GENERAL NEWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4276, 18 September 1895, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

The Union Steamship Company, owing to a falling off in passenger traffic, has been compelled to lay up a npraber of its steamers,

SOMB medicine Riven in Melbourne by a Chinese doctor for tumor consisted of orange peel, burnt figs, ginger root, and bitter wood.

The post-office officials in Curistchurch recently obtained a rather formidable-looking insect in an Australian mail bag, and sent it to Mr M. Murphy, of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association, who pronounced it to be an Australian cricket.

A CooiiGARDiE correspondent writes to the "Napier News "•—♦• We have regular rational concerts on Sundays, and play football in the afternoon of the same day. Recently the final match for tho premiership was witnessed by 4000 people, and nearly £2000 is said to have changed hands. They seemingly all had a bit on."

A LOfTDOtf newspaper-vendor says that during the Wilde trials he sold twice as many evening papers to women as to men. The idea of woman's " native modesty "is by this time pretty well exploded. Women are no more modest than men — perhaps not so much so. But they sham modesty better and oftener than men, because men expect it from them, and heredity and social conventions make the pleasing of men their fi>sfc object in life.

The Chinaman when in theso colonies works hard and lives meanly, spending next to nothing among those from whom he gets support. The following, from the manifest of the ill-fated Cattertbun, shows where bis savings go : — For Hong Kong : One box sovereigns (£200), Qaong Tart and Go. ; one box sovereigns (£1400), On Yick aud Lee ; one box sovereigns (£350), S. G. C. Dickson and Co. ; one box sovereigns (£300), Tiv Loy and Co ; one box sovereigns (£300), Kwong Mow Oa ; one box sovereigns (U3OQ), Hop War and Co. ; ona box sovereigns (£740), Quan Lee ; one' box sovereigns (£280), Sun Hing Jung and Co. ; one box sovereigns (£75,) Sun LiUDg Shing.

A good weather-proof whitewash is a great desideratum on a farm, particularly if prsminence is given to dairying or poultry-keeping. The whitewash used by the United States Government for the lighthouses and beacons, chosen for its permanence under the most extreme exposure to the weather, is made as follows : Fresh hydraulic cement of any good standard kind, not of the more costly imported kinds, three parts, and clean fine sand, one part, are mixed well with cold water and immediately applied. This gives a light brownish white that is not so glaring as the common lime, and has been found to resist moisture better than any other wash. It adheres to brick or stone or wooden walls or fences very firmly. In its application the walls are first wetted with water, by which the adhesion of thn wash is made stronger than if applied to a dry surface

HERE is a new use for beer, which gardeners should note. A German farmer, in what must have been sheer absent mindedness, sprinkled some beer on some plants one nigbt, and was amazed next day to find 177 dead snails lying about near the plants. With the object of farther testing the effiiaey of the liquid, he filled two sancers with beer and placed fresh lettuce leaves in them, with the result that he found next morning the lettuce untouched and 218 dead snails. A New South Wales man intends to make further experiments in the matter, and if he takes care to select 'up country "sheoak " aa a beverage for the »nails his success should be assured. German besr, on the other hand, is often of so mild a character that one would have thought even snails, which seem very weak-headed, could have taken it with impunity. If the German farmer is correct in his statements, horticulturists will have a cheap and easy method of dealing with their foes, and the teetotal party will be provided with, n new morftl t