LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8310, 8 May 1905, Page 3

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The new Fire Brigade Committee will visit the fire stations in the city on Thursday afternoon. Miss Wyatt, matron of the Blenheim Hospital, has heen appointed to tiie charge of the St Helen's Hospital for paternity cases, whioh the Government is establishing in Wellington. It is rumoured in Dunedin that a 'breach Of promise action, in which the parties are well-known Taieri residents, has been settled, the fair plaintiff receiving a solatium of £500. An unusual sight was seen in Hamilton recently, when a well-dressed young woman on norsebaok was driving a mob tof oattle iihrough the main street, and wielding a stookwhip in the most ortlwdox manner. The Labour Department has been adybed that a party of men used to mining is« required for tunnelling work on ft* Midland Railway toe. /Applications from those desirous of obtaining wptk will be received at the. Labour Bureau. The criminal sessions of the Supreme Court, set down for to-day, were forttftlly opened this morning by the KeSar, and immediately adjourned un--5f 11 a.m. on Monday next. Mr Justice Cooper will probably take the ses.kma, and is expected to arrive in Cfcristchurch towards the end of this The orphan ohildren who, since the 4ertroction of the Orphanage by fire, hive been lodged in the late Mr John Joyce's house at Lytfceltou, a» now being transferred .to the house at .Waitham. formerly the property of the. late Mr W. Langdown, and procured by the Charitable Aid Board for their accommodation. The boys removed to their new quarters to-day, and the girls are to follow to-morrow. A correspondent writes to a Thames newspaper warning residents against toting potatoes that have been affected .with the blight. He says that to the eating of discoloured and diseased pofttoes ne has traced several cases of severe colic. Even potato plants, only the leaves .of whioh have been affected and the tubers, only* slightly discoloured, have been known to injuriously affect several in a household. At the Ohrifitchurch Magnetic Observatory the readings at 9.30 a.m. to-day were : — Barometer 30:173 and rising j tttpklly, maximum temperature during the preceding twenty-four hours 67, minimum during the same period 46.1, Wet bulb 56.2, dry bulb 52.9, humidity per cent 79, maximum temperature in :fhe sun 108, minimum thermometer on the grass 41.6. Cloud (0-10) 7. The wind was south-west; and the rainfall Jiirf been nil. ■Mr 0. Hogg, of Methven, dug, on /Saturday, 401 bof potatoes, the produce ' of one. potato, which, when planted, weighed 809. He purchased this potato /of *W fwnoaV Northern Bfcar variety) Jronf* focal »torekeeper for the sum d 2t 6d. It waa out into throe sets, which yielded respectively 111 b, 131 b »nd 161 b, or a total of 401 b, which £mh» » yield of 2001 b for lib of r seed. The seed was obtained from Messrs jTunm© and Blair, Dunedin. >' A victim of intemperance presented hinwelt at the Lyttelton Police Station, and requested to be taken care of. He had, he said, been drinking for two months, and felt quite unable to take care of himself . As he was evidently suffering severely from the effects of idrink, his request was complied with, and he was looked up. This morning he was brought before Mr J. T...Bri©e, J.P., at the Lyttelton Police Coirt, and was remanded for eight days for

It is stated that one game dealer m "Wellington at 7 a.m. on the first day ot the season had ducks and hares hanging for sale outside his shop window. The Government states that the mensage from Gisborne, to the effect that the Government is paying the expenses of the haka troup to England is not correct. The tout is a private speculation. At Dargaville a meeting of Liberal delegates, representing the whole of the Kaipara electorate, was held on Saturday, and chose Mr Basßett, county chairman, to contest the general election. The associated banks in the colony have deoided to reduce,, on and after to-morrow, the rates of interest on fixed deposits as follows :— Tv7«lve months, from 3i per cent to 3 per cent ; twentyfour months, from 4 per ceot to 3J per cent. The coal output at We^tport for the last week' was 14,496 tons 6cwt, of which 12,972 tons came from the Westport Coal Company's mines. 142J tons 4owt from the Seddonville State, mine, and 101 tons 4owt from the Co-opera-tive mine. The money-order department of the Post Office was removed to the Colonial Bank Buildings, in Hereford Street, today. The premises are found to be very convenient for the purpose, and the officers of the department have plenty of accommodation. At Masterton, to-day, John Palminter was fined £5, in default, a month s imprisonment, for keeping an instrument of gaming, a penny-m-tbe-slot machine, the investor getting a cigar if the penny fell into a certain groove. The defence was that the game was on© of skill. Defendant gave an exhibition of the working of the machine in Court, and out of ten shots securea only one prize. The machine and seventy-five pennies which it contained were confiscated by the police. In sentencing, at Wellington, a housebreaker named John Clanoy, who has crowded a number of convictions into a short period, and who has the honour of being the first " catch " in New Zealand by the finger print system, his Honor the Chief Justice, on *fiday, said that the prisoner had laid himself out to be a perpetual criminal. He believed the publio after a whUe would conclude that such a man must be, in his own and in the publio interest, deprived of his liberty, sent to a State farmland kept there until it can be ascertained that ho has been reformed. Such men would be treated fairly well, made to work, and be deprived personally of little save their liberty. -this system, his Honor thinks, is coming. As showing the possibilities of trade \ extension in the. Far East, it is interesting to learn that ordeis for trial shipments of New Zealand dried milk have been received from Kobe, *°*°: hama, Bangkok and Shanghai, and that the merchants interesting themselves hold out very favourable prospects ot establishing a steady business in the commodity. One merchant expresses himself to the effect that in his opinion the days of the ordinary condensed milk are numbered. The growth of the business in Australia is said to have been very marked, and dried milk is to be found in the gumfield camps i» the far north and gold-mining districts both in the North and South Islands. It is also said to be increasing in popularity in the larger towns throughout New Zealand. To foster the honey industry the Government intends to establish State apiaries, where experiments will be conj ducted and the results made known to bee-fanners. It is intended to do everything possible to keep apiarists posted up with information regarding the most modern methods of bee culture. The Government Apiarist (Mr I. Hopkins) has just completed a tour of the apiaries in the North Island. He told an "Age" (Masterton) reporter that although the season was late, those who looked after their bees Becured a yield equal to the average of past seasons. By "looking after bees," he meant feeding them. In long spells of bad weather during breeding time the bees sometimes starved and died unless they were given food to tide tnem over. Whole colonies had died out for laok of this attention during the past season in New Zealand. The finger-print case recently heard in Wellington has some resemblanoe to a case of burglary that was sheeted home to an offender at Bradford, England. The premises of the local bowling club were entered, and a large quantity of liquor was stolen therefrom. While in the premises the burglars evidently had some whisky to drink, and when the premises were carefully examined, 'a tumbler was | found on which was the impression of a man's finger. The impression was photographed, and afterwards files were gone through, winch included uev- ! eral hundreds of impressions of persons who had passed through the hands of the Bradford police. A finger impresssion identical with that on < the glass was discovered. The impression on the file was that of one Loms Anderson. Inquiries showed that he had been away from home all the Saturday night in question. He was eventually arrested, and he admitted; a share m the theft. Another person named Jfidwin Herdman. was also arrested.