LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12405, 29 December 1909, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

To-day is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, who was born on 29th December, 1809.

Mr H. R. S. Taylor, dentist, in another column, notifies that his surgery will be closed till Tuesday, 11th January, 1910.

The bill-of-fare at the Jubilee Home on Christmas Day was as follows :— Breakfast: Porridge and milk, ham, bread, butter, tea. Dinner: Roast lamb and mint sauce, pickled pork and broad beans, green peas, new potatoes, Christmas plum pudding and lemon sauce, apricot pie, plum pie, chocolate blanc mange, wine jelly, fruit jelly, oranges, bananas, pears, peaches, pineapple, muscatels, raisins, lollies, lemonade and ginger ale. Tea: Ham, ox tongue, green tomato, pickles, Christmas cake, cocoanut cake, marble cake, sponge cake, lemon cake, assorted pastry, mixed biscuits, bananas, oranges, lollies, pears, pineapple, jelly, blanc mange, jams, cheese, bread, butter, tea. Mr S. Allen, on behalf of the inmates, desires to thank the Mayor and Mayoress for their kind donation of tobacco, pastry, and biscuits; also the members of the Sandy Hook Happy Family Camp for their kind donation of tobacco.

An amusing, and at the same time an noying departmental delay has just come to light (says an Australian paper) In 1883, 26 years ago, a Wagga resident lodged an application for the issue of a real property title to a piece of land. After repeated attempts to secure an answer from the department the matter was apparently forgotten, until this week, when the applicant was surprised by the receipt of his title. No explanation was forthcoming for the delay of more than a quarter of a century.

The Dunedin “Star” points out that the smokers’ tribute to the Exchequer last year amounted to £568,000. That is quite enough — unless, indeed, Government and Parliament should decide one of these days to draw a line between wholesome pipe-smoking and the pernicious and offensive habit of inhaling cigarette smoke. Offensive, we say, for the pollution of the atmosphere caused by the smoky discharge of the cigarette-inhaler’s lungs is very different from the salubrious aroma generated by the cleanly pipe-smoker. Next year Sir Joseph Ward might put a Special impost on cigarettes.

Says a London correspondent: Of the latest additions to the group of Rhodes scholars at Oxford two from Australia have entered at Balliol and a third at Exeter College. The Rhodes system is adding enormously to the prestige of Oxford. The attraction of the famous old university are felt in the ever widening circle throughout the world. Among the undergraduates (not “Rhodesters”) who have just begun their first term are young men from China, Hyderabad, Paris, Aligarh, Constance, Heidelberg, Groningen, Cracow, Berlin, Calcutta, Leipzig, Egypt, California and South America.

The Committee of the Wanganui Orphanage desire to thank very cordially those friends who have been mindful of the institution at this Christmas season. It is a great help and encouragement to those who manage the affairs of the Orphanage to have the practical sympathy of friends. Donations of money have been sent from Mrs Spencer River Bank; Mr McWilliam; Queen’s Park Standard VI., Mr Higgie, Mrs Roberts, Cosmopolitan Club, Mrs Bates, Mr Manson (Kai Iwi), employees of Messrs Paul and Co., Miss Alexander Mr D’Arcy. The Kai Iwi school forwarded a large quantity of cakes, a parcel was sent by Mrs Purser, Aramoho Wesleyan School sent a present to each child, Mrs Griffiths and Miss Alexander sent cakes, Messrs White and Co. and Mrs O. Lewis forwarded toys. In addition to his donation of money, Mr McLellan gave a fine lot of jam and fruit, and the young folks enjoyed at least one breakfast of schnapper, the gift of Mr Dewson, and last, but not feast the sum of £10 17s 2d has been handed in, being the collection taken up on Boxing night when the Navals gave their “Kazoo” performance. The Committee heartily acknowledge this substantial gift. “I’m a humble man,” meekly remarked Mr McIntosh, M.L.C., at the Russell Memorial unveiling ceremony, at Sydney University last week, “but” ...with a flashing smile of infinite optimism... “I’m a Scotsman!” He was relating his reminiscences of the late Sir Peter Nicol Russell, whom he knew from the early ’forties. He told how Sir Peter had left his home at Kirkaldie in 1832, because his world was too small. He commenced business in Tasmania, which place he likewise found himself too large for. He then removed to Sydney, and opened, a small engineering works at CirQuay, subsequently moving inwards and establishing what was, or promised to be the biggest ironworks in Australia, and perhaps in the southern hemisphere. “In 1875 a great strike among the engineers, almost as disastrous as the present one occurred,” said Mr McIntosh, “and Sir Peter’s business was irretrievably ruined. He was away Home at the time, and when he returned he found only the remains of a once thriving enterprise, and he ‘fair cried’ when he said to me. ‘Mac, all my work in Australia has gone for nothing.’ ” Sir Peter evidently thrived subsequently, for rushing on with his story, Mr McIntosh a few minutes later was telling the audience that he had advised the wealth engineer that £100,000 was “little enough” for him to give towards an engineering school at Sydney University. Dr J. C. Dunlop, superintendent of the Statistical department in the regis-trar-general’s office (says the “Scotsman,”) read a paper on “Occupation Mortalities” at a meeting in Edinburgh, under the auspices of the Faculty or Actuaries in Scotland. He dealt with a recent statistical report for England and Wales, and devised new methods for studying that information, with the result that he found that the 12 occupations found to be of the lowest mortality or with the greatest expectation of life at the age of 25, were as follows:... Clergy (with expectation of 42.8 years), gardeners (42.3 years), gamekeepers (42.1 years), farmers (41.8 years), railway enginedrivers (41.7 years), farm labourers (41.5 years), schoolmasters (41.2 years), brick-makers (41.1 years), civil service officials (40.3 years), grocers (40.2 years), paper-makers (40.2 years), and ironstone miners (40.2 years). The 12 occupations found to be of highest mortality, or with the smallest expectation of life, are general labourers (27.8 years), tin miners (28.5 years), costermongers (29.0 years), inn and hotel servants (29.4 years), publicans and innkeepers (30.4 years), seamen (31.3 years) file-makers (31.5 years), general shopkeepers (32.4 years), cutlers (32.6 years), dock labourers (32.9 years), messengers (33.0 years), and potters (33.5 years).

A cable message recently announced that the opera “Fallen Fairies” proved successful at the Savoy Theatre, London. According to the London “Telegraph,” the new piece is a modernised version of Sir William Gilbert’s old Haymarket play, “The Wicked World,” produced in 1873. Turning back the pages of the theatrical calendar, it is useful to read therein that the cast included Miss Madge Robertson (Mrs Kendal) Miss Amy Rosehe, Miss Marie Lytton, Mr Kendal, and Mr J. B. Buckstone, owner and lessee of the theatre, in the part of Lutin, a comic fairy. In the opera the description of the new scene remains unchanged. It took the form of “a fairy landscape on the back of a cloud.” “The incidents, of the play,” to quote Dutton Cook’s account, “are supposed to occur in a skyey kingdom, inhabited by fairies, who from their elevated position in the clouds are enabled to watch and condemn the proceedings of the mortal world hanging in the ether beneath them.” Each of the dwellers in fairyland is supposed to possess upon earth “a counterpart in outward form.” To this kingdom comes Ethais and Phyllon, Gothic knights of rude bearing and indifferent morality, with whom, notwithstanding, coarse roysterers as they are, the fairies with one accord fall in love. “The introduction of mortal passion into fairyland, and the miseries that thereupon ensue, constitute the chief argument of the drama.”