MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1242, 7 March 1883, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

An Australian paper states that it is nothing uncommon to see girls smoking pipes in the streets of Ballarat.

I will explain that whenever I want .a thing, and Mrs Me Williams wants another thing, and we decide upon the thing that Mrs Me Williams wants — as ■we always do — she calls that a compromise. — Mark Twain.

A new kind of competition has sprung up in Wellington in theforra of waltzing matches. On Wednesday last a match •of this kind was danced by two couples. Both kept the floor for three quarters of an hour, when one of the females fainted and lost the match. What will be next ?

The stock inspector of New South Wales, in a report on the rabbit pest, «ays : — ln this Colony already, the owners of three or four stations have spent £3,000, others up to £2,000, and other sums ranging from £1.000 downwards, and I am sorry to say ■with generally comparatively little permanent effect. A great many of the owners in the infested country are now keeping men employed all the year round searching for and destroying rabbits. On some stations as many as 30 hands have been employed at this work at one time, on others 25, on others

2015, 12, and 10, accompanied by drays, teams and packs of clogs. The rabbits have ruined many owners in all the colonies in which they have obtained a footing, while the amount spent in fighting the pest and loss through their destroying the pasture and crops is enormous. On one property alone (the Messrs Robertson's of Colac) about £4.0 000 was laid out in clearing it of rabbits, and putting a stone wall 3ft deep in the ground round it ; and other owners, also in the western districts of Victoria, with properties of 8,000, 10,000,20,000, and 30,000 acres, are spending annually sums varying from £1,000 to £3,000 in merely keeping rabbits down ; while in the Wimmera district, so far as the Crown lands are concerned, it may be said that the rabbits have to a large extent taken possession of the country, for runs that at onetime carried 50,000 sheep do not now keep 5,000. In fact, it is stated by those whose opinion is to be relied upon, that the rabbit pest has already cost Victoria between £4,000, 000 and £5,000,000 sterling ; and as it is still spreading there and will, if not speedly checked, soon be all over the Colony, the amount mentioned is nothing to what the pest will ultimately cost the Colony, ... . .