LOCAL AND GENERAL

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 505, 11 September 1890, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The parade of thoroughbred and draught stallions on Saturday should be fully availed of by the owners of animals. An ordinary meeting of the Chaiitable Aid Board was held yesterday afternoon. The accounts passed amounted to £3O. Government have refused to trouble further about the petitions of the ratepayers who have been protesting against the Kaiteratahi bridge loan.

One who formerly held the position of bailiff at the Gisborne R. M Court is now filling the place of Mr Johnson, who was called out from the launch Snark.

“ Typo ” is to hand, and fully maintains the standard of excellence which Mr Harding has set up for it. The address is now Wellington. The steamer Te Kapu (of which Messrs Kennedy and Evans are the Gisborne agents) arrives in the bay to-morrow night from Napier. She returns on Saturday evening.

The polling booth for the annual Borough election will be open al 9 this morning. The candidates are Messrs Lewis, Lucas, and Taylor (retiring Councillors), Joyce, and Tucker.

The copy of the Harbor Bill to hand is, oa the whole, very satisfactory. It ought to improve the Board’s position by £3OOO a year. Mr Bell is giving valuable assistance in the matter, and there are now bright hopes of the Bill becoming law.

Some over-clever youngsters have been playing a smart trick on the Chinaman who has his shop in Gladstone road, They got in the habit of disposing of a lot of tin, and when the Chinaman would take it through and put it in the yard, they would take possession of it again, selling it to him once more. Some enterprising boys also half filled a sack with rubbish, placed tin on the top, and then obtained the ruling figure for the top article. One development of the strike which concerns the publisher of’the Standard, ia a—oraze, shall we call it, for appropriating copies of the paper supplied to regular subscribers. Many complaints have been

made, and though some delinquents are known, so far the publi her has not cared to take action in the matter. But there must

be some limit. It is very annoying to subscribers to have to come to the office tor papers in, place of those that have been “nicked.”

The Poverty Bay Rowing Club have received upwards of sixty nominations of new members for election at their annual meeting to be field on Monday evening next. It is the intention of the dub to procure sculling boats at an early date, and with the material to work on that the members have already given good evidence of, we may fairly expect to see some soullers of more than average ability, developed from the ranks of this energetic young club, which bids fair to obtain prominence among the dubs of New Zealand at no distant date.

There will be a large attendance st the Union Literary Society this evening, when there is to be a debate on the praeticableneas or otherwise of the views enunciated in Bellamy’s Looking Backward. Messrs Birrell. Bright, and Walsh, representing the Matawhero Literary Society, take the affirms tive, and on the other side are the Rev. H, Williams and Messrs Chrisp and Greenwood, representing the Union Literary Society. All who would like to be present are invited to n'tend. A large number of country people are expected to come in for the occasion.

An old gentleman named George Scott died in Auckland last week. “Touchstone” makes the following reflections on the event:—A wonderfol old gentleman the late Mr George Scott, of Auckland—born in Donegal 101 years ago. One hundred and one years old. What must he not have seen and heard during such a period ? Thrones thrown over, nations almost wiped out of existence, great inventions, great wars, great men in the height of power and great men laid low by the hand of death. When the news of Waterloo rang through the country lie would be a lad of seventeen ; he saw the steam engine invented, the growth of the power of the people —if he had a good memory it must have been delightful to have had a yarn with him. ‘Up to the last few days he regularly smoked h’s pipe!’ And now, I suppose, the anti-tobacco cranks will want to make out that he might have lived another year had he knocked off the fatal pipe a little earlier. May be, but then the votaries of the weed can contend that it was the knocking off of the pipe that kilted him. Of course this is mere jes ing. Tobacco in moderation is a great boon to millions; when abused, like anything else, it may work serious evil. An Auckland paper Bays:—Billy Murphy worked his way as a pantry boy on board the Zealandia to America. He returned saloon on the same ship worth two or three thousand pounds, it is said. A 'Frisco au'hority, admitting his gameneSs and wonderful hitting power, says that if * Ike Weir’s hands were sound he could trounce two Murphva in one ring. He was compelled to fight Billy here with a bullet wound through oneof his fingers, and even thus handicapped he mode a monkey, a holy show, and a punching bag of the 1 Australian wonder’until his hands became so sore he could no longer use them. Then, finding that Murphy was comparatively strong and fresh, and that if he continued the struggle he was in for a first-class hiding, he took advantage of the first punch in the stomach that he received to go to the floor and double tip like a jacknifel He wasn’t out, but he could fight no more; This was strictly true, for bis hands were useless and he wasn’t in the mood to let himse'f become a chopping block, and so he let his seconds, cry * peocavi ' for him. When the affair was over, to save his reputation he quietly gave out that the rfftir was a cross and that-he had received SOOOdol for losing,’ The Parliamentary discussion on Federation (says the Post) is a very profitless one. Members would be much better employed in trying to pass a few of the useful Bills which are likely now to be numbered among the innocents. The colony takes very little interest in the question of Federation. It has quite made up its mind on the subject, end all the two days talk in the House will produce no effect, one way or the other. The point that will jxoite most general interest ia the number of delegatee thia colony is to send to the Conference, and this interest will be due simply to economic reasons. It .will.not be easy to convince the taxpayers that it is at all necessary to send five members of the present House of Representatives and two members of the Legislative. Council on a mis sion at the public expense to Australia to inform the assembled Conference ihat although New Zealand entertains the most hearty good wishes for the Austra’ian Federation, it has no desire whatever to be included in it, and must decline .to federate, This is what the New Zealand delegates will certainly have to tell the Conference if they represent the mind of their constituents; and surely one or two, or at most three, gentlemen could convey this decision in a sufficiently courteous, yet decisive manner. Some one surely has been playing April first at the expense of the truthful Wellington Herald, dr else our reporting staff have been enjoying Christmas at a rather early period in the year. In last Saturday's numbar the Herald gives the following exciting paragraph, which might be placed under the heading of “ strikes ” :—Ar a meeting of the Gisborne town council the other day, one of the councillors brought a complaint asainst the conduct of the local branch of the Salvation Army. But the latter had friends in the Council. " They squat in front of the public library and bang on their- drums so that nobody knows what he’s reading about,” said the complaining councillor. " Some people [with * mocking emphasis on the "some”| wouldn't know any more if there was no Salvation Army within a hundred miles," replied the friend of the Army. “ But it! they frighten horses,” cried the first speaker. “ They do more,” said the other, impressively; “ they frighten the devi l .” “ Gerrout J I saw the devil last night healin’ the big drum.” “Drunk again,” cheerfully responded the friend of the Army, H« has not attended a council meet'ng since. I, finer,ja. This ia the third or fourth case ocourrlhg In that district Infiueuaa hae the form of a black 'eye, j i

