LOCAL AND GENERAL

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 266, 28 February 1889, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Mt P, H, Bourke being “ at the front,” the sale of cattle Ims bien postponed from to-day until further notice, ana there will be no aala at Messrs Graham, Pitt and Bennett’s matt on Saturday. Mr Thompson’s home, Tangihanga station, was burned down on Tue-day afternoon, there being no satisfactory evidence as to the origin of the fire. Mrs Thompson had been in town some days on account of the prevailing scare, and on the morning in Question Mr Thompson and the man left the house to go same distance over .he station. They returned in about five hours, to find that where the bouse h»d stood was then nothing but Mhos. As care had bgtn taken to extinguish the fire inoendtarism is lured to be the o*u*e,

The Stella arrived in the bay yesterday morning with reinforcements. She wa.ted all night until further orders. Three years ago the overdraft of the Piako County Council wi'h the Bank of New Ze daud stood at the respectable amount of between £9,000 and £lO,OOO. The Saturday before last the clerk reported it as being £lOO 18s. A man who is believed to. have been concerned in a large jewellery robbery which took place in England, has been arrested on board the Pateena, at Launceston. Among ihe valuables found in his possession were 101 wedding rings.

Advertisers crowded in with notices for the issues of the Sydney papers containing the account of the execution of the woman Collins. Spaces near the “hanging” columns were charged half rates extra. An execution is reckoned to be worth between £BO and £l4O to each Sydney daily. The lecture at the Tent last evening proved

of an instructive and interesting character. The diagrams used made the subject clear and forcible. Mr Hare took the position that we are, to a great extent, the architects of our own characters, and that a con inuous line of thought in any given direction will develop a corresponding appearance. “Is God particular or ean we take our own way to Heaven?' 1 was then announced as the subject for to night. Captain Maun, of the Royal Navy, who is

to succeed Captain Thomas as commandant of the Victorian naval forces, arrived in Melbourne lately from New Zealand. Captain Mann is in command of the warship Rapid, and he has obtained a furl ugh for the purpose of coming to Melbourne and meeting Captain Thomas before that gentle man’s departure for Europe. Captain Maun will not enter upon his duties as naval commandant for some time yet. A question arose at the Hawke’s Bay Land Board’s last meeting as to whether surveyors were competent to put a price on Government land. Mr Hall said the system was a wrong one, in his opinion. A man was employed by the Government to survey blocks, and he put a price on it after he had concluded his work. He thought the majority of surveyors were not competent to value it. The price put on the land was too high altogether. Mr Carnell was of the same opinion. Mr Williams, the chairman, laughingly asked Mr Hall if he had ever known of a surveyor securing a bad section for himself, and Mr Hall at once said that he had. The discussion then dropped. The influence of one good sire is scarcely estimable, but in the Live Stock Journal Almanac for 1889 Mr W, Burdert-Coutts, calculates that the celebrated hackney stallion, Triffit’s Fireaway, represents in his stock a money value of £250,000, He is now rising thirty years old, and has been at the stud for over twenty-five years. He has averaged over 100 foals a year, the last prices of which are given at £lOO each. So great is his influence that his stock can be recognised at sight, and an instance is given of toals got by him out of a cart mate which, at five year-olds, were sold by London dealers st 300 gs to 400 gs the pair. The other day, the inhabitants of a large portion of Christchurch were (says the Press) startled by a success! n of most unearthly ear-piercing noises, which for some time really alarmed those who were unaware that the new steam fire alarm was being t ied. It proved trying, iudecd, to all within rage of its sound, which beggars description. If it is possible to suppose the scream if an enormous circular saw when driven at a great velocity, the screech of several locomotive whistles, and the howling of a dog endowed with forty-dog power of howling—all these rolled into one disc ordant whole would perhaps produce the same stunning effect. If this infernal machine is brought into use

