Untitled

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2201, 27 May 1908, Page 2

Mr H. D. Bedford, ex-M.H.R., will visit Gisborne next month and give a series of addresses on Noncense. At least one of tlio addresses will be given in His Majesty’s Theatre.

Christchurch possesses more motorcars than all the rest of New Zealand put together. The registimjions in. C 1 U'j si clnipdv-w itirt htT C lty" Co unc i 1 at date number 581, of which about onehalf are .motor cars and the remainder motor cycles.

The Chinese market gardeners who carry on- business at Saltwater Creek, near Timaru. have forwarded a cheque for £5 5s to the secretary of the South Canterbury Hospital Board in recognition of the treatment received by Chinamen in the hospital.

Retail shopkeepers in Napier did not recognise Empire Day as a holiday but intend to close on June 3, the Prince of Wales’ Birthday. In future years, howevef, if tho recommendation of the executive of the Retail Drapers and Outfitters’ Association is carried out, the holiday will be held on Empire Dly and not on the Prince of Wales’ Birthday.

At tho Police Court yesterday morning two first offenders for drunkenness were convicted and fined 5s with 2s costs or 24 hours imprisonment. A small boy named Earnest Stokes, 14 years of ago was charged , with carrying firearms. Scrgt. Hutton detailed the circumstances, and after a few words of caution to the boy, His Worship inflicted a fine of 5s with 7s costs.

The election for the vacant seat on the Harbor Board, which takes place to-morrow, is exciting a considerable amount of interest locally. The candidates are Messrs John Town-ley and T. Holden. All ratepayers in the Counties of Cook and Waiapu are entitled 'to vote provided their rates Were paid prior to June 1907, when the roll was made up. A special feature of the Harbor Board election is that it is not a case of “one man, one vote,” as a number of ratepayers are entitled to three or four votes, according to property qualifications.

In an address to the Otago Institute recently, Dr. Hocken showed the petition to Queen Victoria, praying for the separation of the South Island from the North Island, and spoke of it as “that shameful petition.” Mr. A. Bathgate said that lie remembered tjie events of the sixties that led up to the preparation of the petition, and said he was glad to he 'able to recall the fact that the movement was not in any sense serious or general. An energetic and noisy coterie clamored for separation, hut their numbers were few, the population wore not in sympathy with them, 'and tho petition did not get beyond Dunedin. _ . .

The Poverty Bay Rowing Club will hold an assembly dance in His Majesty’s Theatre to-morrow evening, dancing being from 8 p.m. to midnight.

A mooting of tho provisional committee.of tile-local branch of tile New Zealand Eniployers’'. Federation will bo held at the Farmers’ Union Club Rooms on Thursday afternoon next, at 3.30.

Tho now railway section to Wuikohu will bo open for traffic on and after Thursday, May 28tli. This has necessitated alterations in the ordinary timo-table, and a now lime-tablo jins boon drawn up and is advertised by tlio Railway Department in this issue.

Considerable interest is being manifested in the Children’s'Carnival to lie held in the Theatre on Friday evening next. The various items have beon in rehearsal lor somo time past, and the entertainment will be a ch iming one.

Tho ‘bridge over tlio Mnnawntu River at Shannon is nearing completion, and it is expected that it will bo opened in about six weeks’ time. It is understood that one of the members of Cabinet will perform the opening -ceremony.

A notable performance in droving Ins been accomplished with a mob of 1700 bullocks brought from Victoria Downs Station, in the Northern Territory, to Narrabri, 'in New South Wales, an, approximate distance of 3000 miles. The mob arrived at Narrabri after being thirteen months on the road.

A good many of the potato crops in the Wairarnpa district are now being dug, and the yield generally is found to. be a poor one. This is due to tho long stretch of dry weather in the summer, which completely parched the plants. When tho rain did come it was too late to bo of any material benefit.

A correspondent- of _ tho “Patea Press,” writing from Upper Waitotara, says that he hears tint some plucky settlers have taken up some new country about 12 miles further back from Mr. Van. Ash’s .place, making a distance of 50 miles from Waitotara. Ono of them took his wife and children back there lastweek. It is pioneering indeed to have to ride six miles along a goat track and then have to walk the other six through the bush.

