GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2186, 16 September 1907, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS.

,Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., who .is on a trip for the benefit of his health, will .arrive at Auckland about the 10th November, and will remain in New Zealand until -the 21st. If his health permits he will give a series of lectures under the auspices of the Socialist party. Dr. Lyman .13. Sperry; in-the course of a lecture at Sydney last week, on the avoidanco of disease, referred to the marked tendency there was in Australia at itlie present time for teadrinking. ■On the slightest provocation the average Australian took to tea. The result of .this habit was injurious in (the extreme. The combination of tea and milk was nothing short of a digestion-destroying drink. The properties of the milk and tea together formed a fluid which could he best described as liquid leather. This had la serious effect on the nervous system, and deranged nerves led to catarrh and various other diseases. The doctor advanced itlio opinion that it was possible for a man to live to upwards of 100, or even longer, provided ho followed Nature’s laws.

A Johannesburg resident, who is at present spending >a holiday in New Zealand, writes as follows to the Christchurch Press: “A cable message appeared in the daily papers recently, stating that the Transvaal Government intend to presont the

King with what is known as ‘The Cullinnn Diamond.’ Tlie further information was afforded that itlie Transvaal ■ Government owns one-s',ix- ■ tceirth of the value of tlio stone. This is quite incorrect. The Transvaal Government takes six-tenths .(or 00 per cent) of tho profits of every diamond .company, and consequently it litis a •.three-fifths interest in the Cu'lliuan stone, and not merely one-six-teenth. The output of t;ho Cullinnn Premier Diamond Company, is sold to London buyers at about 25s per carat, so that to tlio company the jewel to bo presented to the King is only worth about £IOOO. The price tlio Government, or tlio company, ■line retained the stone at does not appear to liavo transpired. But whatever the price, the Government is original owner of 00 per cent of the value.”

In a letter received in Sydney, 0. 11. Brook,, tlie Australian rider, in referring to racing on tho Continent, says:—Every professional rider gets appearance money, from 10s per day upwards, but the prizes are very small. Dace followers make all the money. They get big prizes and huge amounts, ajG money as well. But they earn it. 1 would not fide behind their pacing machines for any money. Accidents happen every day. If an Australian cyclist. is to be successful in Europe, .lie wants to race here for two or three years, to get used to the climate, food, and tracks. The Sydney rider adds that “some of the scheming racing cyclists would kill you for 10-s. The officials are not strict. They have the totalisator on the track, and it draws a good crowd. Australian management is the best to race under.”

Mr. Smith, in his consular report from Odessa, says that British suitings are preferred by Russians, when obtainable, on account of their superior wear and appearance. Most- of the artificial eyes in use all over the world have been manufactured in Thuringia, where a large number of tlie houses are factories on a small scale. In many cases four men sit at a 'table, each with a gas jet before him, and the eyes are blown from plates and moulded into shape by hand. The colours are traced in with small needles, and as no set rule is observed in the colouring, no two eyes are exactly tlie same. Sometimes a man or a woman—having travelled perhaps a great distance—poses for a glass orb. The artisan, with his, gas jet, his glass and his needle, looks up at his sitter, and then down at. liis work, tlio scene strongly resembling a portrait painter’s studio.

The sentence of fifteen years’ imprisonment recently meted out by Mr. Justice Cooper to three burglars in Wellington, attracted (the attention of the Australian press. Tiie Sydney Telegraph, in the course of an editorial, remarks : —Burglary is one of those crimes in the repression of which the public is particularly inp...,'fftr_J.t, is impossible to foresee what may follow’from it, both of •graver crime and possibly of the fatal consequences even of terror. ' And where it is of this kind, where expert burglars had been engaged, as was proved by the bursting open of a safe by dynamite, it is a crime which, to a large extent, may be prevented —in the manner in which tlie New Zealand judge has prevented it dll the case of the men concerned —for fifteen years. . . It may be said of the burglar that the world bus no place for him except a gaol; and whenever ho is discovered the excellent precedent set ip New Zealand should be rememberd and followd as far as the circumstances of each case will jiermit; even though it be admitted .that the remedy is but temporary.

With respect to the recent increase of 10 .per cent In the nates of passage money to Europe, tile following paragraph, which recently appeared in the Australian press, .may possibly be of interest:- —-“With reference to the surcharge of 10 per cent., notified by Home trading companies running steamers in the saloon passenger trade to and from Australia, under instructions from their head offices, this in only part of a widespread movement covering the whole Eastern trade, 22 large companies participating in it. The Australian lines concerned are the P. and 0.., OrientRoyi.il Mail, Messageries Maritime®, Nord Deutclior Lloyd, Canadian and Australian, G. Thompson and Co. (Aberdeen Line), Lund’s Blue Anchor Line, and the Federal-Houlder-Sliire Lines. As yet the increase does not apply to third-class traffic. It is understood tlia.t the step lias become necessary in consequence of the additional burdens imposed upon the .companies by recent legislation in Great Britain, by enhanced prices for most of their stores and provisions, .and by great increases in the price of coal.”