LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11167, 30 January 1904, Page 5

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

We 'issue 1 Vb a supplement "10-day a map which we trust will prove ufcf til in following the trend of events in the Far East, should hostilities occur*

During la9t year 1,457,6620z of gold, valued at ,£5,156,482, were received at the Perth (West Australia) Mint.

It is stated that about 30,000 people visited Wirth's Circus during the first five days of their present stay in Auckland. Dr. H. R. Hatherly has been gazetted P,ort Health Officer at Wanganui, in place of Dr. R. C. Earle, absent on leave.

We have to congratulate Mr Maihi R. Mete Kingi on passing his examination as a licensed interpreter of the first grade, word having come to hand yesterday.

The complaint known as mumps is still very prevalent in the Hawera district. The '-trouble is aftecting both young and old.

According fo the latest returns, 1959 labourers are employed by the Public Works Department and 948 by the Department of Roads.

A lady., was among the unsuccessful applicants for the position of assistant sanitary inspector to the borough of North Sydney. ' It is stated that the huia bird, which is supposed '<to be restricted to the bushcovered ,4jnutains between Wellington and Napier, Bas been seen lately in the TJrewera Country.

It is expected that the Patea Meat Works will shortly be taken over by an English company and that freezing and exporting; will be added to the boiliugdown and' tinning operations. In reply to a, request by the Band Contest Committee, the New Zealand Rifle Association has ' indicated that it is unable to alter the date of the' Trentham meeting, , which clashes with that of the contest.

Messrs N. Dosford and Sons (Limited) have just booked orders for three more turret, steamers, to be delivered to Cardiff firms about 12 mouths hence. The vessels average about 6000 tons each dead-weight capacity, and are estimated to work out to a cost of about M a ton.

A great many of the growers of cocksfoot are starting threshing operations (writes the Little River correspondent of the Lyttleton Times), and in , moat instances the prospects are very disappointing. In some fields the crops are not yielding more than, half the quantity of seed that they produced last, year, and even high up the hillsides the results are niueh below expectations.

The wife of William Clarke., a farmer, of Wagga, New 'South Wales, has been found dTowned in a large tank a few hundred yards from her home, at Lake Albert. The deceased retired as usual, and was missed about 1 .o'clock in the morning. The body was subsequently found by her daughter- in >3ft of water. , She was 63 years of age. It is thought probable that she got into the. tank whilst walking in her sleep. *■ ... ..,:

To enable the children to attend the Hawera>lnxlnstrial Exhibition, the Wanganui School Committee have-decided to declare the Bth and 9th of February a holiday for the schools under its jurisdiction. The matter of the children attending the Exhibition is left 1 in, the hands of the re-, spective head teachers, who will ,find out the likely number that will avail themselves of the trip. The Railway Department has been asked if a special train could be got on the above date, leaving Wanganui at 7 o'clock in the morning, and returning to Wanganui at 7.30 in the evening. The price would be about Is 4d for those oyer 15, and teachers 2s 6d. Children to r take their own refreshments. Tea would be the only thing supplied.

The brick works at Silvcrstream are stated to be turning out 19,000 bricks per day.

It is estimated that the New Zealand Cricket Council failed to cover expensey in the Inter-island match, played during l::at week on the Basin Reserve. The takings for the three days amounted to £109 7s, Saturday's total being £41 12s.

According to the Woodville Examiner, a syndicate has been formed in that district to control the meat market. An arrangement has been made with the Wellington Meat Export Company to kill 1 up to 1500 sheep per week. The syndicate will then take control of the finished article, and will arrange for its sale to the highest c.i.f. buyer.

A Southern M.H.R. has taken out a return showing the number of inches in Hansard occupied by party speeches during last session of Parliament. He gives it as — Government members, 30,227 in; Opposition members, 12,960 in; Independent members, 4230 in; and Maori members, 796 in. The Premier has the biggest record (6524-in). and then comes Sir Joseph Ward with 4095 in, Mr T. E. Taylor (Independent) 1823 in, Mr W. F. Massey 1692 in, Mr J. Allen 1578 in, Sir William Russell 1474 in, and the Hon. W. HallJones 141'8in.

