General News.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1678, 25 February 1885, Page 3

General News.

A inau with a small capital called at the Agent General's office in London recently and naked one of the officials ior a list of the towns in New South Wales. The official could not supply him He then asked whether Bathurst was in Now South Wales. .Lite official thought that that town was at the Cape of Good Hope. Having touud that none ol the officials had ever been in Australia, he asked for the Agent General. He was informed that the Agent General was in the oitv attending a bank meeting, of which he was the director. The man railed again in the following week, and was informed Ibaf the Agent

(was ou a few weeks’ holiday in Scarborough. Tiso ictmlt was that the man with small capital has just started for Canada. Mural—A. deputy Agent General from Australia wanted, and our Agent General should be paid a salary, go that it would not be necessary for him to become a bank director in London.

The number of aboriginal natives resident in each provincial district of the Middle and Me wart's Islands, and the acreage of the reserves set apart for the occupancy of such natives, is as follows:—Nelson, 173, 18,565 arms; Marlborough,3s7, 21,414 acres; VVesitand,93, 5937 acres; Canterbury, 603,10,074 acres; Otago, 708, 20,616 acres; Stewart’s Island, 134, 2935 acres. totals—Native population, 2061; acreage, 79,544. A curious little bit of evidence, says the Collingwood correspondent of the Colonist, with regard to the age that a It aka lives or may live has iurued up here. (Some boys were snaring kakas; among those thev caught was one having a honoring on iis left leg, ou which were just legible the figures “ 57. ” They were much rubbed, and were nearly fading away altogether. This became talked about in the neighbourhood and it came to the ears of an old settler in the district, who remembered having cr,u-h: mie of those birds in 1857, and turning him adrift with a ring on bis leg with the year on it. The old bird certainly had a very venerable appearance, but no one would have taken him to be at least twentyseven years of age, unless perhaps he appeared on the table, when no doubt his sinews would have pronounced him to be no chicken. I may add that the place where tbo kaka was caught was within two miles of where it was turned out in 1857.

The hot water |cure is becoming general, and even the doctors have got to prescribing it. Mr. Daniel, one of the uptown merchants, claims that he has 5,000 disciples now drinking hot water before breakfast. When first drunk the hot water seems to nauseate a little. In a few days it becomes agreeable, and after a week is missed in the morning. The advocates of hot water before breakfast denounce cold water at any time of the day, and are evidently bent on breaking up the ice companies. The English who como to this country are of the opinion that ico water is a potent cause of Bright’s disease of the kidneys. —New York Tribune.