MEN AND THINGS.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 604, 31 January 1891, Page 9

MEN AND THINGS.

Rudyard Kipling, poet and novelist, is engaged to marry a Yankee widow. American cowboys were recently fined at Albury for riotous behaviour. Mr Charles Bradlaugh, the noted atheist, is believed to be dying. Will he die ' game ' ? Baron von Mueller and Professor Lyle, of Melbourne, are now on a summer tour of New Zealand. Dr Kooh refuses to sell bis talents to Australia for the purpose of discovering a disease to exterminate rabbits. In Victoria it takes three policemen to minister to the same proportion of population which is attended by one doctor. Jay Gould's fortune has doubled in eight years. He owns at least one hundred million dollars, say 25 million sterling. Young Master Ah Cheong, of the Celestial persuasion, has come out Eux of the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School. The Australian drinks on an average half a gallon of wine, a gallon and a half of spirits, and 16 gallons of malt liquor annually. The Marquis of Queensberry has contributed, ' as a reverent agnostic to our common cause of humanity, 1 £100 to General Booth's fund. ' Sheer ' lunacy. — A tailor named John McCarthy killed himself at Newmarket on Friday last, by sticking a pair of shears in his heart. At the commencement of 1891, there were 100 barristers, 450 solicitors and attorneys in Sydney, and 250 in the N.S.W. country districts. The Government of Fiji are discharging their white printers, whose places are to be filled by coolie typos ' from Ceylon's lovely isle,' etc. Messrs L. D. Nathan and Co., of Auckland, have purchased the wine and spirit business of Messrs Hancock and Co., the big brewing firm. The splendid collection of coins, new and old, now in the hands of Mr W. R. Cook, Auckland, for sale, is valued at £300. The metal alone is worth half that amount. 1 Nothing like leather.' This adage must be revised, in vjew of the failure of two big tannery businesses in Auckland, Messrs Garrett Brothers and B. Gittos and Son. It costs only £5 10s to make a ton of Queensland sugar. This includes labour, interest, manufacturing — everything. Then the middleman runs the cost to the consumer up to £22. Mark Rawlings has been committed for trial on various oharges of stealing moneys of Farnell Orphan Home. There will be 21 counts in all, and the total ' steal ' is said to amount to £1400. Prof. Huxley has published a pamphlet to prove that General Booth's colonisation soheme cannot auceed. Look out for Laishley, Ph.D., on the same racket. • Huxley and I ' never disagree. A system of ' choppee for changee ' between prisoners in the Melbourne Gaol and their free pals outside, by which the former made and supplied skeleton keys in exchange for tobacco, has been discovered. Benjamin Harrison Gummon is the euphonidus name of the proprietor of the Hamilton Frihwne, Victoria. When there's a press of matter, • Ben ' will be able to * jam in ' a lot, and ' gum on ' the scraps. It will interest some people to learn that the Savage Club, London, is on the verge of bankruptcy. It owes nearly £2000, and has nothing to pay with. It is ' quite on the cards that the club may have to be wound up or reconstituted. The boys of the Costley Institute, Auckland, who number 28, are said to get on all right, save for an 'occasional outburst of the old Adam.' As the boys go out , to various trades, it is to be expected that they will indulge in Adam or two.

Mb A. Goldib (brother of the Auckland Domain Ranger) lately arrived in Sydney from New Guinea, where he passed 15 years of his life. He kept the only store in. Port Moresby, the * capital ' of New Guinea, which boasts of 14 European residents, mainly made up of Government officials. The only European buildings at Port Moresby are the Government offices and Mr Goldie's store. A township has been surveyed in a very healthy situation, but at present there are no inhabitants. , The Hon. William Bates, of Victoria, has departed in a most peculiar and unsatisfactory way. After working hard for 63 years and becoming generally esteemed, and wealthy, he found himself knocked over very simply by two small urchins. They were stealing , fruit from his garden in Nicholson-street, Melbourne, ; and while the legislator was running ' full tear ' after ? them he feel heavily on the footpath, and the shock, / coupled with heart disease, killed him in half an-hour. ;: