General News.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVIII, Issue 3106, 31 July 1894, Page 3

General News.

An extraordinary exhibition of Black Country “ sport” has just been witnessed at Wolverhampton. At a public-house on the outskirts of the town a man was matched against a rat, tied to a wooden peg in the middle of a table by a long line, which allowed it a complete circuit of the board. The rat tried to escape, but was forced to fight. The man attacked with his teeth, his hands being fastened behind him. After a savage engagement the rat was killed, but not until it had inflicted severe injuries. The concession of the Euglish Government in regard to the eight hours’ movement has given it a great impetus at Home. In hie annual report receutly the secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers stated that in a shorter time thau was generally expected the system would become national so far as the engineering trade was concerned. At the iron works of Mr W. Mather, of Salford —who, by the bye, receutly paid a flying visit to this colony—the eight hours system has proved eminently successful, and it is no .v being tried by other large manufacturing firms in different parts of England. It started, I believe, says “ Woomera ” in the Australasian , in a uowspaper office, and simply overran the city like a suspicious five-pound note. “That young prince hasn’t lived loDg,” one would say in sympathetic tones. “ What, is he dead?” was the inevitable enquiry. “ No,” the other would reply, with the glad light of triumph in his eyes, “ but he was only born a week ago.” An escort left Coolgardie goldfield on July Bth, by special coach, but no paseengers were allowed to travol. The coach was accompanied by six troopers. The escort was the heaviest ever sent from Coolgardie, the gold weighing 1? 300 oz. The Union Bank sent 8000 odd ounces, including four weeks’ output from Bayley’s mine, and 4300cz which had been dollied from one ton of stone from the Londonderry mine, better known as the New Field, nine miles sooth. Specimens from this mine, which contained between 3000cz to 4000 oz of gold, have be n lodged at the Union Bank Some of the specimens were so rich that it was necessary to look closely to see tho quartz in the glittering masses. A diver, who is not a lineal descendant of George Washington, though a Yankee, gels off the following “ I was raising a ship in tho Black Sea, off the Russian coast. I had four divers, who went down in their rubber suits. But we had a diving bell also which wo usually let down. I did not go down myself then. The men did very little work, and I thought something was wrong. I put on a diving suit and went down. What do you suppose I found those men doing? They were not

working at all. They had got wine and cigars out of the hold of the sunken ship, and all of them had come up under the diving bell, where there was plenty of fresh air pumped up from above. They had thrown back their helmets, and there they wero sitting on a big rock that pro-

jected from the bottom of the sea, and playing the American game of poker, while at the same time thoy smoked shilling cigars and drank the best champagne of France,” A novel marriage took place in New York a few weeks ago (says the American correspondent of the Aye), the contracting parties being nearly 2000 miles apart when they wore joined in matrimony. F. F. Gearty was the groom and Jalia Morris the bride ; thoy had been engaged for several years, the marriage having been repeatedly postponed on account of Mr Goarty’s health. Some months ago he

went on a long tour in hopes of improving his physical condition ; he grow worse rather than better, and when at El Pa3o, Texas, was so low that the doctor said he could not live forty-eight hours. Ha telegraphed for Miss Morris to join him, so that they might be married before ho breathed his last, but it was found after the telegram was sent that it would be impossible for her to reach El Paso before the end. Accordingly it was arranged that they should be married by proxy, and the oeromony took place at once, a cousin of Miss Morris acting as proxy for Mr Hearty. As soon as the ceremony was over a telegram was sent to the bridegroom, who immediately bequeathed all his property (not a large amount) to his wife, and died a f w hears later. A South Australian editor recently sent postal cards to all the prominent citizens of the place, requesting thorn to give an answer to the question : “ Why are you an honest man ?” Some of the replies he publishes are curious. One answers : “It must be because of my durned cussedness ; I always did like to be different from other people.’* Another sarcastically remarks, “ I suppose you are going to start a museum and are looking for freaks. Well, count me out. I’m not one.” Another, a professional Labor agitator, wrote in blood-red ink on a post-card, ** What are yo givin’ us ?’’ The editor of the opposition paper volunteered the answer that he scorned to lay bare the palpitating mainspring of a noble and honest soul at the request of a dishonest reptile and political parasite. A woman editor in Yokohama having boen deposed through a change in the proprietorship, wrote a valedictory. In it she said : “It has boon urged more than once that under the present editorship it has been impossible for our contemporaries to write freely, but when we recall the fact that we havo b;en termed a liar, a virago, likened to a senseless creature who pokes the fire from the top, stigmatised as an irate female, a female fibber, and alluded to in a variety of other amicable ways, we are tempted to wonder to what limits journalistic freedom aspires to soar.” Professor and Madame Steen, the American mystifiors, who were in Waipawa a little time ago, made their first appearance before an English audience at the Empire Theatre, London, on May 19th, and in criticising the performance one writer eays of Madame Steen :—All the “ thought-readers” that ever appeared upon the stage have shown less skill in their heads than Madame Steen would

oooiu iu uavo iu urn liiLio uugur. iuq things she does are, in sober truth, amazing. A person’s thoughts are told ! instantly ; she even anticipates them. A mass of figures pat down at random on a blackboard and tapped as quickly as pos sible with a wand, in any sort of order or rather in none, she, blindfold and with her back turned, calls out as rapidly as wand and lips can move. See declares a man’s age to the day, he not having ; revealed it to anyone ; she will call over a pack of cards, shuffled by a stranger, in ihe order they are dealt out. All these things and others she does, how it is impossible to say, but certainly not by means of leading questions by her husband, for hodoesnot put them. In more cases than not no question at all is asked. The entertainment is by far tho most surprising thing of the kind ever done. In the Steens the Empire has a unique attraction.