LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8325, 25 May 1905, Page 3

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

"Some people work when they are not flt; others won't work when they are;, fit," said a doctor at the Magistrate's Court this morning. 4 The meeting of members of the West End Bowling and Tennis Club, arranged to take place this evening, has been postponed until an early date next week. The secretary of the Christchurch Poultry Club and his assistants nave teen busy to-day receiving entries for the show. Entries will close at ten o'clock this evening. A couple of buildings in Lower High street, which, with other structures, have formed a long-standing but nonpicturesque landmark, have been demolished to make room for better types of architecture. In the report of the meeting of the oommittee of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, in Wednesday's issue,-) the name of Mr J. O'Halloran was inadvertently omitted from ' the list of representatives at the recent meeting at Hokitika in connection with the Midland Railway. St Helen's Hospital, Wellington, the first of the experimental State "maternity hospitals, is expected to be ready to receive patients next week. Miss Wyatt,. formerly^ of Blenheim, has been * .appointed matron, and Miss Piper has ; been appointed sub-matron: Both are State-registered nurses and certificated midwives. The proposed development work at the Westland reefs is looked upon in Westport as likely to result in permane nt good. The "Westport Times" reports that a Kanieri firm has already pegged off a couple of business sites on the upper route to the Westland reefs, near the place where the township of the future is likely to be reared when \ development work is under way. * /] "Light wa. thrown this morning on ' the attitude of the general public towards domestic differences. A woman giving evidence at the Magistrate's Court stated that she had been violently assaulted by a man in the presence of a number of spectators. ' [ They did tot like to interfere," she explained "they. did not know whether it . Was a row between man and wife." A man named John Edward Blon> quist, alias Shate, was brought before Mr C. Ferrier, J.P., at the Lyttelton Police Court this morning, on a charge of being an idle and disorderly Serson. It was shown that he had one hardly any work for some months «■- and had several convictions recorded against him, including one for vagrancy at Lyttelton in March last. The presiding Justice sentenced him to two months' imprisonment. The Government has received further correspondence from the Agent-General relative to the representations made to the Colonial Office in respect to the claims of British subjects as to losses sustained by them during the disturbances in Samoa in 1899. The Foreign Offioe hais intimated to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that the examination of the British claims has been completed, and that the report upon fcfcem is under consideration. Another specimen has been added to the bird gallery in. the Christchurch Museum- It comes from South. America, and its scientific name is Arameus scolopacus. It is --regarded as a link between the rails and the cranes. Leaving its. retreat at sunset, the bird, in -.'•. Its native country,, goes forth in search of food, which consists mainly of. fresh water molluscs. The mournful sounds It makes have earned it the popular names of the crying-bird, the lamentr ing-bird, and the crazy widow. A seizure of diseased poultry was made at Auckland on Friday last, at a city auotion mart, by the district health officer. The birds were (says the " Herald") suffering from' a particularly of- . fensive disease, and were about to be removed to a boarding-house. When they were seized, the birds were killed, and the bodies cremated in a factory furnace. The seizure was made under the section of the Public Health Act which empowers officers of the Health Department to seize any article of food that is deemed to be unfit for human . consumption. A rather original variation of the type of lamp known as a "bobby•dodger" was proudly borne by a cyclist along Lower High Street last evening. * fie flourished in one. hand a glass receptacle something like a plain cruet, containing a flaming candle, making a spectacle more pleasant for men than. for horses. A similar effort to comply with the. city by-laws was made some time ago by an individual who pro-cured-'a large-bodied, narrow-necked bottle- knocked off the bottom, inserted a Ujzht-d candle, and went on a meteoric'career through the town, vanishing into the suburbs. On Tuesday afternoon the various classes in both jprimary and secondary departments/ of the West Christchurch School had special lessons dealing with Empire Day. The duties and responsibilities devolving on citizens of the Empire formed the text of the teaching m the upper school, while the junior classes had their attention more particularly directed to the life and reign of Victoria. Blackboard notes and suitable illustrations were freely used, and the pupils from Standard HI. upwards were then told to devote an houron Empire Day itself to _ the writing of a short essay on the subject dealt with. As a result, some five hundfed essays were this morning forthcoming, reproducing, with varying degrees of excels lence, the main ideas associated with the day thus commemorated. j The Orient liner Ormuz, which arrived at Sydney last week, was the first mail steamer to reach Australia under, the conditions of the new mail contract, whioh prohibits the employment < of Lascars. It is three years since, the company first shipped black stokers and firemen. The reason for the change that was then made was the unreliability of white stokers, and their alleged over-fondness of intoxicating liquor, which made the stay of « the. steamers at the terminal Australian port, Sydney, a continual souroe of anxiety and annoyance to the officers. The total crew of the Ormuz under present conditions is I€|B, i as compared with 222 when blaok labour waa employed in the stoker hole. The total complement in the en-fjne-room department was 99, of whom 6 were dark-skinned; now the number is 66. The Lascars, whom the white stokers and firemen displaced, in Lonr don, wore taken to Colombo in the Ormu_ as passengers. >