Local & General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5080, 14 August 1884, Page 3

Local & General.

• The District Court, Timaru, sits in Chambers to-morrow, and in open Court on Saturday next, at 10 a.m. Mr Walter Hoddinot, collector for the Wilson ReUef Fund, Avishes to acknowledge, with thinks, the receipt of a cheque for £5 from the Lyttelton Naval Brigade ; and to remind persons desirous of subscribing that they can forward donations to him to his residence, Hutton street, Sydenham, or the Addington Workshops. At the adjourned meeting of the promoters of the proposed Co - operative Butchering Association, held last night at the Scotch Stores, the draft prospectus was submitted and approved, and it was decided that the proposals should be submitted to the public in proper form. A future meeting was arranged for, which : will be duly made public. I In a recent police case at Ashburton, : a man named M'Clure -was sent to gaol for a year for ill-using his wife. I He suddenly fell ill, and had to be sent ; to the Hospital, so that his journey to !* prison was delayed, l^pm the Hospital he j made his escape, but on Tuesday he was i caught at Methven, on his way to the West • Coast, his illness not apparently interfering | with his walking powers. He will now ; have an opportunity of trying his deceptive powers onthe Lyttelton gaol officers. | There was a large attendance at the j s'tting of the Christchurch Parliament ary Association last night. Several new J members were elected, and others proposed ; for election at next meeting. A Bill pro- | viding for the constitution of the Associa- ■ tion was considered in Committee, read a j third time and passed. A commencement I was also made in the work of " practical I legislation," the first of the Ministerial ' measures "being brought down and discussed pro and con, till the lateness of the hour caused the debate to be adjourned. Last evening, Lieut.-Colonel Lean inspected the Christ's College Rifles at the Drillshed. Thirty-one members Jof the corps were on parade, Captain : Scott being in command. Lieut. Mellish i put the men through various movements, and they were also instructed in aiming and position drill by Captain and Adjutant Newall and Sergeant-Major Finn. Colonel Lean expressed himself as pleased with the appearance of the Com- . pany, and complimented the men upon | the manner in which they performed their work. An entertainment in aid of the Sydenham Football Club was given in the Oddfellows' Hall, Sydenham, last evening* by the members of the dramatic i class which hitherto performed so sueI cessfully in connection with the late j Young Men's Club. There was a very good audience, who were much pleased with tho efforts of the young dramatists to amuse them. The pieces performed were the farces " Ici on Parle Francais " and "My Turn Next." In an interval between these, several selections of vocal and instrumental music were rendered by lady and gentlemen amateurs. A ball followed the entertainment, and dancing was kept up till an early hour. An Association has- just been formed in Christchurch, under the title of the "Christchurch and Suburban Co-opera-tive Money Club," which has for its objects the providing of an investment for small savings, and the advance of money to members on personal or other security; no loan to exceed the sum of .£SO. This Association is, it is claimed by the promoters, the first of the kind that has been registered in New Zealand, and in which the shareholders have the protection of the law, limited liability, and other advantages arising from having a legal standing. It has been registered, it maybe noted, as a "specially authorised Society" under " The Friendly Societies Act, 1882," subsection 5 of section 7 of which gives power to His Excellency the Governor to specially authorise societies to be registered under the provisions of the Act. Mr H. Wagstaff has been appointed Secretary of the Association, and a general meeting for the purpose of initiating operations will be held shortly. The Rev J. J. Brown delivered a- lecture last night in the Wesleyan schoolroom, Durham street, to a large and attentiveaudience. The subject was " Mistaken Notions," ore which, as the lecturer explained, gave him a large field to work upon. Among the " mistaken notions " upon which Mr Brown dilated, wero the following: — That we raise ourselves by pulling others down ; that every man was a rogue till he was proved to be honest ; that our own estimate of ourselves is the most correct and '

