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Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 3147, 5 December 1893, Page 2

A case of alleged blackmailing came before the Ciiristchurch Resident Magistrate's Court on Monday, when A. J. Burgess, M, J.Sberw:n, andF. Jennings were committed j for trial on a charge of conspiracy to extort money from W. A. Taylor, hotelkeeper, of Rangiora, by accusing him of an unnatural offence. Ken Lewis, the holder of the one mile and the ten mile bicycle records of .New Zealand arrived in town to-day to take part in ihe Ariel race meeting. He appears to be very fit and should come very near winning , the five mile championship to-morrow. The rest of the Christchurch rldera will arrive by the eleven o'clock train to-morrow. Miss Louise Aldrich Blake, eldest daughter of a Hertfordshire clergyman, has achieved the highest distinction as a student in medicine ever won by a woman. She has taken a 1' double first" in the examinations at the London University. It is said that she attained excellence not by special cramming, but by steady, presevering hard work. The anniversary soiree in connection with the Ashburton Wesleyan Chu eh is announced for Thursday next in the Oddfellows' Hall. After the tea the Rev F. W. Isitt is to lecture on " The Black Hero of Hayti, Napoleon's noblest victim." This lecture has been listened to by delighted crowds in different parts of the colony, and should prove a great attraction. Georges Hugo, the grandson of Victor Hugo, now a sub-lieutenant in the French Navy, came of age recently. He was made a victim of the Paris usurers during his minority, according to French papers, and the family attorney is now having considerable trouble in straightening out his affairs. Among others there is a bill for £2400 presented by a well-known tailor of Paris. A tax which lasted thirteen years was actually levied in Great Britain on births in the year 1695. Every pen-on not in receipt of alms was required to pay 2s for every little stranger added to his family. The nobility and gentry were subjected to a heavy payment in addition, ranging from £30 for the eldest, son of a duke down to 10$ for a person having real estate worth £50 per annum or personal estate of £600 or upwards. According to German political prophets England has to look forward to the formation of a vast and powerful French Colonial Empire in the East, which will one day menace the prosperity of British dominion and influence in those parts. The whole of Siam will be gradually swallowed up, like Cochin China, Cambodia, Annam and Tonkin, and thejFiench will take good care that the negotiations for regulating the customs and commercial relations with their vanquished adversary will redound to the advantage of their own country. Some of the professional rose-grower 3 affirm that rose bushes should not be planted by the side of a building nor in places where they would be shaded. [Bit a correspondent in "Vick's Magazine," commenting on this opinion, alleges thus:—"By a use of my own eyes for some years I am convinced that roses do best in those places. gjAfe least the finest ones I ever saw—and I have seen them ten feet or twelve feet high and covering the side of a house—were in just such a position. We have soni3 roses on the south side of the house, where they have the sun nearly all day, and others of the same variety on the noth-west side in an angle of the house and all under some plum trees, where they are all shaded till after eleven o'clock. Those that are shaded during the forenoon grow to be larger bushes and finer colored, larger roses, that remain in bloom longer than those on the south side that have the sun most of the day, yet they are never watered and do not have the care the others do because they are on the back of the house Avhere they are not seen. In my opinion the partial shade prevents the ground and flowers from drying up as rapidly as when in the tcorching sun."