GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2489, 30 April 1909, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

A lady/speaking at the immigration meeting at Geraldine, said that she knew - a well-to-do young farmer in the ! district, who was unable to obtain sufficient domestic help for his wife. He said that if something was not done soon he. would have to sell up his farm, and go into lodgings, rather than allow his wife to slave her life out in the way she was doing. Under the heading “Healthy New Zealand/’ the “London Daily Mail” republishes the following paragraph from the “British Empire Review:” — “New Zealand is .rapidly increasing her population. During 1908 there was an increase of 31,000 Europeans, while the birth-rate was nearly three times as much as the death-rate, a fact which speaks volumes for the healthiness of the country.” There is a fond belief in the minds of many Cambridge people (writes the Auckland. “Herald” correspondent) that gold exists in the Maungatautari Ranges afid from time to time it is known that prospecting parties have been at work, have been stopped by the natives, to wihom the land belongs. It is stated that natives themselves have been doing & conskderab.e amount of “fossicking” o'u.Ahe ranges, but they are extremely jetlcent wi £ho matter, Invercargill prison is stated to be, a great extent, self-supporting. About five and a half acres of land are under cultivation as market Most of the output, goes to Timaru, and the. rest is disposed of at the Bluff and locally. From this source £4OO was received last year, and the total-ex-penses, including seed and manures, only amounted to £4O. A special correspondent to the “Star” gives the credit of this successful venture to the Gaoler. , . ~ , A letter written by a resident of Pakatoa Island to Mr. C. C. Kettle, S.M., of Auckland, speaks in high praise of the results of the Inebriates’ Home conducted on the Island by the Salvation Army. A local paper publishes; the following extract from the letter.—“ Having returned from the island, where I was sent on account of my, drinking habits, I beg to state that now/ being at liberty for some time, I touched drink, and I feel have no- . there has done sure that my being su. - T me a great amount of good. - r better in health than X have heel for years past, and have entirely lost any inclination to drink again.” . Even the humble penny has its share in the fashionable ailment of “tightness” affected hv the lordly sovereigns. The “Post” states that penniP’s are comparatively scarce in Wellington, and have the honor of being much sought after. Last week a tradesman went to the tramway pay-in office and bought out all the copper, £5 worth. Other applications for pennies have been fairly numerous at the office from persons eager to surrender gold and silver for copper. Not long ago one of the banks got in a couple of tons of copper, but much of it was promptly shipped to other centres, where the demand for pennies has exceeded the supply. Money changers say that although New Zealand is far from being a penniless the country, could comfortably do with more pennies just now. , __ . . A Celestial writes to the Masterton “Age”: Some time ago several of the local Chinamen were brought before the local Justices at the Police Court, and mulcted in a fine for plying their vocation on the Sabbath. Be this justice or persecution, I am not in a position to say. It seems to me very like persecution ; or, is ft that there are two laws—one for the. rich and another for the poor. For instance, one has only got to walk out on a Sunday morning in the vicinity of a motor garage, and what meets his gaze ? Why, half a dozen motor cars, with full-steam up, and the engineer following his daily vocation with impunity, driving cars" for trial spins along the street, dressed in overalls. Why prosecute the Chinese and allow Europeans to break the laws right in the centre of .the town? , „ _ ~ „ , The “New Zealand Herald, Auckland, says that the finding of a moa skeleton in >a scoria cave at Penrose, in the opinion of Mr. John Attwood, of Te Awamutu, is conclusive proof that the moal survived the glacial, period, and lived, if not until recent times, at least till the latter end of the postpliocene period. The later volcanic formation of Eden County, he states is clearly of the times. There is not a shell on the hill tope, nor in any other part of the series, that is not in existence on either side of the isthmus, and nearly every shell that occurs either in the Waitemata or Manukau has! its fossil type, strown from one end of the series to the ' other. The skeleton was found in ’a cave, one of the cracks caused by the retraction of lava on cooling, similar to many other fissures in which are dozens of human bones in no better state of preservation. ~ A man named Crombie was nearly blown to pieces at picton a few days ago. He was carrying a sack containing a charge of gelatine, powder and detonators up the face of a hill, when he trod on a water pipe and slipped. The bag fell; and h§ thinks a detonator must have struck his foot, causing SB explosion. Crombie had the presence of mind to kick the bag further away and clear himself. The force of the explosion sent -him down) the lull, and his clothes being afire, he dashed into the sea. His mates immediately went tel the rescue, to find tlie skin was taken off his face, hands and arms, his hair was singed, and his legs scorched, but from tlie neck to the waist there was not a mark. His face was blackened with the powder. .At the spot where the explosion occurred there is a deep hole -in bhd hill i quite two feet deep. Crombie is now in the local hospital and will be ready for work again soon. Somebody of the name of Sutton, who states that ho has just got back from •New Zealand, has (says the Lyttelton Times) been giving the readers of a Hobart daily a gloomy account o, this country. “The Dominion, be says, •“has been greatly cracked up. Things have been, booming there for several years, but it has been a boom and nothino- more.” Mr Sutton does not happen "to mention whether he was on the look-out for -work himself while he honored us with his presence, and it may* therefore, be assumed that he was not. Persons of liis type are very seldom looking for work, as a matter ot tact. Their concern is aIL for others, which is, of course, so good of. them. -; For the consolation of Tasmanians who juaj chance to have friends or relatives here it may he pointed out that the bottom has not yet dropped out of New Zealand. This Easter-tide saw its accustomed thousands of holiday-makers still able, to afford to take long journeys in quest of change and amusement. It money is as tight in these is ands as Mr Sutton would have us. behove, its ,• • .j.+i. - not apparent ' during the iioUuajS. ,