General News.

Western Star, Issue 281, 25 January 1879, Page 6

General News.

We take the following from the Charleston ‘Herald,’ and we should imagine will have the desired effect. —“ Notice —To whom it may concern. —Mr J. F. Challis having retired from grog selling begs most respectfully to inform his grog-drinking friends —males and females—that he will not wait after tho Ist January, 1879 for a settlement of their accounts. An introduction to Mr Broai is imminent.”

The “ Lyttelton Times ” has compiled a table showing that during the year ended June 30th, 1878, 145,614 tons of grain were carried on the Christchurch section of the railways, which then extended af far as Palmerston. North of Dunedin, there were shipped at Lyttelton 87,399 tons ; at Timaru, 13,376;.and at Oamaru, 4-1,839.

The Manawatu " Times ” says Constable Gillespie made a perfect raid early on Monday morning, and succeeded in “ running in ” somewhere about eleven hundred sheep, and twenty head of cattle. The impounding fees for the liberation of the former, which were paid early, amounted to something like £22. A pretty good morning’s work.

Times must he very bad in America, to judge from the following sentence in an article on “England and America as Manufacturing Competitors,” in the ‘ Contemporary Review.’ The writer says:—“ When wages came to be reduced (in the United States), it was not a question of five or ten per cent., but of fifty or a hundred per cent., and in some cases even of a higher ratio.” If the above be correct, the somewhat novel spectacle was presented of men paying money to their masters for being granted permission to work! We can promise intending immigrants that it will be a long time before anything like this obtains in New Zealand.

A Home pape?, describing the London Postoffice, says:—“Eight hundred young women at work, all of them in one room, all of them looking comfortable, most of them looking pretty, earning fair wages at easy work—work fit for women to do; work at which they can sit and rest, and not be weary, with a kitchen at baud and a hot dinner in the middle of the day, with leave of absence without stoppage of payment every year, with a doctor for sickness and a pension for old age, for young women as years roll on will become old—with eight hours’ work, never before eight o’clock in the morning and never after eight o’clock at night, with female superintendents, and the chance of rising to superintendent open to each girl. This a Government office, under Government surveillance, and all this has sprung into existence during the last few years.

A paper by Dr Hector, read before the Wellington Philosopideal Society, on Saturday evening last, gives a somewhat romantic description of the discover}' of a new species of tree, “ Piiomaderis,” made during his recent visit to Mokau. Dr Hector was much astonished in hearing from the Natives that a peculiar tree was growing on the spot where their ancestory first camped when they abandoned the “ Tauru” canoe in which they came from Hawaiki, and that the tree had sprang from the rollers or skids, and the g.-een boughs were brought as a flooring to the great canoe. On his doubting this they offered to take him to the place, and if he could not recognise the tree as being found elsewhere in New Zealand, they would consider it as a proof that their tradition was correct. To his surprise they took him to a clearing of trees which had previously attracted bis attention from its similarity to an apple orchard, and as it certainly was a tree quite distinct from any hitherto described in New Zealand, the tradition received a certain amount of confirmation. Dr Hector added that he need hardly point out that if it were true, and we could hereafter determine the original habits of this tree, it might give us a clue to the whereabouts of the mytlucal Hawaiki, or the place whence the Maoris originally immigrated (o New Zealand. Mr Kirk, L.F.S., who opened the discussion on the paper, spoke to the discovery as being of great interest, but was inclined to believe the plant would prove identical with an Australian species, notwithstanding its larger size. In other parts of New Zealand the natives had traditions that certain trees were the paddles or the canoe poles used on the ground on landing, and had taken root.

The “ Ashburton Mail’s ” Dunedin correspondent writes :—“ The ‘ Christian Herald ’ gives currenney to the statement that the Bev. Mr Tinsley, a Primitive Methodist clergyman, at present stationed at Christchurch, has announced bis determination to join the Wesleyan communion. If this informatiau be Wesleyan Methodist Church may congratulate itselfjupon a valuable and highly important acquisition. Mr Tinsley is a fluent and eloquent speaker, a man well read, of broad and enlightened views, with the additional merit of being universally liked and respected. His accession will be an adequate compensation for the loss of the Bev. Mr Fiiehett, who is now being ordainedto deacon’s orders by the Bishop of Melbourne.”