A resident of Lyttleton, Mr John Davies, had in lub youth an experience which impressed him with a sense of the value of vaccination as a protection against small-pox. In the early sixties he was cabin-boy of a brig, the Mary Wyllie, in which, shortly after having been" vaccinated, he made- a voyage from Constantinople to Cardiff. Soon after leaving the Turkish capital a man fell ill with small-pox, and young Davies had to nurse him. Before he was convalescent two others went down with the disease, and before the voyage ended, out of 12 persons on board, 11 were stricken. The only one who escaped the scourge was the recently vaccinated cabin-boy. All the patients recovered, and all were nursed through their illness by young Davies.

A sad tragedy took place on the evening of November 27 in the village church of Ermatiugen, near Constance, Switzerland, the vicar shooting himself through the head on the steps of the altnr. Herr Stahel, in .his student days forged the matriculation certificate which opens the doors of all European universities, and this fact somehow became public after 20 years. He subsequently "passed the most difficult examinations in Germany and Switzerland, taking honors in classics, and then entered the Church; but the discovery of his early fault preyed greatly on his mind, and he conversed with nobody. On Sunday, November 22, he preached a brilliant sermon, taking for his text, "In the midst of ' life we are in death," and five days afterwards committed suicide in the church he loved so well.

Lieutenant-General Sir Oriel Viveash Tanner, X.C.8., and Lady Tanner are making a tour of the Australian States and New Zealand, extending over sevaral months. Tanner is an Australian by birth, ■ having been born in 1832 in Western Australia, where his father settled in the year mentioned as a squatter. His career in the Indian Army, in which he enlisted in 18-50, was a, brilliant one. He served in the Indian Mutiny in 1858, in the Afghanistan campaign in 1878-80, when he was mentioned in despatches; and in 1882 he commanded a brigade in Egypt, and was again mc-ntioned in despatches. In that year he received the knighthood. He commanded the Quetta division of the Indian Army from 1883 to 1888, and afterwards was associated with the 29th Bombay Infantry. In 1892 he was created lieutenant-general.

Mr W. Shaw, of Timaru, has received an interesting relic from a friend in the North Island in the shape of a bit of wood which formed part of the ill-fated ship Boyd, at Whangaroa 97 years ago. The wood (says the Timaru Post) is very close in the grain and well preserved; in fact, it is as fit for me to-day as it was when first sawn. * The relic is an interesting one, inasmuch as the ship from which it came has a remarkable history. The Boyd sailed from Sydney in 1807, with 70 Europeans and several Maoris on board, and, putting into Whangaroa to load with spars, all her European passengers, with the exception of four,- were killed, cooked and eaten. The ship ran ashore, and her cargo waa destroyed. In Brett's "History of New Zealand" it is said that the common and accepted account is that the crew were murdered to avenge the flogging of the chief named Tura, callod George by the Europeans. George'a father was among those who lost their lives when the powder on boa.rd the vessel exploded, after the human feast was over.

I have had placed before me (writes a London correspondent under date of 19th December) an illustration of how necessary it is in the manufacture of butter 'that there should be the utmost cleanliness, particularly bo with that produced in the colonies. While in conversation with a gentleman who occupies a prominent position in the butter market here, and through whose hands scores of thousands of boxes of colonial butter pass every season, he showed me a slab of butter, some two inches in thickness, with marks which went right through the butter from side to side. They were caused by mould, and had their origin in the dirtiness of the dairy in which 'the butter had been made in Canada. "The whole thing developed in the retailer's shop," said the authority. "It was all right when we sold it ; and it was all fight when the retailer bought it. But the germ must have got .there duiing the process o£ manufacture. We shall be heavy losers ; po will be the- shopkeepers who, you may be sure, will not think so highly of Canadian butter iv the future." "How is New Zealand biitter this season? 5 ' I asked. "Excellenjt," was the reply. "It is quite 2a per cwt. better than Australian, and while 40 to 60 per cent of New Zealand butter is now reaching high quotations, only 10 per cent of that from Australia attains to that figure. The reason? Poasibly it may bo the use of private separators in Australia, in which case it is a score for New Zealand creameries," said my informant.