Local & General.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5278, 7 April 1885, Page 3

Local & General.

■ — ♦ — . i I The members of the Ashburton con- j tingent of the Salvation Army held a very ; successful picnic 'yesterday. j 1 Eighty sacks of wheat wore destroyed at I Mr Stringfellow's farm, Chertsey, by fire ! on Saturday evening. Incendiarism is bus- I pected. S The Autumn Flower Show and Juvenil* Band of Hope Industrial Exhibition were the local attractions j esterday at Timaru. ' Numbers of citizens went to the encamp- j ment, to Fairlie Creek races, or on picnicing excursions. The weather was delightful.

Major Cautloy, C.E., passing through Timaru yesterday by express, notified to the Mayor his intention to Bpend four or five hours in Timaru on his return on Friday next. The " Silver King" ran for eleven nights afc Dunedin, and the Company are now playing in Timaru. They open here on Saturday night next. The piece, aa wo have taken occasion to mention before, is an extremely powerful drama, though not sensational, and the southern papera speak of the Company in terma of praise. \ Kubina won the Great Autumn Handicap yesterday by a ahorfc head. Favourites won in nearly every event afc the C.J.C. Meeting, and the totalisator dividends were remarkably low, but afc Auckland the reverse waa the case. In one raco the dividend was JJ2SI 15s ! Rubina was drawn in Robin Hood's big sweep by a well-known Christchurch barrister. ; One day last week, a man in Reefton backed himself to drink a gallon of beer at a single draught. The beer was measured out into a basin, and the man, having loosened all hia tackle, turned the beer on. Incredible as it may seem, the fellow drank ib all but about a cupful, but this effectually hitched him up, and so he losfc the wager. ■ Aboufc a quarter to eight o'clock last night, a glare of firo appeared in the direction of Sunnyside, and a report was circulated in town that a serious fire was burning near Templeton, which lies in that direction. The railway whistle was -. sounded, the chemical engine wa3 despatched from Christchurch, and a handengine from the railway station. After going to Addington, the firemen were in- ] formed that the glare had been caused hy burning gorse, and the engines returned to their stations. , ! A tea and public meeting in connection with the Wesleyan Church, Sheffield, was held in the Road Board office on Friday evening. There was a good attendance. The trays for the tea were provided in a very j liberal manner by ladies of the congrega- j tion. At the after-meeting, Mr R. Harker i presided, and stated that the tea waa in aid of the circuit debt. The Rev James Maxwell ; and Messrs Judd, from Christchurch, and ' J. Heighway also addressed the meeting. I The Waddington choir, under Mr J. Heigh- j way, rendered a selection of hymns very j nicely, Miss Tresidder presiding at the i organ. The usual voteß of thanks concluded the meeting. ■ The monthly meeting of the Tinwald j Town Board waa held on Saturday evening ; i present — Messrs Shearer (Chairman), j Houston, and Beckerstaff. A letter was j read from the Ashburton County Council, requiring fees received by the Beard for j the registration of dogs, owned by persons j resident beyond the town district, to be j paid to the Council. The Clerk stated i that he had informed the Clerk to the j Council that the fees would be paid to that j body aa soon as the Board opened a bank- j ing account, Tt'he action of the Clerk waa j approved of. The Treasurer was em- j powered to open an account with the Union ! Bank of Australia, and to pay all accounts j to date. The Board then adjourned. At 2 p.m. on Sunday, two men and two j little children, the latter only four and five j years of age, left Sydenham to go for a j walk on the hills. As they did not return j in the evening, considerable alarm waa i felt by their friends, and in the morning the police%were communicated with and a search party organised. The searchers spent over half the day scouring the hills unsuccessfully, and returned home to find that the supposed lost ones had arrived in the morning by tho train from liyttelton, which they had reached on the previous day too late to catch the train to town. Though glad enough to learn that the missing ones were safe, the members of the search party felt somewhat annoyed that they should have spent a day fruitlessly. At High street, next door to Richardson's Empire Hotel, is now on view a working model- of the celebrated " Apostolic" Stras- j burg clock. The model is said to be an { exact fac simile of the original in almost j everything but size, but in thia respect ia j only one-fifth of the original. By a special • arrangement of the internal mechanism, j however, some of the movements which J occur in the original only afc long intervals j can be produced at tho will of the proprie- j tor, and therefore the visitor is able to wit- | ness, wifchout any long delay, the chief i features of the clock. To give a detailed j statement of the wonders of the Strasburg . clock would be very lengthy, if not tedious,. ; and would be superfluous when any person j who pleases can go and see them for him- ) self during tho next few days. Suffice it j to say that the large number who yesterday : inspected the model were unanimous in < their expression of admiration for the in- ; genuifcy of the workmanship and the in- ; structive character of the information afforded. j The annual meeting of subscribers to the Southbrook Public Library was held in the library room on Wednesday, April 1. Mr Cumberworth was voted to the ! chair. The Treasurer's (Mr Sutcliffe) ) statement showed the receipts to have amounted to aboufc J620 and the expendi- ; ture to about £14,, leaving a credit balance of about £6. Tho statement was adopted. \ The election of the officers for the ensuing . year resulted as follows : — Chairman, Mr Withers ; Secretary and Treasurer, Messrs ' Sutcliffe and Adamson respectively ; Committee, Mossrs Watson, Ellis, Pearce, Cum- , borworth, Willis, Oed, Buckley, and officers j ear officio. The Chairman, in the course of a few remarks, drew attention to the erec- ' tion during the year of a very suitable library room, and that the prosperity qf . the library would be assured if the public gave support by becoming subscribers. A canvass for subscribers ivili go on during this month. It was decided to open the , library three nights a week, viz., on Tues- ; day, Thursday, and Saturday from 7 to 9.30 p.m. The annual subscription was fixed at 7a Gd ; quarterly at 2a Gd. A very hearty vote of thanks waa passed fco ] the officers of the past year, especially ! to the Secretary (Mr Adamsonj for his zeal displayed in the interests of the institution. -| All who have seen the distinguished Hun- ] garian violinist will have noticed thafc he wears a plain gold bracelet on his right : wrist. The bracelet has its story, a very simple one, ifc is true, and not old either, j When he was last in America, Madame Elmblad, the great pianiste, was contemplating a professional visit to Europe — in fact she started lasfc November — and she wanted to ascertain Remenyi's opinion of her playing, a3 well as to know if ho thought it wero worth her while to go. She sat down to the piano to play, and while she was playing he amused himself with the jewellery which she had taken off and laid aside. Listening all the time to her performance, he idly clasped this bracelet upon his wrist. When the lady i had finished her first piece, she turned to M. Remenyi with an evident knowledge of his action, and, pointing to the bracelet, I said, " Never take it off any more," and he never has. Madame Elmblad was formerly known as Miss Maggie Menzies, the daughter of the host of the best appointed hotel in Melbourne. She was, from childhood, a clever musician, and under a well-known Italian organist, she made rapid progress as a pianiste, bufc with a result not altogether anticipated, she fell in love with her tutor, ■ they became engaged, and a marriage was arranged. On the day fixed for the wedding it leaked out that the distinguished foreigner already had a wife, and conse- ' quently the ceremony did not take place, j Miss Menzies, seeking solace in music, left ; for the Continent of Europe. Whilst studying in Borlin she became acquainted with another student, Mr Elmblad, a , Swedish basso, in many points resembling ' Susini, to whom he will prove a fit successor. They were married, and shortly after- j wards left for Melbourne, where they gave j one or two concerts, which seemed to show what a splendid pianiste Madame Elmblad | has become, while her husband was a basso ; with but few peers. Since then they have i again visited the Colonies, but the lady j having been left very well off by her father, j they only appear in public at intervals, j Such is the story qf the lady whose brace- > let Remenyi wears. i The Tay is computed to yield 50,000 to | 80,000 salmon every year, and experts calculate that there are a quarter of a million , fifth in its waters.

