General News.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVII, Issue 2979, 5 October 1893, Page 4

General News.

“It is curious to notice,” says a - London correspondent, “ the increasing prevalence of spectacles and eyeglasses among the young people of London. I may mention one specially odd instanoe in point. At a gay weddiug recently the bride and bridegroom and five bridesmaids formed a group of seven, and were subsequently photographed. Of those seven no less than seven wore glasses, including a nine-year-old bridesmaid. Indeed, none of the ages exceeded twenty-four. The effect was decidedly peculiar.

Not long ago there was in Wellington a person of the “ masher ” type (says the Post) who made it a practice to hail cabs to drive him wherever he wished to go, but was equally careful in failing to pay for the service, always being “ short of small change,” and promising to pay later on. One day last week a cabman who had before been victimised, and knew of other sufferers, decided upon getting satisfaction. So he drove the dandy—faultlessly got up—to a secluded spot on the reclaimed land, and there he demanded his then and previous fares. The usual procrastination being offered, cabby ordered the fellow out of the vehicle, and when once on terra firma “ took out” the debt by administering a severe thrashing. Wellington Jehus have now lost a customer they can well do without.

Mr J. C. Martin gave a noteworthy decision in the Wellington E.M. Court last week in reference to “ bona fide travellers ” and the thirst which these worthy gentlemen develop on Sunday. Mr Martin, taking his stand on the decisions of the English Courts, rules that before a hotelkeeper can serve drink to travellers on Sunday, he mußt satisfy himself that they have been travelling with an object, but that object must not be strong drink. The hotelkeeper who serves a traveller who has become a traveller for the sake of getting a drink, is liable to a heavy fine, and the bibulous mortal, who, with drink as the object of his pedestrian exercise, palms himself off as “a bona fide traveller,” lays himself open to a criminal prosecution. It is to be feared that this decision will strike a bitter blow at the important industry of “ bona fide travelling ” on Sunday. Perhaps, however, the Premier will come to the rescue of the bibulous by declaring Mr Martin’s decision to be ultra vires. Unless this is done, the “ bona fide traveller ” will soon be as extinct as the moa.

Says the Kumara Times :—The first woman to enroll in the district made her first appearance at the Post Office yesterday afternoon. Her demeanour was calm and collected and she did not betray the least symptom of nervousness. In after years it will be something to say that she was the first woman in this part of the electorate who claimed electoral privileges. The USTanawatu Standard says the members of the Palmerston North Borough Council received an unpleasant surprise the other day, when they got news of the Auditor-Gene-ral ’s intention to issue a w'rit against each of them for £IOO penalty for having an illegal overdraft. A correspondent of the Neiv Zealand Herald says that large numbers of cattle about Kangiriri and other lowlying districts, are seized with an affection in the legs like rheumatism or cramps, which renders them unable to stand ; they then lie down, and even when fed as they lie, they invariably succumb. One settler there has lost all his stock, many of them in this way, and at a time too when there is a large unsatisfied demand for stock of all sorts in the Lower Waikato.

When, recently a Sussex lady seized a pickpoket and held him until he was officially arrested, she met with no more tangible reward than the compliments of the magistrates and publicity in the papers. At Copenhagen, however, a young lady who performed an almost similar feat has been presented with a diamond brooch and a flattering letter of thanks by the Director of Police, and has received an offer of marriage from a Danish journalht.

Professor Graham Bell, electrician, says : —“ I have not the shadow of a doubt that the problem of aerial navigation will be solved in ten years.” It is solved now ! There is hardly an adult in New Zealand but knows how to fly kites. — Truth. The daughter of a Wellington medico was lately married. The bride’s cake was sft 9in by 3ft 6in. We presume papa was called in next day to attend those whojhad partaken of that bilious luxury ! A business-like cake that! (says Truth). Mr Leland Stanford, who recently died at Menlo Park, California, left £4,00,000 to Pound in memory of his son, a university at Palo Alto. Mr Stanford’s fortune was estimated at £10,000,000. He was a large stock raiser and owned a splendid stud of horses.

Up Gisborne way, says Truth , a lady who let lodgings sued 3 young ladies, visitors from Dunedin, for rent alleged to be due. A young gentleman had engaged the rooms. “He sat down,” said the landlady, “ on a chair, and said, ‘lf they ain’t comfortable here they ought to be,’ ” and took the rooms, so the landlady affirmed, for three months certain. The ladies were not comfortable, and paid £1 in lieu of notice and left. Judgment £l, and each side to pay their own costs. A Victorian paper gives an account of a unique cricket match and tells how a “ gumßucker ” eleven played “ the rest of the available universe ” at Banbury, Western Australia. A “ gumsucker ” skied the first ball bowled into a three-pronged branch of a tall Jarrah tree. “ The universe ” claimed “lost ball,” but the umpire ruled _it was in sight, and, therefore, not lost. The Victorians started running, while the universe sent for au axe to fell the tree ; no axe being procurable a rifle was obtained, and the ball shot down, after numerous misses; score on the one hit 286. The gumHuckers “ stood ” on that, and the Universe went in. The first “ fullpitcher ” hit the batsman on the cobra (nose) and the umpire promptly gave him out “leg before wicket.” The Victorians won.

The rank of a visitor is, among the Chinese, denoted by the largeness of his card. When the Wellington gascollector called with his bill on a Wellington Chinaman, the other day (says the Christchurch Truth), the latter (a new chum) thought, from the size of the document, that the gasman must be a Premier at the very least, and so ushered the collector into the presence of his brand new Chinese wife and introduced him, with profound salaams, as “ Mlister Dlick Seddon.”

A correspondent of Woman tries to explain why her sex are afraid of mice. She believes that a mouse in the chamber of Marat would have deterred Charlotte Corday from her dread purpose. Most women havo experienced the sensation. “ You are sitting alone, playing, writing, painting, or working. Suddenly you instinctively feel a sensation of horror of some evil influence that is present, but as yet unseen. You lift your eyes. You behold gliding over the carpet towards you, without noise, apparently without the trouble of walking, a mouse. It stops; it fascinates you. You drop your book, your music, your brush, your needle, whatever it may be, but you make no other sound. You teel your blood freeze, and your limbs slowly paralyse ; your heart stops beating, your breath ceases, a cold chill creeps over you.” A cablegram, dated September sth, gives results of the first sale in London of oranges and lemons grown at Mildura, on the Earl of Kanfurly’s property. Two hundred boxes of oranges, which were sound, were sold at 6s 6d a box, the balance realising from Is to 5s a box, according to the condition of the fruit, many boxes of which were rotten. The lemons sold at 9s a box. These results can be regarded as nothing less than disastrous. That lemons carry better for long dis tances than oraDges has been proved long ago by the importations of the former that have reached Victoria from Europe. It is evident that a system of sending oranges safely to the antipodes has yet to be devised. Even in journeys of two or three weeks there is a marked difference on arrival between the condition of oranges and lemons. Objections having been made to the sending of leather-bound Bibles with gilt edges to the South Seas, as a needless luxury in the mission field, it ia announced that the strong binding is necessary on account of the humidity of the climate, and that the gilt edges are not so much an ornament as “an armor-plating against the attacks of cockroaches and the white ant.”