GENERAL NEWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1027, 26 March 1884, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS.

While the English clii/iate has becomemuch milder, the American ba3 intensified in cold, and other parts where temperate airs prevailed in winter have now become Icelandic. Madeira is said to be unbeara ly cold, and very trying to the patients who went out, there for mildness.

Sir Moses Montefiure snttains nature entirely on milk and old port wine, of which he drinks two or three glasses every day, varied with soup, and a little bread and butter sometimes. In middle life he smoked, but h.=is given up tobacco for many years. He rises at 11 o'clock having had his letters read to him in- bed, then drives out for some hours, and retires at 9. He has a likeness of Mr Gladstone of whom he is very fond, over his bed. He wears a blue coat, trilled shirt, and goes about in the old-fashioned sedanchair.

A Napier paper contains the following : — Some twelve months ago we re-pub-lished f ron a Wanganui paper a paragraph detailing the wonderful effects produced by the use of castor oil on peach trees. The oil, it said, was a certain cure for blight, it gave vigor to the tree, and improved the quality of the fruit. The receipt was naturally tried on their-trees by some of our readers in Napier, and Mr B. Warnes has kindly told us the result — viz., that it killed every tree upon which it was used. The effect wa3 the same in his neighbors' gardens, and so we think we are quite safe in saying, beware of castor oil on your fruit trees.

The following are Irish facts. — A man in Cork, being brought before the Court for non-payment of rent, swore that he was too poor, and the land was the same, as it would not feed his cow, and' that he had to keep her alive "by hand." To prove his testimony he produceda grocer's ■ account, the first item on which was a quart of paraffin oil. " Did' yon give that to the cow <?" asked the presiding ruler. " Yes. your Worship," answered Paddy. " for physic and nourishment !" The next item was a box of firelights, and this being acutely disposed of, he was asked to account for the third and fourth : four pounds of dipt candles and a bar of soap. Oh, begorrah !" exclaimed the dumbfoundered pauper, " that divil of a grocer has sould • me up." — Another poverty stricken land* tiller in the same vicinity underwent crossexamination the following week. "You are well able to pay," said the stern magistrate. "Your father made his fortune out of that very land, and he died a rich man." "Yes, but, your Worship," remonstrated the oppressed farmer, "maybe you don't know that he had to borrow the money to pay for his own coffin, and sorra a penny of it's paid yit !"

" The art of printing," said Prince Bismarck in 1850, " is the choice weapon of anti-Christ " — a much more dangerous weapon, indeed, than gunpowder, "which is now more and more assuming the' character of a salutary medicine," used for blowing the propagators of disturbing opinions, and especially journalists, into . space. Thirty years of experience in great affairs have modified Prince Bismarck's views on some point?, but there > is no reason to think that they have changed his feelings with regard to newspapers. And it is shared, as we hear now, by no less a person than Marshall Manteuffel. When he is praised by the Press, Marshall Manteaffel asks himself, like Phocion when he was applauded by the crowd, what harm he has been doing. When he is abused by it, on the other ha r nd-* he feels confident that he is all right;- That is not at first sight complimentary, but in truth there ia no man who, with all his dislike! >of journalism, pays it more profound hoiriage than the Marshall. Though he never takes his opinions from the papers, yet he always, on his own showing, reads them carefully, which is more than can be said of most people who, do take their opinions from them. And in reading them he always "institutes a strict self-examination." Journalists may well be content with -the reluctant homage which.-, this confession implies. " Atticus" in the "Leader " tells thelollowing yarn : — That intelligent foreigner, the Conservative - minded Chinese, has been sorely puzzled by his experience of tramcarsin New Zealand. The cars are worked by the endless chain- syutewj and one of the sight-seeing Mongolian's, (for some time watching the coming iandjgoing< of the cars, at length excitedly tcojifeseejd to a Victorian tourist thus : " Hi- .yah ! Him no havee pushee, no pullee ; all'ee same go likee debil. Me no aav-eei" This absence of a visible motive ]i.oweV & will be interesting to, observe, ledrJahn- ■ into acknowledging his belief- in the>existance of a personal devil. *, -