without some amelioration of its dreadful tone, people will soon ask themselves which is worst—the ravages of a fire or the howling of the “ siren.” It is said that Mr Stead's connection with the Pall Mai Gazette, which he has made notorious if not remunerative, is about to cease, and that his place will be supplied by his present second in command, Mr Cook. Mr Yates Thompson, the proprietor, Ins always rather to erated than approved the • ‘ piety and pruriency ” lines upon which the piper has been conducted under Mr Stead’s regime, but has now, it is said, put down his foot once for all. Between proprietor and editor there have been frequent bickerings, occasioned in one instance, it is asserted, by Mr Stead’s persistency in giving literary em ployment on the paper to Mrs Crawford, of Dilke di orce case notoriety. Possibly this may have had something to do with the final breach, which is now reported to have occurred. Up to the present it has been generally sup. posed (says an Otago paper), that potatoes could only be grown with their haulms showing above the ground. This, however, is a mistake, and shows that we are apt to form conclusions without proper and reasonable grounds for arriving at them. This season a resident of Oatnaru planted early potatoes and put them at too great a depth in the ground. As nothing appeared above the ground to indicate that the potatoes were making the ordinary progress, he concluded they had “gone off,” and planted cabbages above the spot whera they were put in. In the course of time the cabbages went the way of all cabbages, and some of the ground was turned over. To the astonishment of the party a fine crop of early potatoes was lifted. The potatoes had grown without putting “ sbaws ” above the ground. If this can be calculated upon to take place every time potatoes are planted deep, it will be better to follow nut this plan than run the risk of frosts and droughts by planting near the surface. The above is a fact. The new Chief C miniaairner of the London police, Mr Mnnro, is very lame, so lame that he cannot s t a horse, nor can he stand for any time erect without support. His lameness dates from the time when he was holding a judicial and executive appointment in the Bengal Civil Service. He was then an active young Scotchman, who thoroughly enjoyed the Anglo-Indian practice, which combines the duty of policeman and magistrate in the lame person. As a judge he was desirous of securing the punishment of a thief and as chief of the executive he a'temnted to arrest him with his own hands. The thief fled ; Mr Munro, mounted on a good horse, pnr. sned ; the thief slipped over the girden wall; Mr Munro, nothing daunt ’d, put his horse to the leap—and that is all that Mr Munro knows. Six weeks afterwards Mr Munro woke from a prolonged state of unconsciousness, with a smashed leg and permanently crippled thigh. “ Give mo a fulcrum and I will move the wo Id,” cried Archimedes. “ Give me more money and I will finish the canal,” says M. de Lesseps. He demands that the shareholders forego their interest, which is paid out of the capital of the company, till the canal be completed ; and, secondly, for each shareholder to take two new shares which moons paying down 1000 f. For (the first request. nothing easier, zinee the company ceased payments for the want of fund*, and where there is nothing the king loses his rights. The second has not taken at all ; people to throw good money after bad, and scalded oats dread cold wa’er. It is strange that the financial companire who have a grip on the unissued shares for money lent decline to listen to any terms short rif repayment in full. A section of the shareholders exhibit a next to fanatical attachment to M, de Lesseps—and few but sympathise with his misfortune!—but that will not fill the empty ooffsri of the company.—Age. Eleven hundred owes of typhoid feyer have occurred at Melbourne since the Ist December, and 136 were fatal ! That's pretty warm, im’t it'? Oh yes, Melbourne's a sweet spot! All for show! Great hideous public buildings, and glare and glitter and vulgar ostentation, but foul and filthy undernea h I No drainage, no decency, no healthiness I. And yet the people there think their beastly place is like London! So it is—very like parts of London—Bermondsey, or some where down there 1 I'll tell you what, I hear a L>t of fo ka who went over there from New Zealand last year and were going to do such grand things, are coming back with their tail down 1 Jammed straight between their legs 1 They can't get bread and cheese out of it! Some of ths hungriest of ’em, who thought they were going to get fat off the Melbourne people, say they’re only in terror lest the Melbourne people should oat