LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2381, 21 March 1890, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Conference of the Seventh Day Adventists

is being held ab Napier. The smelting of Taranaki ironstone has just been tried at Huotley with satisfactory results.

The first roller mill in Southland has just been started. The plant is capable of turning out seven tons per diem, Several Southerners are reported to ba now in the Auckland provincial diatriot looking for agricultural land, with a view to purohaßing. It has been dtfinitoly decided to olose the Exhibition on the 19.h April and notice is to be given to the orobestta that they will not ba required beyond the 12th pros. It is believed that the truth concerning the health of the Czar is withheld, and the belief that be ia dangerously ill has a depressing effect on all European exchanges. Portugal has awakened to the necea ity of an army, and aooording to a Lisbon dispatob, 19 negotiating with parses in the United I States for torpedoes, gunboats, and rifles. [ An agitation has sprung up in Belgium for ' the reenaotrnent ol oapitaf punishment in coneequenae of the alarming increase of murder within the lgst few years. Amerioana in Mesopotamia unearthed at Niffer the runs cf a temple, and there they found a bell, tablet?, and oylindera bearing inscriptions dating back to 3750 B.C. The balance of 415,000 saved from the claim to legacy duty on the Ohallia Estate is to ba spent in the erection of ornamental memorial fountains on the terraces fronting the Sydney Univerfity. Ismail, the ex-Khedive of Egypt, brought a pretty Irigh girl to hie harem at OonBtantinoble a year ago. All the other girls have now rebelled and bJiq has fled to the English Embassy. There were 12,095 horses, valued At £850 690, exported from Great Britain during the first ten months of 1889, bb against 11,994 horses of the value of £724,014, during the corre?pondiDg period of 1888. From the moat authoritative reports^ it would seem that the nowly discovered- mining districts of the Transvaal are peifeot wonderlands of wealth. There can be bo doubt that the country is marvellously rich in both gold and silver deposits. The Lieutenant Go^prnor of the Island of Jersey has compelled the First Militia to oancel the invitation which it had extended to General Boulnnger, asking his presence at the regimental dinner. The building of the new Protestant Churoh at Bethlehem, in Palestine, wh|oh was interrupted in 1888, has now been resumed by permission of tho Suhan, at the epeoiol wi?h of tho German Empress. Tho Persian Shah's acceptance of a trauElation of the Bible from tho British Minis!&r has nearly caused a serious rising against him. A mob assembled at the palace and assumed a menacing aspect, but tho trouble was yufcfely puppressed. Tho Governors ot the Dunlin High School have given notioe <o tho Education IJoard, t&st pwiug to straitenod finances they are j unable any longer to continue froo education to thoso who gain 50 per cent of marks in tho j Board's scholarship examinations. Humour is perpetually busy with tho task dZ providing a brido for Princn Albert Victor of' Wales. Tiic Ifiat named i 3 Princess Fcodora :.f BohlcGwiß-Holstein, a young lady cf only L 6. She ia sister to tbo Empress of Germany, j jnd niece to Prince Christian. j (Jeelong has ju3t paid for 45,427 eggs and >985 heads cf sparrows destroyed. It has joon'reckened that had tha yarrows not boon [filed and eggs destroyed there would have >cen in the eSietriet 411,136 more oparrowa hla season than Ihero were last season. We /" Wellington Times') oro gad tjj bo nformod by the inventor, Mr Bull, toot a now !ax-dreE,3»g propefls hftP boen pa'enled and till bo 'maao known lo tho publio shortly, 'he inventor clnims to bo' able by tho aid cf he process to deliver fiax jo Wellington a,t bout £9 per ton, f

Among other passengers South by the, express to-day waa the Rev P. R. Monroe, I of Sydenham Presbyterian Church. ' The " WelJiogton Times" reports that Mr D. M, Luokie, Government Life Assurance Commissioner, is eariously ill. What looka like the " boas " apple of the season ia displayed ia the window of Mr Randall, fruiterer. It weighs only half an ounce short of l£lb. DuriDg the past six months a party ' organised in Dnnedin has been endeavouring 1 ' to recover the old silver coin that went down with the s.s. Tararua at Waipapa reef nine years ago. Their efforts (says the " Southland Times") have unfortunately been unsuccessful. Tbe diver, Mr John Sutherland (brother of the chief citizen of Milford Sound and disaoverer of the falls named after him) ia presently in j Invercargill, and in correspondence with one of our Btaff stated that his opportunities of observation on several oooasiona satisfied him that tht action of the sea had so oompletely broken up and buried the after part of the wreck beneath the sand as to render it physically impossible ever to*get further trace of the treasure.