Once (says Puff) make newspapers afraid of speaking the truth and scallywags will reign supreme. The last member returned to the House of Commons, Mr Hall-Jones, was successful on account of the block Labor vote.

A Ponsonby shoemaker, who employs one half-starved apprentice, has been going swaggering around, declaring that ‘ US Employers are not going to be dictated to by these b working men !’—Observer. What was a few months ago looked upon as a promising goldfield, Nenthorne, in Otago, has totally collapsed, and only one claim is being worked. A local writer says the field was killed by compaoy promoting. The News has a neat way of scoring points

at the expense of lhe amateur lumpers at Napier. It says :—‘ Granny ’ says that the amateurs included ‘ most of the youth and beauty of Napier.’ Mr J. Vigor Brown must feel flattered. He is a beauty 1 At the last meeting of the Gisborn® Phonographic Society there was a debate o n the Elizabethian versus the Victorian era, M r F. Faram advocating the former and Mr A • DeCos’a the latter. The other members als° took part in the discussion, the opinion being greatly in favor of Victoria’s reign. The following are the a few of the absentee

landowners of Hawke’s Bay :—Purvis Russell, 25 083 Acres, £112,873; H. R. Russell, 23,953, £79,488 ; John A’Deane, 15,582, £31,165 ; E. ami O. B. Carr, 5773, £24,035 ; R. Curling. 13,087, £45,910 ; T. E. Gordon, 13,314, £47,914 ; J. Rhodes, 6874, £15,670 ; W. Sanders, 13,938, £47,766. Owing to the Australia not being able to communicate with Tologa Bay on her last trip down the coast Mr Booth, 8.M., had to come on to Gisborne. He started overland for Tologa Bay on Tuesday morning, where he holds the usual sitting of the Resident Magistrate's Court.

A recent visitor to New Zealand says be was so struck with the capabilities of the colony for making butter for export to Melbourne, that he has written through the Herald at New Plymouth for information for a firm who are desirous of extenling their operations to New Zealand. It a trades-union consisting of two people of one trade is legal, then a trader-union consisting cf 100 people, or 50,000 people, of 100 different trades, is also legal. To logicallydispute ths right of 'all trades to combine, Capital must begin by denying the right cf the members of any one trade to combine. * Among the “ free laborers ” on the steamer Southern Cross, which arrived at Gisborne on Tuesday, were two sons of a democratic member of Parliament. When the steamer got out of Wellington harbor the majority of the free laborers were prostrate with sea sickness, and generally things were lively on board. At a meeting to form a Political Association in Christchurch, the chairman explained that the object Was to form an Association for the purpose of seeing that every man had his name registered on the electoral roll, and to put forward men from among their own members to represent them in the House of Representatives. Mr F. Jone-, who died this week, had sat in two Parliaments. Ha was returned for Heathcote in February, 1887, on the death of Mr J. L. Coster, and was re-elected at the general election at the end of that year. In local government affairs he had taken a prominent part. Though always voting with lhe present Opposition in the House, Mr Jones was not a very important factor in parliamentary parties, This session he bad not sat all, having been prevented by illness trom coming to Wellington,