LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8350, 23 June 1905, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

At the Gisborne stock sales yesterday; sheep brought record prices, ewes mak<t ing&sld, ....".. At New Brighton yesterday afternoon a man was arrested on a charge of vagrancy by Constable Rowe, and lodged in the lock-up, pending his removal to Christclmreh. » Lord Brougham was credited with? the editorship of a quaint volume entitled "The New Zealandere," which 1 wa£ published anonymously in 1830. It contains an account of the life among the Maoris of John Rutherford, the first Pakeha-Maori, "the white ohief,"' and a series of articles culled from it* pages, showing what the home life of the Maori was in those early days, ja now appearing in the Saturday ussne of the "Star." In to-morrow's issue th« second of the series will appear. Mr John M'Lachlaa, criticising th 4 Premier in his address at Ashburton last night, said that Mr Seddon had hi» little weaknesses, and it wwars r as well thrift he. should be told of them. "If he's going for a sail in a yacht," stolQ, the member for Ashburton, "he must have it painted white. But it's just at well to caution him not to go too fa*." This little shaking of an ominous poti- . tical forefinger wag induced by a statement that the Government was about) to re-clothe the Permanent Artillery in scarlet tunics and other garments at an expenditure of £10 a head, an investment which Mr M'Lachlan thoughts might have been better made. There is only one church in England, according to the " Sunday Strand," which can boast that it has sent out from the ranks of its clergy five men who are at present bishops in England. That church is the Leeds Parish! Church, and the five . living prelates who have all been at one time or another engaged as clergy there are the . Bishops of Trttro, Chester, Southwark, Gloucester, and It is also worthy of notice that Leeds Parish Church possesses another equally curious record in connection wita this same matter. No " Vicar of Leeds " has died since 1837. In that year the ■ famous Dr Hook was appointed as vicar, and from him onwards every vicar has been promoted either to a> bishopric or a deanery. An important extension of the use of the telephone, which might well be adopted in New Zealand, ia being proposed in America for the benefit of residents in country places where postal deliveries are few. A Bill will be introduced into Congress providing that: there shall be printed a special tenroent stamp, and that any letter bearing this stamp shall be opened by the terminal! postmaster, and its contents read by him over the telephone to tns ad-, dressee. By securing permission from th© department, it is already possible for a rural postmaster in tho United! .States to arrange privately with any person in his district that his corresr pondenoe shall be treated in this manner and the facility thus afforded ia said to ie greatly appreciated by fa> >■ mers who have business interests in the 1 towns. French writers are again warning the! public against what is termed " the green peril," in other words, absinthe, the consumption of which is fearfully on the increase in France. In Belgium an interdict has been placed on the terrible drink, and its manufacture and sale are now forbidden in that country. According to one of the anti-absinthe writers, M. Maurice Talmeyr, 133,000 hectolitres, ov 2,920,000 gallons, in round numbers; of the stuff , is annually absorbad by French people, men and women, for the women have also learned to like the- fee verte,* now the freen peril. Fifty years ago only 735 ectelitres of absinthe were .consumed, iv France. The increase of lunacy, ia attributed to the deleterious drink. Sixty years back there were only 10.0U0 registered lunatics, and taow there are 80,000. The increase in crime is also" traced to tho love of absinthe among the masses. A. writer in " Macinillan's Magazine " for May describes the life of the kauri gum-diggera, a clasa peculiar to « New Zealand. "To the stranger," he says, ' "they seem the most independent and careless beings on earth; but to a keen observer there is a tinge of tragedy in their very listless ness, and in too many cases ilio realities are in accordance with this suspicion. The sum-land is the last resort of those who have failed in other walks of life, foiy as the ■ men say, ' Any man can go gum-dig-ging.' Jt is a nlaco of refuge and torgetf ulness ; for ' the country is big aiul.no man is perfect,' and the resinous breezes of the dense pine forests lull all into sweet oblivion when tho clay's toil is over. But it is also an oasis in which! the tired wanderer