A disgraceful scene occurred in Manners street recently, according to the Wellington Post. A lad who waa walking along the pavement accidentally stumbled against one of three bare-headed girls, who were following the Salvation Army. The girl, who was not more than 14 yeara of age, believed that the collision had been wilfully caused, and without a moment's hesitation she struck the lad on the face with her clenched fiat. Not content with this, she followed him along the footpath, and hit -him right and left, at the same time i making use of the most 'disgusting language. The lad, who was respectably dressed, at last struck the girl in selfdefence, and a regular fight took place. The combatants were eventually separated by a gentleman. There is a most barbarous law formality in France, saya an American journal, known as ." confrontation avec le cadarvre." ; Madame Clovis-Hugues asked to be spared this terrible ordeal and her request was granted. In Paria thia "confrontation" alwaya takea place at the Morgue and nothing is omitted from the ceremony that, is calculated to impress the murderer with the horror of his situation. A procession is formed in the ante-room, and the prisoner, well guarded by the pol : .ce, is then ; led in aWful silence into another chamber, where there are low tables covered with marble slabs and generally several empty coffins in readiness for the unclaimed dead. On one,, of these slabs something is lying carefully concealed | with a cloth. When the prisoner has been brought within a few feet of the slab, the covering ia quickly removed, and the corpse, with all its wounds, is bared | before hiß eyes. The ordinary French murderer usually goes through this ordeal with stoical composure. He is aware that it is I part of the incriminating process and baa carefully rehearsed his share of the scene in.private. Madame Clovis-Hugues, being a murderess of a superior type, at any rate, according to French notions^it is not suri prising that she should have begged so | hard not to be brought face to face with i the corpse of her victim. Aa she truly stated, no object was to be gained by the ; formality, for she freely admitted the deed and ite premeditation. Of course the funny men of the Ntw Tork Times could not resist temptation when it waa rumoured that the Congo Natives were to have a white prince to be Mieir ruler. "At present," he says, "he has lodgings in ' Brussels, and it is supposed that he will j have a throne put up in his back parlour | and sit on it two hours a day in return for : his royal salary. It will not do for the I King of the Congo to reside in Europe. I He must reside in his own dominions, i unless he is willing to be classed among j the loathsome absentees with whom Ireland i ia swarming — according to an eminent i Irish patriot. The people of the Congo I will pay no attention to a King living in j Brussels. They want a King who will live i among them, and adopt the habits and inii--1 tate the state of other Native Kings. If the I Prince of Flanders will go to the Congo j region, dresa himself in a black hat and a liver pad, marry 280 wives, and undertake ! to make rum for his subjects, he may be a j popular and successful monarch, but he ■ oan do nothing while sitting on a throne jin a Brussels h-dging-house. If the Congo I is to have a King, it is nonsense to search | Europe for a cheap Prince who will consents to accept the African crown. The truo King of the Congo region is Henry Stanley. Ho found it, he conquered it, and he haa ruled it with a wisdom and courage that command universal admiration. There is no possible reason why the Prince of Flanders or any other Prince should be given a title and a salary for work done exclusively by our fellow-coun-tryman."