LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1825, 26 April 1888, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The arreßt of a legless beggar in Paris has led to the revelation that crippled mendicants , are manufactured in Catalonia for the streets of Paris. " Parents are Baid to amputate the limba of thoir children for the purpose of providing thorn with a paying profession in after-life. I A New York dootor cays people might as well eat sawdust as oatmeal for breakfast. If that doctor only knew how many agile paragraphera vail .vouchsafe the remark that he probably bases his declaration on the faot that sawdust is very fine board, he would have restrained himself from philantrophio motives. Said one merohant to another, " I will take the 4.40 boat." " I will bet you twenty ] pounds you don't," said the other. " Done," replied the first, went together, and, j sure enough, tho dlo boat took them, but neither took the boat, finding it utterly impossible. Twenty pounds changed hands while they were crossing the river. Talking about tho depression in Dunedin, a writer in tho " Evening Herald " sayß:— " town where (besides tho large shops) there usod to be eighteen or twenty small drapers and where to-day there are only two 1 In a' town whioh a yoar ago had seven shop-keepora of one kind in one of itß streets and to-day has only one\ In a town in whioh eight grocers have closed their stores in two months!" The " Oaraaru Mail " learna that M Alexander Thomson, of Kakanui, has ohar-r tered the steamer Tekapo for a trip to Calcutta. The steamer ia expected to leave New Zealand ports about the end of next month. Her cargo will consist chiefly of horsea, specially selected for the Indian market, and of the number — some 215— ove 100 will be taken from Oamaru] together withr all the fodder for U3o during the voyage. " Eouan on Eats."— Clears out rats mice roaches, flies, ants, bed-bugs, beetles, inseots' skunks, jack-rabbits, aparrowa, gophers. At Chemists and druggists, \

The smallest people in the world are said to be the Akkas, of the Monbuttu oountry, Central Afrioa. Two skeletons of this interesting raoe, male and female, being onty 4 feet in height, have arrived in England. An Irishman was engaged in onttinp ice from a pond, and was handed a cross-cut saw to commence operations with. Looking at the saw and at the man who was to help him in working it, he at longth laid it down on the ice, pulled oat a penny from his pooket, and turning to his companion, said, " Come, now, let us have fair play; heads or tails who goea below ? "

A 'private letter received at Reefton from Broken Hill says that town land at Broken Hill is rising rapidly in value, frontages in the the prinoipal thoroughfare,. Argent-street, being expected to reach £200 per foot before the year is out. Mr T. Hunter, late of Reefton and Dunedin, who has oleared £40,000 in silver transactions, has left Broken Hill for Melbourne, hia health having completely broken down.

The " Timaru Herald " learns that Messra Atkinson Bros., who have, sinoe the reoonstruotion of the Ashburton Woollen Manufacturing Company, acted as manager and traveller, respectively, lately resigned their positions, having secured a lease from Mr Wcol of the Timaru Woollen Mills, where they will carry on business as Bpinners and manufacturers. Work at the Timaru mill will soon be in full swing.

The Dunedin " Evening Herald " reports that a resident of Ravensbourna, while on his way home at a late hour one night last week, was accosted in a quiet part of the road by two men who inquired the time. He took out his watch, when the men made a grab at it, but its owner suooeeded in keeping a hold of it. Had not some persons then opportunely made their appearance this affair might hate gone further.

The annual tea meeting of the Flemington Presbyterian Churoh, whioh takes place tomorrow (Friday) evening, is being eagerly looked forward to. The ohoir have prepared several musical selections, and in addition to the local ministers who are expected to speak, the Rev Charles Murray, missionary from the New Hebrides, is announced to take part. He will also addresa the congregations on Sabbath 29th, at Tinwald, Flemington, and Longbeaoh. The Sydney correspondent of the " Melbourne Age " writing of the New South Wales Land Bill, &ays:— "The Land Bill is still under discussion, both inside aud outside the House, and the more it is disseoted the more its unsoundnesß is apparent. If ever there was a time when a Land Bill demanded unflinching scrutiny and most careful and farseeing attention to detail, it is the present. Already 40,000,000 acres of the public territory have been alienated, and it is somewhat startling faot that this vast extent of country is in the hands of some 500 persons. An artiole called frigiline (says an exohange, has been brought out for the preservation of milk, oream, butter, lard, soups, eggs, fish, poultry, meat, fruit, jellies, ve^et ibles, etoj It is a prepared powder, dissolvable in hot water at a temperature of between 70deg and lOOdeg Fahr. It is then allowed to 0001, and is used aocording to directions. The powder is white and perfeotly tasteless. It is stated that milk oan be kept by it for weeks, whilst tho price of the artiole is very oheap. If frigiline oomes up to only half what is said of it, it is one of the greatest blessings in a hot oountry that has been devised.

