NEWS & NOTES.

Waikato Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1558, 16 May 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS & NOTES.

A PACKAGE received in Christcliurch the other day bore this remarkable address:—'Chatham Islands, Christchurch, New Zealand.' At a Borough Council meeting at Timaru on Friday, a councillor objected to a proposed charge of 7a Gd 'per 1000 gallons of water supplied to cow-keepers as excessive. But, said another, they sell it to us at -Id per quart afterwards. This closed the discussien. -

At the Royal Show, Sydney, held in the beginning of last month, the first prize in the £IOO butter fat competition was won by a cow giving 1071 b in three days, which produced 5~-8701bs of butter fat. This showing is a safe indication that the quality of cows competing was not of a very special standard. A party of Americans has chartered the steamer Oregon (2500 tons) for a trade cruise to Australia and South Africa, extending to China Japan, and the Philippines. She will be a floating sample room, her holds being divided into a number of compartments, each large enough to display a couple of tons of American manufactures.

Considerable interest is being manifested in Calcutta at tbe extraordinary activities of a body styled the 'Socialistic League,' which is enrolling numbers of Eurasians, Mahonimedans, Hindus, Burmese and Chinese in a crusade against overcrowding and dirt. The league insists upon working independently of the municipality. The Government and the municipality are holding aloof from the league. It has been noted (says a comtemporary) that one of the largest and most popular of the steamship lines to the United Stated has declined to have the Marconi wireless telegraphy attached to its fleet. The chairman of the company gives a curious reason for this deviation from the line adopted by the English Channel steamers, some of his Majesty's ships, and several of the ocean lines of steamers. He and his board, having carefully considered the subject, came to the conclusion that the convenience of the system was overweighted by the latent dangers attached to it. A ship captain caught in a fog, essaying the apparatus at the masthead, and finding no response, would be disposed to conclude that the ship was far remote from land—a conclusion justified in nine cases out of ten, but in the tenth absence of response, might be due to a temporary breakdown of the system, and land might be in close contiguity. Against this tenth contingency the directors guard by not employing the Marconi apparatus.