A meeting of tho citizens who are arranging for a public presentation to Mr John Townley was held in the Masonic Hotel yesterday, Mr C. A. DeLautour in the chair. It was reported that the subscriptions to hand total nearly £l4B, and as the list is not yet closed, old friends and supporters of Mr Townley still have an opportunity to subscribe. It was decided that the presentation shall take the form of a. solid piece of silver plate suitably inscribed, and an address. The plate will be selected by a sub-conunittee. Mr. O. A. DeLautour consented to prepare an address.

• The big German steamship company, the Norddeutscher-Lloyd, has issued a table showing the quantities of • provisions consumed on their steamers in the year 1905. The total value is nearly 31 million, dollars. Fresh beef heads the list with over 5J million pounds, and it is remarkable that whereas the consumption of pork was 567,0001b5, and veal 717,000, that of mutton was only 663,0001b5. Turkeys run into 218,0001b5, and fowls of various kinds 500,000, potatoes 17 million pounds, eggs 5J millions. The total quantity of coal consumed on the company’s steamers amounted to nearly If million tons.

The Government steamer Tutanekai, now in Wellington, lias on board a large consignment of furniture, which is being removed from Government House, Wellington, to Auckland (says the “Manawatu Standard” of Thursday last). Several lorries of furniture left Wellington for the Governor’s Palmerston residence yesterday, but there is a large quantity still awaiting removal from the house. It is, as a matter of fact, somewhat hampering the workmen, who are putting on all pressure to get the house ready for Parliament. Several van loads of stationery, pigeon-holes, lockers, and other equipment - were delivered at the house yesterday.

The Mayor, Mr. W. D. Ly6nar, when interviewed by a “Times” reporter last evening, stated that he had, acting upon the Council’s resolution passed at its last meeting, forwarded a request to Mr. Jekyll, of Palmerston North, that he should reEort upon a drainage scheme for Gisome. To a suggestion that definite action should have been postponed in view of Or. Sheridan’s notice of motion, His Worship replied that no representations had been made to him in that direction, and ho had therefore seen no cause for delay. On tlio contrary, he felt that delay might be dangerous, and might result in the town being induced to accept an expensive and extravagant scheme.

A Feilding timber merchant who is familiar with the milling business throughout the Dominion, has informed the Feilding “(Star”’ that the timber industry is busier this year than it lias been at any time during the past five years. The demand is greater than the supply. Already this year some three-million feet of timber have been imported ‘into New Zealand from British Columbia.. “With the great forests and cheap Japanese labor,” the merchant says, “millers over there could land timber here as cheap as. our own millers oirJliii'^spotr'couM - pr'o'rireo’”TtT u ‘ —He "Supposed that there was great activity in the building trade, as the timber most in demand was that used for building purposes. '' ’

The Y.M.C.A. Literary and Debating Society met on Monday night, when a largo number of members were present. The meetiiig took the form of impromptu speeches. Mr. E. Vowles. drew for liis subject, “Honesty” ; Mr. Bruce, “Do you think that a 'man is the maker of his own fortune or the victim of circumstances” ; Mr. T. S. Malcolm, “Clubs—are they conducive to the. improvement oi' the community”; Mr. E. Grundy, “If _war was declared between Japan 'and the United States, which would win?”; Mr. F. Hunter, “Do we learn more from reading or from observation?”; Mr. Kimbel, “The kind of man I abominate”; Mr. P. Saunders, “Which is wo Ip, the liar or the hypocrite?” ; Mr. 0. Tattersfield, “Would yoii have all questions, social or otherwise, settled by a bare majority?”; Mr. J. H. Dawson, “My’better half”; Mr. H. J. Brownlee, “What is a lady?” Mrs. Brownlee, “What is a gentleman?” ; Mr. Burnard, “Should bachelors be taxed?”; Miss 0. Malcolm, “Is despondency a weakness?” ; Mr. G. Malcolm, “Which do us more good, our friends' or our enemies?”; Mr. B. Grubb, “Should the ratepayers vote for the outer harbor?” A number of good speeches were made, and the evening was entirely successful.

When the bicycle tracks promised by our worthy Mayor are completed in the main streets, the local authorities will lose a lucrative income from fines inflicted on footpath trespassers. These sums may be profitably invested in dinner knives at ten pence each at Parnell’s Saturday Sale 30th inst. only.