GENERAL NEWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1888, 16 April 1892, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

A LARGE amount of Queensland treasury bills have been placed in the colony. Mr James Tyson, the millionaire squatter, was waited on by Sir Thomas M'llwraith, who suggested that he should buy some bills which would produce 4£ per cent. Mr Tyson immediately intimated his willingness to take 200,000 at once, half cash, and the balance on demand. A New Zealand parallel to this patriotic act is afforded by a Pahiatua settler, who, it is stated, has offered the Government a free site on which to erect a post-office.

The "Napier Telegraph " has the following : — The Taradale Town Board has been taken by surprise. It has been called upon to meet an expenditure for which no provision had been made. Yesterday afternoon a medical gentleman drove up to the Board's office aud reported seven cases of contagions diseases. "Dear, dear," said the clerk, "I am very sorry to hear there is so much sickness." Said the medico, " Yes ; I expect to have to report one or two more shortly, and in the meantime I will trouble you for seven half-crowns." "Seven half crowns!" exclaimed the startled clerk, " what in Heaven for?" " The law compels me to report these cases to the local body, which is also the Board of Health, and makes the fee half a crown.*' The Act was referred to, and there it was plain euough. " Well,'' said the clerk, " I don't know where the money is to come from." The medico laughed, and suggested that a special rate should be struck to meet this extraordinary and unexpected expenditure.

MrLDTJRA. was started (says an Australian paper) as an exclusively temperance settlemeat, and from fclie first no hotel was allowed within its borders. The circumstances seemed eminently favorable for the carrying out of the experiment:. The settlers at Mildura are well known to be a picked population, mostly young men o£ thrifty habits and good bringing up. Their occupation — fruit-growing — is quite idyllic in its suggestion of rural innocence, and in an irrigation colony there ought to be no scarcity of water. In spite of all this, however, and in spite of the fact of there being no hotels, it was noticed from time to time that the inhabitants of Mildura contrived to get into a state of considerable hilarity. It was clear in short, that either they managed to get supplies of alcoholic refreshments without the aid «f the licensed publican, or else that fruit-growing was a far more exhilarating process than had ever been suspected. The secret came out at a recent sitting of the Mildura Court of petty sessions, when no fewer than 26 cases of sly-grog selling came before the Bench. The defendants were of all sorts of trades and conditions, including tailors, chemists, and even a medical man. The " Argus," in commenting on the prosecution, remarks : " Tho fundamental mistake that prohibitionists make is in supposing that the worst offence a man can commit is to take a glass of beer or spirits. They seem entirely to overlook the fact that it is infinitely worse to practice deceit or commit perjury, to both of which their policy is dirrc'ly an incentive."