General News.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVIII, Issue 3106, 31 July 1894, Page 4

General News.

The so-called “ Monkey-tax ” of the Commune of Kiesenberg, in Bohemia, is surely the most eccentric in its origin of all surviving feudal impositions. One of the Lords of Kiesenberg, in the latter yearß of the Middle Ages, had a monkey bought for him in the East, for which he paid an enormous sum. One day the monkey escaped from the castle and fled into the woods. The peasants, who had never seen a monkey, supposed it to be the devil in a quasi-human shape, seeking whom he might devour, and they shot it dead. They imagined they had done an act of Christian piety for which they deserved thanks. The angry

baron, however, was inconsolable at the loss of his ugly pet, and imposed a yearly fine upon the peasant commune which it continues to pay up to the present time. Captain John Boss, says the Portland Oregonian, in speaking of something recently published in regard to the undesirability of the United States owning islands so far away as the Hawaiian Islands, says it does not appear to be generally known that the United States owns 75 islands in the North and South Pacific. They are nearly all within 12 degrees of the Equator, north and south, and are principally guano islands of small size, which have been taken possession of by Americans. The American coasting laws apply to them, and foreign vessels are restricted from carrying guano from them to the United States.

A rather important case as affecting schoolmasters was decided at the North London Police Court. An assistantmaster in a Stoke Newington Board school, named Standon, was walking along a road and passed a group of boys, among whom be recognised one of his own scholars, a little boy called Percy Gunston. One of the lads called out, “ Old Standon, with his top-hat ; fat-headed old Standon !” The result was that when Master Gunston presented himself at school next morning he received one of the heartiest canings which he had ever experienced ; whereupon Mr Standon was promptly summoned for assault. The boy himself declared that it was not he who had made the remark relating to Mr Standon’s personal appearance, and on this point his comrades bore him out; but the magistrate held that tho master had good reason to suppose he was the culprit, and that the punishment had not been excessive. On the point of law, whether a boy could be properly punished for what goes on outside the school walls, the magistrate also decided in favor of the defendant. It would obviously be fatal to discipline (remarks the Loudon Daily TelegrapK)\ii the idea got about among boys that a master’s power ended with the school door. But in New Zealand that is not only the idea but the law.

An amusing law case arising out of a quarrel between two hairdressers is about to come before the Paris courts. It seems that for years paßt the proprietor of a particular hair-wash had carried on the business of a hairdresser in the Passage Choiseul, when suddenly a rival came and established himself next door to him with another preparation. Hairdresser No. 1 was much hurt. He put up a large placard with the inscription—“ No branches. Established in 1861. Superiority attested by forty years’ existence. To this his rival replied with a still larger placard, running thus : “No branches. Fresh blood. Progress with the times. New fashions require fresh artists.” The proprietor of the first hair-wash brooded over this retort, and at length determined to strike at his opponent what may be called a blow below the belt. He had a board of enormous dimensions prepared, with the words “ My neighbour’s wife deceives him ” (or, as it would be read in French, “is unfaithful to him”) in huge letters. Underneath were the further words, barely legible, “ If she tells him that his hair-wash is better than mine.” The laughers were, of course, now ou the side of hairdresser No. 1, but it remains to be seen whether he will not have to pay the 20,000 francs for his little joke as damages his rival claims for libel.