A man has been been sentenced in Sydney (says the " Dunedin Star ") for stealing an umbrella, This should be a caution to umbrella and stick " shakers " generally, and especially to those individuals, not altogether unknown, that pick up these unoonsidered trifles when accidentally left in the tram-oars. The popular delusion that umbrellas and s ioks are fair game ha3 beeu thus rudely dispelled by the Sydney Bench, and the incarcerated gentleman will have the opportunity of reflecting at his leisure on the instability of the moral code as applied.to potty larceny.

On the railway line at the Thames, which was begun two years ago, which has never yet earned a sixpence, and where the permanent way is getting overgrown, and is mouldering away, the Eailway Department have been prescient enough to put up huge notices — "Stop! Look out for the. engine I " As the residents of that distriot have been " looking out " for two years, and no engine has been visible as yet, wo would suggest .that the Dopartment should get the notice-board repainted, and should substitute " Look out for the Millenium 1 " or Borne equally apposite legend.

An English exohange has the following : — " The excavations now in progress at Sidon are likely to throw considerable light upon the Old Testament Scriptures. Already 18 sarcophagi have been discovered, some being of very large Bize and in perfeot preservation. One of them contains the body of a man and a large amount of jewellery. The features and body were intact, with the teeth verfeot. The inscription on the lid is in seven and a half lines of Phoenician characters, with also some Egyptian hieroglyphios, the stone being blaok basalt from Egypt. The date is as yet only conjectured but it is thought to be betwoen 800 and 1500 B.C. The writer of a letter from Syria asks—" Who ia ho ? What if he should bo Ethbaal, 'King of the Sidonians 1 ' "

A blatant, braying sample of the loudmouthed, self oonscious, look-at-me variety of men took his seat in a. street car, and called to the oonc!uotor— Does this cargo all the way up ? " Yoa sir," responded the conductor politely. " Does it go up as far as Liverpool {street ? Want to got off thero." " Yes, sir," was the reply. " Well, I want you to tell nio when you get there. You'd better stick a wafer on your nose, or put a straw in your mouth, or tie a knot in one of your lips, so that you won't forget it." "It would not be convenient for mo in my position to do bo," said the conductor, courteously ; " but if you will kindly pin your ears around your neck, I think I will romember to tell you." Amid the roars of the passengers, the man said he had " forgotten something " and got off at the next oorner.

.Who shall discover the seoret of the gift of art? (asks Andrew Lang in "Longman's Magazine "). The Christy Fund has bought and bestowed on the British Museum some relioa from the Bone Caves in France. Here are sketches etohed on bone and ivory by men who were contemporary with the Mammoths, men who lived before the Glacial period. How long ago is that ? Probably it must be computed in hundreds of thousands of years. But the sketches have the freedom of a Landsoer, and are jottod down, here and there on the stones, as Raphael jotted down hasty studies. They are as f&r removed from other savage art as is the art of Leech. The very implements of this astonishing pre -glacial people have a Greek refinement and delicacy of curve and tapering outline. Did they migrate south, before the advanoing ice, and become the ancestors of the Greeks ?

Mr Inuea, of Brookley, Kent, writing to Mr W. __ Murray (at ono timo member for Bruce, and now of Auokland) states that Mr Inuea, jun., of Messra Lewis and Innes, 21, Great St. Helen's, London, E.G., thiea years ago reoeived a shipment of butter from Sydney which proved a failure, as it melted in the tropics. Iteoently a further oousignment of Sydney butter was sont Home in the refrige? rator of one of the steamers aud sold at 112a per owt. Since then they have reoeived about 150 tons, which have sold at prices varying with quality from OSa to 110a per cwfc. The last oonaigment hung a little, as oontinontal shippers have been lowering their prices, but the quality being all right, it movod off satis, faotonly. Mr Innes, sen., who is about 80 years of age, communieatos thoso faols to Mr in the hope that they may prove of interest to dairy farmers in New Zealand. '

Thousands die annually from somo form kidney diseaßo that might have been pr . vented by a timely uee of Hop Bitters. Rea Holloway's Pills.— Enfeebled Existence. — This medioino embraoes every attribute ' required in a general and domestic remedy It overturns the foundations of diseases laid by defeotive food and impure air. In obstructions or congestions of the liver, lungs, bowels, or any other organs, these pills are especially serviceable and eminently successful. They should bo kept in readiness in every family, being a medioine of incomparable utility for oung persona, especially those of feeble oon. titutions. They never oause pain or irritate the most sensitive nerves or most tender owels. Holloway's Pills are the best known urifiers of the blood, the most aotive prootera of absorption and secretion, whereby 11 poisonous and obnoxious partioloa aro omoved from both solids and fluids,