rests for a time during his search for elusive fortune, and, as such, of late yeai'3 the northern part of Auckland has bscome known to the advent tir'ers of all nations." "I have a word of comfort for those who may labour under the dangers of over-fluency," observed Lord Northcote in the course of humorous remarks at tne Sydney Town Hall concerning the limitations which compelled a Governor to remain silent-. " Recently I read in an Australian paper of the greatest invention, I think, that, even twenty centuries have produced. It is. an article called the telegraphone, and' the special advantage of it is that, with equal impartiality, it either correctly rocords or totally obliterates anything said or indicated through tho telephone. (Laughter.) So long as we have the able reporting staffs which] exist in Australia I should attach no special merit to any instrument which • correctly records what 1 myself or anybody else has to say; but I think the benefit is priceless if that 1 same instrument will obliterate these sayings from public memory. (Laughter.) Oh, gentlemen, I hear some of you laugh; but when I think of this great British Empire and the number of prominent politicians which the Mother Country and its great dependencies contain^ I think almost what a boon it will be to think thai nothing they have said can be remembered 1 next day-^(con» tinued laughter)— and I think the fo^ tune which the inventor of tliis instrument deserves will exceed tha wildest* dreams of avarice." An interesting; and somewhat curious ! case engaged the attention of the ■ Stipendiary Magistrate at tho Newtown (Sydney) Police Court the other day! It was" interesting, as showing howalcoholic danger lurks in ' beverages largely pati-onised by temperance people, and deemed quite innocent; curious by reason of the ingenious explanation accounting for the presence of thei intruder co little suspected. The brewer of what was described as "nonalcoholic" beer was fined because, according to the Government Analyst, iii contained over 2 per cent of proof , spirit. The, question was, how^ such an insidious foe found its way in excis- ' able quantities into the bottles. The manufacturer did not know; he had never pnt- -it there, and had' tried ' all known means of "eradicating " it. The expert evidence, however, showTd how tho misfortune, for which the defendant was fined, had happened. It seems that though the br.ew may b« quite innocent, and boHies w*]l corked, danger is still likely to arise. What h technically known as secondary fermentation may, under certain conditions, be set up, and the harmless decoction be converted into a liojuid of such a character as to attract the attention of the excise officer. "If," said the prosecuting counsel, "defendant will put into bottles fluid having such potential energies, he must take the con* sequences." And lie had to take thea^

This morning 1799 sheep from Auckland wore landed at Lyttelton out of the s.s. Wanaka. The Premier has received information from London that Mr Frank Dyer, of the firm of Bannatyne and Co., Wellington, merchants, has been appointed Greek Consul at Wellington. After a stay of sixteen days at Lyttelton, H.M.K. Challenger quitted her noorir.gs at No. 3 jetty this morning, »nd left at 9.10 a.m. for Wellington. She is to do some gun practice on the ran up the coast. Yesterday evening Mrs Harrison Lee addressed a well-attended meeting, iv the Parish Hall, Sumner, in favour of No-license. The Mayor, Mr F. Pratt, presided, and at the conclusion of the meeting a vote of thanks was passed to Mrs Lee. The Telegraph Department states that /in consequence of a heavy gale tA Ashburton several telegraph poles have been blown down, and that in consequence messages to and frojn stations south of Rakaia will suffer considerable delay.. *" . .al meeting of the Napier Agricultural and, Pastoral Society, the biuauce-sneet snowed that the operations of the last year had resulted in a profit of £340. The period under review had been the very best in^he history of the Society. The membership now exceeds a thousand. After sitting for a fortnight and two days in Christchurch, the Arbitration Court rose at one o'clock this afternoon. The iron and brass moulders' dispute was in progress, but as the members of the Court were due to leave for the north in the evening, further hearing .Was deferred for a couple of weeks. Mrs Brown, who had the misfortune to fall off the New Brighton tram on Tuesday evening, lies in a very precaripus condition, and her depositions have been taken, in view of the statement alleged to have been made by witnesses (that there was no guard on the tram by which she 1 