A writer in the Hokitika Star says: —“The Colorado beetle is nowhere. The hank which owns that destructive insect wired in pretty well, but another institution in town is smothering traders wholesale. One consequence of these proceedings is, I am told, the resignation of the local manager, who is naturally indignant that his advice should be disregarded, and the business which bo obtained by dint of courtesy and attention thrown away. The representative of this bank, who is so completely carrying out the order of his directors, is known as "the Octopus,”

The Medical Press and Circular es-1 tahlishes a connection between the de- j pression of trade and insanity. It says : —“ D.uring periods of commercial depression medical men are often consulted by patients whose symptoms are marked and peculiar. They tell half their history, but leave untold the hidden weight of anxiety and suspense that is crushing them. Some of them imagine that they want a tonic ; but, as their disease is mental, the only real cure can be obtained by a relief from the pecuniary liabilities which are producing the mischief. Pluck out of the wounded hand the thorn, and you at once obtain a speedy cure. Sublata cause tollitur effeetus. The study of the mind during these periods of panic opens out an into? esting field to the psychologist; but still more, it unfolds a sad and painful chapter, which can only be studied with the deepest, feelings ef pity for the sufferers. It requires more than ordinary fortitude to bear a sudden reverse of fortune, and when this change occurs not through any fault of our own, but through the knavery and machinations of those we trusted, the blow is much more keenly felt. The elan of youth and manhood may recoup the lossses, but old age or the decline of years wants the elasticity to resist the depressing influences of change from wealth to poverty, from position in society to comparative obscurity.” An ingenious fraud has, according to the “ Figaro,” been committed upon a vvealthy merchant residing in the neighbourhood of Paris. A week or twy ago he received a letter informing him that the writer had ascertained that a box containing treasure was buried in his garden, and offering to indicate the exact spot if he would agree to divide the spoil. The merchant was at first inclined to treat the matter as a joke, but upon receiving a second and more pressing one, he sent an answer agreeing to the proposal. The next day he was waited upon by a gentleman of agreeable manners, and it was arranged that the search should be made at night in order to prevent the neighbours from talking. The box —a very weighty one—was duly unearthed, and when taken into the house and opened was found to contain 8000 francs in silver pieces of five francs each. The merchant, much pleased at the result of the search, at once banded over the half which he h id promised to the informer, who remarked that it was rather a heavy lump to carry to the railway station, distant about a mile, and that perhaps the merchant could oblige him with gold or notes instead. This the merchant was veiy happy to do ; but he regretted it bitterly the next morning, as he saw by the light of day that the fivefranc pieces were spurious. The Californian newspapers are publishing a series of letters by a gentleman bearing the name of Kvvang Chang Ling in which there is much told about China that bus not hitherto been generally known. The writer says, for instance, that the population is only 100,000,000 or 120,000,000, instead of 450,000,000, as generally reported; that the country has reached the limit of agricultural development ; that its prosperity and popularity has been decreasing since 1761; that unless improved machinery and methods are adopted from the Western countries the pe®pla will not be able to support themselves, since they are already as poor as it is possible to be, and can only with great diificulty maintain existence ; that the wealth of the empire is in the hands of the few, and that with a diminishing population and increasing wages at home there can be no great tide of emigration to the United States, so that Americans have no cause for anxiety on that point. Kvvang Chang Ling does not explain why, if the population is diminishing, and wages are increasing, the people find it harder than ever to earn a livelihood ; but, if he is to be believed, the prospect of the Chinese is anything but a comfortable one, and it is not surprising that they emigrate.