awt — _ bfflU ._ »"■_— _« OTA — _■ ■— — iggl -HTggy- re— «wra— CH— — Wl »m_i_.— a reliable one; and that respectability is confined to the learned professions. The' lecture, which also included some scathing ridicule of foppery in either se:r, was copiously illustrated by apt quotations from the poets, and throughout was full of wit, humour, and sound good sense. The recital of '* Betsy and I," brought it to a conclusion, amid loud applause. A vote of thanks having been most cordially accorded to the Revs Ralph and J. J. Brown, and announcements of further lectures by the same gentlemen having been made, the meeting closed with the Benediction. Last evening, Professor Brown delivered at Canterbury College a lecture on " The Study of Shakespeare," introductory to a series of twelve public lectures which ho intends to give on the early manhood of the great dramatist as mirrored in the plays of " Henry the Fourth " and " Henry tho Fifth." Almost every seat in the hall in which the lecture was delivered was occupied, and there were many ladies amongst tho audience. Before addressing himself to his subject, Professor Brown explained that the lectures he proposed to give had been written rather for students than for public lectures, but some of his students had thought that they were worthy of repetition, and he had accordingly selected twelve dealing with the plays of Henry IV. and Henry V., and he called this course "Shakespeare's Early Manhood as seen in Mb Plays" because these plays were written when Shakespeare was between thirty and thirty-five years of age. He proposed to take the four main characters in these plays — Falstaff, Henry IV., Henry V. and Hotspur, and show how Shakespeare puts his philosophy into character; he would deal with the religious questions of Shakespeare's time as Shakespeare looked at them. He would devote two lectures to explain the exact place English history occupied in his plays, as compared with comedy and dramatisation, two specially to his philosophy of human life, which was the point of view most interesting, and made Shakespeare akin to all the world 5 one on the relation of Henry IV. and V., and the character of Falstaff in those playc, to the Merry Wives of Windsor. He would deal with the last-named, in order to show how Shakespeare worked under . pressure, as the play was written by command of the Queen for immediate representation, and, in a single heat, as it were. Professor Brown then delivered the introductory lecture of the course, which was listened to with the greatest attention. The subject of the lecture for next Wednesday evening is " Falstaff." When Mrs Langtry was recently sued in New York by one of her company for breach of contract, the verdict, as we have mentioned, was in her favour, but "Mr Daniels, the drygoods merchant," who, as foreman of the jury, announced the finding, added: — " There is some talk in the papers about Mrs Langtry's fascinations. I want it distinctly understood that there is none of this nonsense here. We are all married men, and the verdict is in her favour only because justice is on her side." On this a London paper remarks :— " According, therefore, to Mr Daniels, the dry-goods merchant, female fascination has no effect on married men, and anyone engaged in litigation with a pretty woman ought to challenge every bachelor on the panel. I am afraid, however, that on this side of the Atlantic the dictum hardly holds good, and that husbands are just as susceptible as bachelors. The Judges of Phryne were old men, and probably married men." The volcanic eruptions in Java, the earthquakes in Ischia, and our. own western tornadoes (writes the Scientific American) have probably caused much more destruction of life and property than they would have caused if buildings had been specially adapted to resist them. In Japan, where shocks of earthquake are frequent, a contemporary says that it is not usual to dig foundations for any building, no matter how large and important it may be. Rocks slightly rounded at the top are placed where the corners of the house are to be. The corner posts, rounded at the end, rest on these. The timbers are all pinned together, not nailed, so as to allow of considerable movement without coming apart. In the central portion of the building the timbers are particularly heavy, and act as ballast. In high towers there are sometimes huge beams swung from the roof and reaching to within a foot of the ground, which prevent the building from being overturned either by earthquake or storm. The oldest building in Japan, the Treasury at Nara, is built in this manner, without the swinging beam, but with a very heavy ballast in the framework of the centre of the floor. A well known artist is the inventor of a painting hut which is constructed in part on the same principle. It rests on stones at the corners, the timbers are keyed together, and it carries a heavy ballast under the floor. It is, however, in addition, secured to the ground by ropes and anchors. This hut willoutride a gale in perfect safety.' A telegram in the New York Sun of June 2 .says : — There is war to the knife between Davitt and Parnell. Davitt's latest point of attack is the Irish Migration Company, of which Parnell is Chairman and through which he seeks to relieve congested districts of Ireland by purchasing lands in less crowded parts of the country and attracting small farmers to them by cheap rents and easy terms for instalment purchases. Davitt says that this is only one step removed from the State-aided emigration, and in some respects is as objectionable. The Irish, he says, are not only patriotic in their love for their country as a whole, but are also devoted to their native counties, towns and villages. To transplant a Donegal man to Kerry, or a Corkonian to Tyrone, to send Mayo farmers to Meath, and Lough families to Galway, is