to-day :— " Wind betw.een north and w«Bt nnd south at all places northward of Napier and New Plymouth, and botwew nortk east and north and west elsewhere duriug the next 12 hours, then changing to between north and west and south-east; barometer rise at all places after 12 hourg; sea heavy on western coasfc of North Island north of Capo Egmont, moderate elsewhere, tides generally moderate ; westerly winds are probabla in all parts of the country. 1 ' Our readers are reminded of the meeting to bo Ir-lfl in f,ijo Whitolny ITnll ak 7 -!0 ri.ro •]■<; (V/eiircH.l.iy) «vonii.y. Vii-A j'..rffli \>an int' ic^liag ; rpeaker, n.ad nil tnc;j ; '.i/t in. tciMifr.m-ca v v ork should tot mv,6 slid opporcurittf of hearing her. — Advfc.

The Star Football Club's social will be i held in the Theatre Royal to-night. - The pavilion stand and contents on the Geraldine cricket ground were burned on Tuesday night. Mr A. B. Worthiogton ha 3 returned to Christchurch, and on Sunday lectured on his work in Hobart and Christchurch, and why ha returns. Mr Kirkby reports the sale of Mr Knight's prettily situated 8-acro section on the Avenue Road to Mr Gerald Clarke at a satisfactory figure. At Liverpool assizes on July 31st Mr Beecham, pill manufacturer, and Mr Cballinor, his agent, were assessed in damages of £50 and 40s respectively for disfiguring the Foudroyaut, Nelson's flagship, by painting en it an advertise ment. Stay of execution was granted. According to the Age, the leading j finanoial agents are beginning to speak seriously about the withdrawal of English investors from Victoria, owing largely to the fact that double income tax has to be paid — 8d in England and Is 4d in Victoria. Three firms report the withdrawal since 1896 of over £000,000. M. Szczepanowski is the name of an accomplished solo pianist and accom pinist, and forms One of Amy Sherwin's Operatic Concert Company, who are now on a tour through the Australian colonies. We doa't know how he pronounces his name, but from its spelling we should suppose it something like "Seizo'er-pan oWhisfcy." In the linotype case at Auckland, in which the proprietor of tho Scar bought to recover £709, duty paid at tho rate of 20 per cent on five linotype machines, His Honor decided that linotypej are subject to a duty of 5 per cent, as printing machines, and ordered a refund of the excess deposited, and payment of 8 per cent, interest sinco July. Costs were allowed plaintiff.

