NEWSY NOTES.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 607, 16 August 1890, Page 10

NEWSY NOTES.

Princess Beatrice weighs over 14at. Qlobo debentures are already at a discount. ' I Tn six months the Bank of England makes a profit of from .£700,000 to .£BOO.OOO. Mrs Baker, wife of the ex-Premier of Tonga, claims to be descended from Queen Elizabeth. 'To what base uses!' The old Baptist Chapel in Auckland is to be used for c a select dancins? class.' A Mrs Lowrie, wife of an Ohio farmer, has just given birth to four children, making nine that she has had at three births. A man aged 116 was recently charged before a Hobart bench with being drunk and disorderly. He will reform as he gets older. The London compositors turned out 3000 men to the Eight Hour procession, the best represented trade in the demonstration. Mark Henry Naille, a ' casual ' dock labourer in London, fell dead through starvation a few weeks ago. Hiß wife is in a lunatic asylum suffering from melancholia brought on by- lack of nourishment. The Melbourne unemnloyed recently burnt the H-m. J B. Patterson in effigy, for having referred to their leaders as a ' blasphemous, socialistical.cornmunistical, atheistical, Nihilistical lot.' The Pacific Mail Company sued the Government of New South Wales for ,£11, 750 alleged to be due, but the Supreme Court held jhat there was no contract— it I beiner subject to concurrence of the N.Z. Government — and gave judgment for defendant, with costs. Kemmler, the New York murderer, has been executed by electricity. It was a fearful bungle ; but it is such a treat to find Brother Jonathan executing a murderer in any fashion that there ia a disposition not to cavil at the method. Henry Gkorge. when in Australia discovered another thief besides his ' rent robber who takes all.' When the Sydney single-taxers went to say farewell, a gentleman who did not care to see so much gold leave the country relieved Mrs George of her purse. Here are some items of New Zealand expenditure for 1889 : — Intoxicating drinks, .£1,996,286 ; beef, mutton, pork, etc., .£1,428,816; bread and floor. £1,395,716; boots and shoes, .£728,200 ; coffee, tea, and cocoa, £4fi2,Q2b ; primary education, .£377,548 ; imported books, £173,775. Not an island has riS3n or sunk from sight in the Pacific Ocean for 34 years, and geologists cay that nature is resting for a future mighty effort. An English geologist predicts that within 50 years a convulsion of nature will sink the whole of New Zealand 50ft below the surface of the sea Talk of the present ' depression !' It is nothing to that which is to come ; and yet a century hence all taxation will be swept away. Stephen Clarke, an Aucklander, who died recently at Melbourne from injuries received while at work in Sharpe's Sawmills there, was only 21 years of age. He was well-known throughout Auckland, and his sorrowing relatives reside here, with the exception of a brother and sister. A Melbourne correspondent writes : — His funeral was essentially an Auckland one. Out of the dozen vehicles which followed his remains t-> the grave, no fewer than eleven were filled with Auoklanders. Mr Clai'ke re&ided nearly all his lifetime in the j Mt. Eden district, and a piece of scoria from that much-favoured resort was placed in his coffin ; aud as a fitting climax to this sad story, I may add that the grave of deceased was dug by an Aucklander. Deceased's relatives receive £100 from the Guardian Accident Insurance Company. The Hon. J. B. Patterson, Victorian Minister of Customs, says that during his visit to England he bought more popularity for a single sovereign than any man ever did before fo: thonsands. He was staying j at his n ttive place — Alnwick, in the North I — and read in the local newspaper that oi the previous day a man had been fined | 2Us. or six weeks' imprisonment for shooting a rabbit, and as the sportsman was poor he was sent to gaol. Touched by what seemed to the Australian politician a ludicrous and pathetic incident, he sent a sovereign to the governor of the gaol with a note which read : ' Let this man out and send him to Australia, where the people would look upon him as a benefactor to mankind.' That simple act made JLv Patterson the most popular man during his stay in the county.

Melbourne Punch is being sued for £5000 damages for libel. Census of the United Kingdom, as well as of Australasia, to be taken in 1891. Danada is the only civilised country in the world that iE without a Divorce Court. A thoughtful suicide in Paris, wishing to avoid giving 1 his friends unnecessary trouble in removing his remains closed his career on the door-sill of th morgue. By a collision between the s.s Rose Casey and ferry steamer Tainui, in Auckland harbour, on Friday evening last, both steamers were V>adly damaged, but no person was injnred. The passengers behaved with coolness ; but all the officers, &c, aboard the Tainui jumped in a big harry into the embrace of Rose. An extraordinary accident is reported from Wairakei, in the New Zealand Hot Lake district, whereby an unfortunate pack horse met with a horrible fate. The animal was being led up a steep path in the Geyser valley with a L>ad of stores on his back, and when passing above one of the large mud geysers the animal slipped and falling down the hill-side disappeared into the geyser, and neither horse nor stores were seen again. The geyser has since been in eruption, throwing up mud to a height of 20 or 30 feet, an effect which is produced in many of the large ngawhas by the introduction'of foreign substances such as stones bits of turf, etc. They have been having a gory time of it in Gore, Otago. The Mayor and a local reporter started out to ' paint the town red,' which ought to be the normal colour of Gore They ended up wiih a fight in the main street, and were up before the beak in consequence. In reporting the case fully, the local paper added . 'We crave the pardon of the more respectable portion of our subscribers for devoting so much space to our report of the assault case, heard in the Gore Court House on Friday. The lower class among our readers enjoy this kind of reading, and we have to cater occasionally so as to suit thoir taste.' ' Freemason ' writes from Helensviiie : — You usually take so fair, just, and consistent a viow of most things that occur around us, that I cannot help feeling surprised at yonr advocating a paper such as Justice. You must have noticed the article in that journal on the Grand Orient, a species of Masonry which you yourself have very justly condem- ed as utterly ignoring the Supreme Being, and so upsetting, so far as they can, one of the very fundamental principles of Freemasonry. I am surprised that the promoters of Justice should, at the outset of their undertaking, fly in the face of a body like the Freemasons, who while ever upholders of all the best institutions of the land, are at the same time ready to welcome, any reform that may be for the benefit of the people at large. — [We did notice the article and condemned it, although we approve generally of the aims of Justice. See our ' Observations ' on 26fch July.]