General News.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XVIII, Issue 3108, 4 August 1894, Page 3

General News.

VVe {Press) are glad to learn that tho affairs of tho Petone Woollen Mill aro assuming a decidedly bright aspect. A busy timo is anticipated at tho mill in the immediate future, and this fact will be gratifying to the public us well as the shareholders. Employment will thus be given to an increased number of hands, and the general prosperity of the place materially added to. Tho Victorian Minister for Public Instruction has informed teachers who aro 50 years of ago, and havo been 25 years iu the service, that owing to their number boing largely in excess of the requirement they st'ould voluntarily retire iu accord ance with the provisions of the Superannuation Act. According to French divorce statistics, tho most unhappy period of marriage is that extending from the fifth to the tenth year. After that the figures drop rapidly. Only twenty-eight per cent of couplos seek divorce betweeu their tenth and twentieth years of union. Only one pair in a hundred seek to cut the kuot after

the period over 30 and under 40 years. The Telegraph Department supplies the following :—Tho Chinose administration notify that over Chinese lines private code telegrams and Japanese code Government telegrams cannot be transmitted. Code

telegrams from Governments in Europe or America to Tientsin and Pekin can only he re-transmitted subject to upproval of Tsung Li Yamen or Viceroy Li. All other telegrams should bo in plain Eugliah. Prohibition code messages apply also to lino betweon Sharp Peak and Foochow. Prebendary Doano tolls the London Times of a married couplo in bis parish of Ferriog, near Worthing, who were just going to keep their seventieth wedding day. There is no doubt as to dates, for John Mooro was baptisod in tho parish in which he lives, as the register shows, on May 11, 1804, and was married to Jane Stellard, on June 16, 1824. They have had thirteen children, and tho eldest is

fixty-nine. The venerable couple are still in good hoalth and fairly comfortable, if

not wealthy. Upon sunflower culture a report is published by tho Adelaide Observer , iu which it is stated that “ Probably the largest area ever put under this plant in South Australia was that by the late Mr John Martin of Hilton, whore he had about four acres, and tho yield of seed

from this was very largo. The seeds are worth 8s per bushel for tho oil, which is quite as good for all purposes as that of tho olive, and when fresh not to be distinguished from olive oil. It is used iu

the manufacture of the best Castile soap, by painters, machinists, manufacturers of cloth, and many others. When in flower bees got much honey from the sunflower, tho foliage is good fodder, and tho seeds as well as the cake, after the oil is pressed out, make excellent food for fowls and all other sorts of live stook. Cows give more milk when fed upon the cake, and all animals put on a sleek healthy appoarauce either upon seeds or cake.” Tho London Sportsman is anxious to know 4 ‘ why the Australians do not eat kangaroo?” It is evidently worth a place on tho bill if the unenlightened Antipodean only knew it. But ho docs not. Ho lies becalmed so to speak in a state of prejudice. He goes on groaning over tough beef and mutton. He will not eat rabbit and doe 6 not care for Australian wino, though the latter is good. It needs no bush. The Kangaroo question came up in connection with the suggestion that the flesh of the marsupial should bo put on tho English market. The relatives of tho boxing kangaroo, says a correspondent, are rare good eating, and not worthless by any means. It does not do to judge, as Mr J. T. Critchell is good enough to point out, by the fact that a two years’ resident in Australia ‘ never saw kangaroo meat placed on the tables.’ Tho mass of ovidouce will turn iu favor of tho kangaroo as au article of diet. Somebody wants to start a farm over here for growing tho animal, not for boxing, but for consumption.”