Mr Mundella used to tell a striking story of hisown experienced manufacturinglife Tivico, he said, iv his experience, the firm with which he was oonnoctad had to break up their machinery for old iron, at a cost representing a fortune. And it is solely by this bold and versatile enterprise that they were able to live. That, he said, was why English manufacture had survived, and would survive, all sorts of competition. A most wonderful phenomenon is said to havo recently occurred at Boston, Lincolnshire. A poultry keeper placed a ben on fifteen donble-yolked eggs and twentv-nino thickens were the result. It is said that the hen's bewilderment at this extraordinary brood from such »n ordinary number of eggs wss very pronounced. The chickens were black Minorcas, and were viewed by scores of incredible curiosity-hunfrera. Tho Queen herself is not eager for the multiplication of Btatuot. It was proposed among other Jubilee tributes that che statue ot^Qusen Anne, which fronts St. Paul's, should bo rotnoved and one of Queen Victoria substituted. " No, thank you," said Her Majesty, when the project was submitted to her. " That would establish an awkward precedent, 200 years heuco my statue would be removed to make room for that of a later Queen." The fonrtaenth annual show of the Egmont Agricultural and Pastoral AsBociatioH will bo held at Hawera on Thursday and Friday, 4th and sth November, when the programmo will include leaping, criving, shearing, chopping, and guessing competitions. Entries close on Monday, October 25th, with the Secretary, Mr C. A. Budge. Under the auspices of the same Association a parade of stud horsos will be held at the show ground, Hawera, on Saturday, September 18th. By the misconception of the purport of a remark by Mr J. P. M. Fraser, at a meeting of J. G. Ward's creditors, on 20th August, the Press Association agent at Invercargill made it appear that the possible dividend in the estate, if Ward's furniture were sold, would be sevensixteenths of a penny in the pound, whereas Mr Fraser's remark was meant to show that the sale of furniture would only increase the dividend by that fraction of a penny in the pound. The Bey. John H. White, of Rabotu, reports donations towards the new Wev leyan Church from Messrs H. Brown, M.H.R , and F. MoGuire, M.H.R., the former writing, " I am glad to hear you are erecting a placo of worship at Rahotu," and the latter, •« You hatfe my best and sincerest sympathy in your undertaking," The treasurers will be pleased to receive promised subscriptions from donors at an early date. The Building Committee met on Monday last to open tenders for the erection. In the Magistrate's Court, at Stratford, on Tuesday, a cattle dealer named J. J Hills was fined £2 for exposing a diseased cow for sale, and under section 34 of the Stock Act, for leaving a cow on a road, he was fined £26. The S.M. said that nnder clause 27 of the Stock Act this was the minimum penalty, being £2 per day for tho 13 days referred to in tho information, Had the information included the 21 days the beast was about, Hilla would have been liable to a fine of £1000, the minimum penalty being £50 per day. The S.M. advised Hills to petition the Minister of Justice for a mitigation of the penalty. The Paris correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald writes :— "I am informed from Ministerial sources that active negotiations are now proceeding to extend the sale ef frozen meat to France, Certain exaltod personages, who for the present must be nameless, have been visiting the numerous horse butchers' shops, and it is taken for granted that if hippophogy has not repelled the French appetite, and donkey cutlets are cooked a la Milanaiso, there mmt be a chance for the beaatif ul meat from the Antipodes, now sold in tha length and breadth of Great Britain. Nor need there be any fear of this new and great development being hampered by French customs and octroi tariffs. Even M. Meline himself will not oppose the entry of meat under the conditions of quartering and other details now sot forth in the Freiich code. As for tho purchaser with slender means, tho boon will be incalculable once the first timidity of the palate has been overcomo."

The Ashburton Guardian of September 6th contains a -cry lengthy report of tho farewell to Mr and Mrs St. George Douglas on tho previous Saturday on the occasion of their leaving Ashburton for the West Coast. The Major of tho town presided at the gathering, which was very largely attended, and in his opening remarks spoke in highly complimentary terms of the guest of the evening, who, he said, duriug tho twenty yeais he had been at Ashburton, had always been distinguished by his courtesy and obliging coudaet to all, from the high and mighty to tha humblest. As a citizen ho was a pattern to all, und few men could show for so long a time such an exemplary record. His Worship also spoke of Mrs Douglas's gracious disposition and well-known benevolence, and concluded by presenting to Mr Douglas a handsome gold hunting watch and chaiu, and to Mrs Douglas a gold watch. Several other speakers followed in similarly eulogiatic terms, and Mr Douglao feelingly replied. On the following day tho Ashburton Rifles paraded for divine service, and after the service the company marched to the drill shed, where Major Douglas was presented with a handsome binocular field-glass, with case and sling, as a souvenir of hia connpetien with the Ashburton Rifles. Major Douglas, in replying told how he received hia earliest military training in Taranaki in tho troublous timsi m thf early sixties. At the concluflion of the ceremony the band played a selection, tho thrme of wliich was "Tho me old English geutlemoD," and the ending « For hoY, a jo'ly good fellow " Mi m ) :.Ti> IV.u^'a.- :oft A s hfcnrron on .I'n.f.p.i im 'am.;, (.tli or: mom her, ami a I l*u- j'uiubif of Jfiundn assembled to sac- •' tDPm ofl,-B-ii;!o both ilio Waimato and Jituciion plat/omi wore crowded with ui9Ml3 to Bay good-bye.

Mr Arthur Gayne, of the Railway Department at Patea, is seriously ill, having broken a blood ' vessel on the lungs.