travelled to New Brighton. The services at the Avonside Anglican Church on Sunday will be. the last to be held within the present ivy-cov-pred building. The contractors wfl begin the work of demolition on Monday. The vicar will preach at the morning service and the Bishop at evensong. The offertories will be devoted to the rebuilding fund. Father Hays, now at Gisborue, states that, up^ to the present, 14,125 persons have joined his temperance crusade in New Zealand by subscribing to the teniperanoe pledge. Last night over four hundred took the pledge, and his meeting was the largest and most representative ever seen at Gisborne, hundreds being unable to gain admission. The Mayor has received a letter from Lord Plunket's private secretary, acknowledging the receipt of the letter conveying the city's regret at Lady Plunket's recent carriage accident. The .letter states that nfeitner Lady Plunket nor her boy is likely to. suffer any lill-effects from the mishap. Rutherford, the first Pakeha-Maori, Jfcold his adventures in England, after his (return Home. They were published in 1830, anonymously, in a volume entitled "The New Zealanders.." and this was the first book on New Zealand ever : given to tibe world. A copy of this (Volume is in the possession of the proprietors of the. "Star," and from it a i aeries of sketches hag been collated, and their publication is a feature of the Saturday issues of the journal, the second instalment appearing to-morrow. ' It is not often that a candidate has jto practically propose a vote of thanks to* himself, but something very like this fate bef el the member for Ashburton when he addressed his constituents last night. The question period had dragged itself to a close, and the audience «at on and waited. It was left for Mr M'Lachl'an to get up and assure his constituents that he had made no arrangements for a vote of thanks, but it was customary to give a candidate suoh & vote, and perhaps somebody in the audience would fill the omission. The omission was duly repaired. The aboriginal Natives of New Zealand, as they are kndVn to the -n'hite world to-day* by no means resemble in their mode of living and their reception and treatment of strangers, the Maoris of the early part 'of the nineteenth century. This will be home to readers of Saturday! s "Star," in which will be published a teecond instalment of ' { The PakehaiMaori," a series of articles," descriptive ,of the adventures and experiences of 'John Rutherford, the first white man 'who lived among the Natives, and who did so for many months before the j Maoris had been influenced by oolonisa*ioa«r \ Seventeen persons, including four females, were charged at the Wellington r Magistrate's Court this morning with breaches of the Electoral Act by signing their names as witnesses to claims for enrolment without seeing the signatures written. All pleaded guilty, and urged that the offences were committed through ignorance, and without felonious intont. Mr Myers, Crown Prosecutor, said' that the cases were brought as a warning to the public fagainst laxity in attesting signatures. All the defendants were convicted and ordered to pay costs, the Magistrate pointing out that the maximum penalty for the offence was £50. The danger of dealing with big sums in figures was prettily illustrated at Mr M'Lachlan's meeting at Ashburton last night. The member was threshing his way through a dreary pamphlet of statistics when a sudden sum in millions completely stopped him. He paused, and in an audible 'whisper started to check it backwards. "Units, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions," he was heard to mutter, and then, with a jjleam of relief, he burst forth triumphantly, " Ah, yes, ten million nine hundred and fourteen thousand and forty--eight." Shortly afterwards he struck another^ heavy number, but at this he shied diplomatically, and after a moment's pause announced it as "a great many hundreds of thousands of pounds." • The British South Afrioa Company has received from Rhodesia a oonsigtxment of Turkish tobacco which was grown near Buluwayp this season. "It has a characteristic Turkish aroma, and the cigarettes, which were made in Buluwayo, have a delicate /fragrance, and are exceedingly pleasant to smoke, although the tobacco from which they were made, so far from having matur^ed, was actually growing only a few weeks ago. Fifty acres were planted i at Buluwayo with this high-clase tobacco, and Cape Town firms are bidding for the whole crop. . Since the camples have been on exhibition in the Museum, at 2, London Wall Buildings, they have been examined, tested, and most favourably commented upon by tobacco experts."