LOCAL AND GENERAL

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 560, 22 January 1891, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The County Council meets at the usual hour •o-tnorrow afternoon. Two upstanding hacks will be offered for sale at noon today, by Mr J. Fisher, poundkeeper, Whataupoko. There was a long discussion at the Borough Council on Tuesday evening, concerning the Taruheru footbridge, but nothing new was brought out. Yesterday morning a shark about 9ft. long wat caught in a net by Mr Christenson. The capture was made in the river, near the breakwater. Although last year was considered a dull one in Victoria, the sum ot £7219 was received by the Melbourne Argus and handed over for distribution to various public and private charities. At Tenui, Wairarapa, a child of five years accidently struck another half that age, above the knuckles, with a sharp axe; four of the fingers of the left hand were only hanging by the skin, and the loss of blood nearly resulted in death. Bell is the injured child’s name. A Wairarapa reporter thus graphically describes a Court ease, in which groat results sprang from little causes: —A little boy harpooned a trout. The ranger happened to be about. The ranger took the fish in keeping ; and sent [he boy home sadly weeping. But ’ere that trout tha ranger swallowed ; the angry parent quickly followed, That ranger lumped and yelled and bounded; but wasn’t he sadly spanked and pounded. And now the parcel has bacn bound; to keep the peace for fifty pound. A vory successful social meeting in aid of tho Catholic Church was held at the City Rink last night. Over 200 persons, a good number of whom were country people, were present, and a vary pleasant evening was spent, the jloliflcation being extended until a late hour. Mr J. Wallace catered for the social, and an excellent spretd was the result. Messrs Spurdie, Hall, and Ormond supplied music. The financial return should be satisfactory. An English news item says there is quite a scare among the butchers and farmers ot West Cornwall owing to tha introduction ot frozen foreign meat, whose importers are about to open shops all along the route of the railway to be supplied by a depot at Plymouth. At Camborne, on market days, ihe miners are eager to obtain joints of beef or lamb from America or New Zealand. Coarse cqts of English beef will have to be sold in that district very cheap or not at all. Butter and pork are now cheaper in Cornwall than at any time within remembrance. There ie a strong feeling among ratepayers in tha Borough, against tho proposal to take a road through the recreation ground. It is urged that thia is making a present to the residents on tha other side to the depreciation oi property in the Borough ; but it is further urged, if a rogd is to be taken it would ba more sensible to take it straight through the ground, cutting the reserve up and disposing oi it far building sites. It is said that the reserve Is next to useless if the proposed road is proclaimed, while on the o'her hand it would be a valuable site for cottages to be erected on, and a much more suitable ground could be obtained elsewhere for tha sum realised. The Harvey theatrical company played at the Theatre Royal on Tuesday evening and also last night. The company has not found Gisborne people in a happy mood, there having latterly been an overdose of shell entertainments; so much so that a reaction has set in, and a determined prejudice is among the things to be fought against. The result is that the Harvey Company has had very poor houses, though some portions of ths entertainment arc exceptionally good. Miss Helen Gordon Canard’s singing is a portion of tha programme which gave special pleasure each evening, and she was repeatedly recalled.

The Westport Harbor Board wanted 30 man for the dredge and barges; 160 applications were made. A settler in Woodville district complains that he has lost 250 sheep, and wholesale theft is suspected. The Wairarapa Star says that the fire brigades working at the big bush fires withstood the scorching blast with an enthusiasm amounting to heroism. The Taranaki people are striving to have the annual Fire Brigade conference and demonstration held at Taranaki at Easter, when the jubilee of that place is to be celebrated. The cutter Coralie, which was bar-bound at the Wairoa for the past six weeks, sailed for Auckland on Tuesday last, but owing to adverse winds she had to coma to an anchorage in the bay yesterday afternoon. At the Occidental Hotel in Masterton some grown up larrikins deliberately hacked a couple of valuable pictures, tbs landlord having refused to supply them with drink. They are said to be known and are asked to apologise I A contemporary which is strongly against the appointment of Judge Edwards says the appointment cannot be cancelled, but they might do with him as church folks in Auckland do with unpopular parsons starve him out. A South American lady claims to have made a discovery. Water being scarce she washed her face with watermelon juice, and after repealing the application for a few days her freckles entirely disappeared. One journal refers to Mr Pyke as that old master of political demoralisation, aud says that if he does not get called to tho Upper House it will not be for want of trying. At an Oddfellows’ Social at Waipawa the other evening Mr Mogridge (formerly of Gisborne) said that though a Forester he had been an Oddfellow for 16 years and still contributed to the Auckland district. The Waipawa Mail regrets that Te Kooti and his followers could not on their travels be arrested for vagrancy, they having no visible means of support except by taxing the good nature of their friends. At Waipawa the other day the Ven. Archdeacon S. Williams united Mr W. Clark and Miss Dillon, of Patangata. Tho Rev. Samuel Williams had performed the same ceremony for the parents of both the bride and bridegroom. We have received a pamphlet containing useful information on tha destructive insects of Australia. It ja by Messrs Quiball Bros,, Newark, England, their Melbourne agents being Messrs McLean Brea, and Bigg. Australia is well supplied by Pressmen from New Zealand. Mr H. Tapperell, a clever young man who worked his way up from a compositor at Masterton, has received an appointment on the Sydney Daily Telegraph. The Pressmen in Wellington presented him with a gold watch. Mr Hodgson, the Nelson School Inspector, says ;—The system of examining for individual passes is vicious in the extreme, and productive of disastrous results. It sets up a paradise of dunces, on whom is now bestowed—with little profit—tho inordinate attguffon formerly paid to clever children. Tenders for tha completion of St. Patrick's R.O. Cathedral at Melbourne, with the exception of the towers, have been accepted, the price being £4O 500. On the completion of this contract the Cathedra! will be complete, with the exception of three towers, tho build ing of which it is roughly estimated will cost £30,000. Agnes Rankin, an irrepressible American female who is always getting into trouble, says it does not pay to be a woman, and proves ho® by disguising herself as a man she can get on fifty times better jn the world, with much higher wages tor far less work. But the authorities object to her wearing men’s clothes. A correspondent calling himself a student of nature, and who has a strong antipathy to being a victim of a breach of promise ease, writes to the Wanganui Chronicle upholding the " Festival of Nennere," a yearly solemnisation of betrothals which may at that period be broken or fulfilled.