A summary way of fixing au overdraft was witnessed the other day at Ashbarton. A farmtr met his banker in the street, and as they wero not able to agree concerning the amount of monetary ! accommodation required, the farmer knocked the banker down and jumped upon him. For the assault the farmer was fined £8 and costs, in default a month's imprisonment. He was given time to pay. A return of the number of lives lost at aea by wreck, drowning, or other accident in British merchant ships registered in the United Kingdom during the year 1896, issued as a parliamentary paper, shows that, including 144 pansengors lost in the Drummond Castle, which stranded near Ushant, and 250 passengers lost in tho steamship On Wo, sunk by collision near Woosing, tha total number of lives lost was 1897. An extraordinary occurrence is reported from Falinouth. In company with bis mother, a young man named Baspett visited the local cemetery for tho purpose of taking a farewell look at hia fathor's grave, before leaving for a foreign station whither he had been ordered. Whilst »t the grave 'ido Mrs Bassett suddenly threw herself across her husband's grave uttering a cry, and when her son picked her up she was dead. A typical remark of Sir W. Laurier, the Premior of Canada, in the campaign which has just carried him into power, is related as follows :—": — " The system of Protection," he said, over and over again in so many words, "has been tho bane and the curee of Canada. Thou* who introduce it simply for a time at last got intoxicated with the poiaon of their o«rn doctrine. They are just like the man who begins to drink moderately, and who becomes a slave to tha habit, and then would fain impress upon himself and his friends that liquor is indispensable to hia health." As a preventive of accidents which daily occur at railway crossings the Great Northern Railway company have for some months past been testing a novel method of warning the publw by means of a neatly-contrived piece of mechanism. When an approaching train is within about a mile and a quarter of crossing, the weight of the engine passing over a certain spot moves a mechanical device, thus causing a bell fixed at the crossing to ring continuously until tho train has passed. The method has, so far, worked satisfactorily at a very dangorou* crossing on the Hatfield and Luton branch line, and will, it is expected, be brought into use throughout the whole of the Great Northern system. News was received in Wanganui on Monday, says the Chronicle, that Mr Andrew Anderson, late captain of the Wairere, was drowned just above Pipiriki on Sunday. It appears that the party with which he was working wero putting a charge of. dynamite under some rocks in the Maogaio Rapid. The canoe was backed out of tho w."y and struck some rocks, when she partially filled with water. Anderson got into the canoe to empty it. The canoo drifted under th« lee of tho punt and capsized. When his mates turned round, Anderson (who could not swim a ctroko) was about thirty yards away and could not be reached in time. He rose once and then sank. He had been for borip time workiog for the River Trust Board, and kn- w the river as well as any one in the district. Sir Gordon Sprigg, the Cape Premier, began life as a clerk, and more than forty years ago weut to London to learn shorthand, and scon after he joined Gufney's well-known staff in London. In this way be found his way into the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, whore he reported for Hansard. He has often acknowledged in later life that the experience he gained in the Press Gallery has stood him in good stead. In 1858 be was supposed to be almoat at death's door, and he went to South Africa merely as an off chance of surviving. In the same way Mr Cecil Rhodes went out to save his life, and they have both survived, and each has been the Prime Minister of the colony to which he went.

I • The first report by the Board «f Trade •f proceeding under the Conciliation in Trade Disputes Act of last year has been /issued. It appears that within about ten months thirty-one applications have been made for the assistance of che department, and the experience gained in working the Act clearly establishes, in the oninion of Sir Oourtenay Boyle, permanent secretary to the Board of Trade, one important fact — namely, that in a large number of dh putes, when a meeting between the par im can be arranged, great benefit follows from the presence of an impartial person able to mediate, to prevent the effect of personal asperities, to make suggestions, and to facilitate concessions. Of the thirty-five disputes in which some kind of action by the Board of Trade has been either taken or inVited, nineteen have been settled under the Act, by conciliation, or arbitration. The greater number have been settled by conciliation, but during the period undor review there have been five cases of actual arbitration under the Act — four tho result of joint application, and one in which, under an agrtement effected by conciliation, Sir Courtenay Boyle himself was appointed by the parties to determine certain points.