only a shade better than shipping them off to America or Australia. Davitt also complains of the prices which ParnelFs company is paying the present landlords for estates which they could not possibly sell to anyone else at any figures. He charges that Parnell is using the machinery of the Irish National League, and playing upon Irish patriotism to push private real estate speculation, and intimates that the exorbitant prices he is paying for lands gives ground for the supposition that he is secretly receiving bonuses from the landlords. Davitt made all these charges in writing to Parnell, but has been met only with curt and tardy replies or contemptuous silence. Now he proposes to publish and circulate as widely as possible the facts upon which his charges are based, for, he says, it is high time that Irishmen throughout the world should know what a self-seeking schemer they have chosen for a leader. The Sydney Bulletin gives the following reminiscence at the expense of the quondam Minister of Education in Victoria:— ln the early days of Ballarat, when man wanted little here below, but wanted that little hot and strong, the present Hon and thrice-gallant Majah Smith was an auctioneer, and on one occasion was selling off a library. Amongst the books was a copy of Canon Barham's "Ingoldsby Legends," and, after struggling hard with the title, the local George Robbins put the volume up in these words: "Now, gentlemen, this is a book I can recommend to all you miners. It is written by an American gentleman named Leg Ends and it is called "In Gold." The author of the delightful work is an old Californian miner of great experience, and, after describing the hardships and toils of a digger's life, winds up by depicting the joyous, rouse-about times that were held in the camp when the hardy, sunburnt miners struck it rich at last, and were, as he poetically puts the case, ' In Gold.' Now, gentlemen, start ' it right away ; what shall I say for Mr Leg End's 'In Gold ?' " And yet that auctioneer afterwards became Minister for Education during the Berry regime. An extraordinary discovery has lately been made at Perry Barr, a suburb of Birmingham. In that neighbourhood is a farm known as Booth's Farm, originally occupied by Win. Booth, the notorious forger of Bank of England notes, who was executed at Stafford in 1812. In digging over his orchard tho present proprietor has disinterred two copper-plate engravings of £1 and £2 notes. They both bear date of 1811, and are in a perfect state of preserva tion.

.~ — — W— V.WB reF— <S-C^S— Vtt_~MT*i — (o— _J — «— Wl — A«W«HP^M A singular tale of destitution comes from South Australia. The Port Augusta Despatch of June 27 says : — "On Wednesday evening Mounted-Constable Knight reported at the Police Station that he had that evening found a party of about 20 men camped six miles from Port Augusta, near tho Chinaman's dam, in an utterly destitute condition. They had constructed a wurley of branches and were cowering round their fire. They had one billy between them, and a number of pannikins had been improvised out of old jam tins. Food thoy had none, but thoy had a little tea and sugar left. They stated that they had been granted free passes by the Government to go into the country to find work, and had been searching for it fruitlessly. They had originally been sent to Yorko's Peninsula on Government work at 5s a-day, were there three weeks, but, owing to wet weather, were only able to make seven days' work ; and, as they were not paid for idle days, they were running into debt. They, consequently, left the Peninsula, and came north, where they found that they had made a bad exchange. The police have no power to do anything for these men beyond arresting them as vagrants." The Oamaru Mail has the following: — "One of our townsmen, who is a subscriber to the Dundee People's Journal, when forwarding his subscription to that paper lately, promised that he would, on some convenient occasion, send a frozen sheep to the editor. This is what the editor says in his own paper on receipt of the letter containing the promise : — ' In a letter which has reached the People's Journal office this week from Oamaru, New Zealand, the writer states that he may sometime send a " hail sheep " to " Tammas Bodkin" and "Tibbie." It seems that several similar gifts have already been received in Dundee and district, one gentleman having got a sheep, and another a fine lamb, both in an excellent state of preservation, and in first-rate condition for the table. Tammas ' intends to have the carving-knife in good condition to do honour to the gift when it arrives, and we trust ho will be induced to give the public his views on New Zealand mutton.' We must explain that ' Tammas Bodkin ' is the fictitious title under which the editor (Mr David Latter) sometimes writes, and that ' Tibbie ' is his wife. It is the intention of the townsman to whom we have referred to send his present by the Elderslie, and we hope that his example will be followed by others, for nothing could do more to popularise our frozen mutton in the Old Country." There are 112,412 miles of railroad track in the United States, of which 107,158 are in operation.