A West Coast visitor to Wellington writes to the West Coast Times as follows ;—“ Nevada, in the United States, boasts of its silver kings, but if all is realised that is expected from D’Urville Island, New Zealand will, before long, have copper kings from the mines there. When the company took up the lease first, or rather when the promoters, prior to the company’s formation did so, some of the savants of this town —Dr Hector and Mr Travers especially—denied that the copper lode would prove extensive, and predicted that it would fail at a short depth. Like greater geologists than themselves, their opinions have proved valueless, for the lode has been laid bars at a depth of a hundred feet and for the distance of a mile, and so far from decreasing in either size or value it has greatly thickened, and the ore now being got at the lowest levels is that known as the s Iver grey ore, which contains copper to the extent of from sixty to seventy per cent., and silver at the rate of abouttwenty ounces to the ton. There ace no sharoa

in the market, so there is no object in puffing the venture, hut I refer to it as it was owing to West Coast enterprise that the lode was first worked, and the main shareholders reside in Hoktika, and have a fine and welhrecognised property in this apparently barren island.” Speaking of the grevious neglect of attention to common things and common employment as a means of education, the Philadelphia Public Ledger sensibly remarks that “it is in the study of common things, that are so plentiful all , around us, but so little understood, that an education may be gained of which at present we have only begun to conceive. Schools are numerous, books are abundant, every child is now made master of the elements of learning, yet there is a lack of practical education; the'effects of the school are apt to fade away on the farm and in the factory, and a separation if not an antagonism, often takes place between study and daily life. We need a bridge which will carry the scholar with his habits of study and iuquiry safely into the life of profitable labor, without obliging him to drop what he has taken so much pains to gain. Such a bridge may be found in the study of common things. Ordinary life pursuits furnish abundant material for such study. Every object we see or handle in everyday life has a history well worth perusing, a composition well worth analysing, a future well worth conjecturing. However common it may be, it has that in it, and about which will for ever prevent it from being commonplace. Every employment we engage in, however mechanical or insignificant it may seem, will escape from all such odium if it is perused with an active biaiu as well as a busy hand—if are examined, its history studied its methods compared, its best purposes followed. Such education will make labor far more valuable by introducing into it theelemeut of thought; it will increase the power of observation, aud stimulate the curiosity, which is the gem of knowledge; it will invest the world of common things with richer meaning and keener flavor ; and best of all, it will give continual occupation to those higher faculties of man which are apt to rust in the tame routine of everyday life, when not thus lifted out of the region of commonplace.” Q-isborne, settlers (says the ‘ Post’) have curious notions about the ballot. At a recent municipal election there, one mau rode twenty miles to the polling booth, aud then carefully struck out the names of all the candidates on his voting paper, paying emphatically that “ there wasn’t one of ’em worth a (strong adjective).” Of course it never struck that voter that if he remained at home the result would have just been the same. This being the complimentary season, the editor of the ‘ Mauawatu Times’ lets his Foxion contemporary down gently, as will be seen from the dedicate way in which the following paragraph is put: —We wonder how many persons iu Poxton would keep a certain sycophantic tool there, were they so lucky as to get a chance of parting with him. Echo answers none. On the contrary, there are not a few who curse the day such a.mischief making meddler, empty handed twaddler, and flatulent receptacle of bathos aud braggadocio confounded them with his presence.” Karamea appears to be going from hid to worse. The Wesport paper remarks: “ As long as there remained any chance of Government money being spent on the settlement, the people there had some hope of tiding over bad seasons, but now that is wholly withdrawn, they arc depunddeut on what their bits of cleared laud will produce, and their early crops this season are a failure. The loug-coutiuued wet has rotted the potatoes, and all other crops, except in a few favoured localities, are looking sickly. This has been as the last straw on the camel’s back to many of them. It is not unlikely that some of the Motueka settlers may comb across and take up some of some of tho now-deserted holdings.” Wbat puzzles many people is this—How can tho Mutueka people live there if the Karamea people cannot ’ Mr Spurgeon is the next man to be testimonialised. He has nearly completed a quarter of a century of his ministry in London. It was in 1853 that the boy preacher of nineteen, who had been attracting enormous crowds to a barn at Waterbeach was “ called” to preside over a congegation which met in Dr Eipdon’s old chapel iu New Park street, Southwark. In two years the chapel was found much too small for him. A few months later its eulargemont was discovered to be in- ( sufficient; and since then be has con- , stantly increased both the number of I his admirers and the sphere of his work. To commemorate bis first appearance as a boy in London, he will be given, if sum can be collected, five thousand pound notes. Ho will devote it to the endowment of his almshouses.