LOCAL AND GENERAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1914, 9 August 1888, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Kaitangata people have been able to skate on real ice lately.

Potatoes have gone up 4s 6d a bag at Milton within the last few days.

The New Plymouth Harbour Board has been served with a writ for £20,000 for the loss of the Haweu.

The "Bruce Herald " thinks the object of the Kauri Company is to denude New Zealand of her finest timber to the profit of come Melbourne men.

Mr John Butherford's Tiraaru Harriers ffill hunt here, by epecial invitation, on Tuesday next, 14th inst. The meet will be at Tinwald, at 11.30 am., and wo hope to see a very full number of Bporlsmen on the oocasion.

The " Auckland Herald " oomplaiua of the " accumulation " of illegitimate children m the hands of the Charitable Aid Board, who have had placed under their " maternal oare " no fewer than 35 of these unwelcome colonists within the last twelve months.

At the Charitable Aid Board meeting m Ohristchuroh yesterday Me Harrison reported that tho Home at Ashburton was full, but that matters were progressing there favour, ably. They were often applied to for temporary aesistaoce, and matters were carefully attended to by the looal Committee.

At Boksmeer, m Holland, a|large paoket of letters, containing the correspondence that passed between Napoleon I and his brother, King Louis of Holland, has been discovered. The letters had been deposited by the Kin? with his private seoretary, whose grandson is the present owner of them.

There was quite a large attendance at the Rink last night, when Mr Bass essayed the feat of riding a bioyole against all comers on skates, distance one mile. Curtis and E. Simpson were the only two skaters who made good time against the oyolist who won easily, doing the neoessary distance m s min 36secB, while E. Simpson took 6min 42seos to get round the corners whioh . number about 180 to the mile.

The •• Wairarapa Star" is. of opinion that severe^ physical punishment is the best remedy for crime. Our contemporary remarks : — 16 is ot no use turning the wife beater, the child beater, the sot, the idle vagabond, the petty thief, into a cell and a court yard to luxuriate m regimentals. The cat will do more to oure the callous disposition m an hour, than gaol treatment would accomplish m ten years, and the knowledge that the cat's claws can be sharpened to any neoessary extent will prove a better deterrent than even the hangman's rope. -

Experiments have just been made at Tours to disoover the quickest means of communication during war. The distance was 12 kilometres on the road frcm Tours to Montbazon — an irregular road with ups and downs and turnings. The competitors were two dragoons, two hussars, bicyclists, tricyolists, and a dog-cart, two new war dogs and pigeons. This was. the result : — The pigeons made the journey m 5 mm 35sec, husgars m 7min 57aeo, dragoons Bmin, dogs m Bmin Bseo and Bmin 38seo respectively, bicyclist 9min 15seo, trioyolists, one m lOmin 30sec and the other m lOmin and 40seo, and the. dog-oart m 12min saeo.

A meeting of the members and subscribers to the Western fire Brigade was held last evening. A letter was read from the Borough Council agreeing to recoup actual expenses inourred by the Brigade m attending fires within the borough. Members expressed the opinion that such an arrangement would be unfair to the Brigade, as they would have to pay out of their own pockets the cost of cleaning the engine, gas, etc. Some new hose, also, was urgently required. After disousaion it was decided to write to the Borough Council informing them that the Brigade was a certain amount m debt, and m addition had to inour expenses independent of those inoutred at fires.

Since the insertion of a local the other day respecting the problem— "lE a hen and a half lay an egg and a half m a day and a ha'f, how many eggs would six hens lay m seven days." We have been deluged with answers, no two of which agree. Stephen E. Whitta, of Lauriston, who favors us with bis yiewß on the subjeot, woiks it out to hia own satisfaction, and makes 28 eggs the answer, and he adds, " The person who framed the Bum either had half of someone else's common sense as well as bis own, or else he had not enough. If he will make a pie of his half hen, half egg, and half day, then his six hens will lay 42 eggs m seven days. Otherwise, taking the thing aB it stand?, the riddle— if it may be called so — is correot at 28 eggs, thus, as 1J hens are to 6 hens, and as 1£ days are to 7 days, so are theee to 1£ eggs."

The " Post " says :— One of ihe immediate results of Mr Walker's no-confidence motion has been the consolidation of the Opposition, which may now be regarded as a compact and organised body numbering 32 votes. These gentlemen are understood to have pledged themselves to act together for this session as a legitimate Opposition, the operations of which are to be direoted by a Committee of seven members. The committee will oarefully watch and sorutinise the actions of the Government, but no definite action will be taken without the approval of a general meeting. The opposition organisation of oourse does not include the Freetraders, who form a party by themselves, apparently m greater sympathy with Ministers than with the Opposition. Another meeting will be held on Tuesday for the election of the committee. Mr Walker will probably be appointed leader of the Opposition.

The smaller papers of the Auckland distriot all ooinoida with the viws expressed m the Auckland journals with reference to the Village Settlements. The " Northern Advertiser" a bright little paper published at Dargaville, disoussing this subject, says:— "Every able-bodied man, and espeoially every Good tradesman, who leaves the colony permanently, .represents a loaa of at least one hundred pounds to the State merely as a revenue produoer ; if then only one hundred men per month leave Auokland, this represents an annual loss of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds m Auokland alone, while it oontinues. Now if the establishment of these Village Settlements only partially checked the present alarming exodus of the beßt bone and sinew of the colony, what shall we say of those public men who have the power and yet refuse to proceed with the establishment of them? Are they not traitors to New Zealand ?

The " Oamaru Mail " of Monday last says : — "If the House of Representatives had not been so irritably impatient, and bo punotilious as to parliamentary etiquette it might have turned Mr Walker's no-confidence motion to such good purpose as to afford some enlightenment on the question of colonial representation. But the debate is notable as containing nothing pore than the austomary amount of reorimination and small talk. Whatever may have been Mr Walker's motive m springing suoh a surprise on the House— whether he desired to have two members of the present Cabinet supplanted by Messrs Walker and Lanoe, or honestly believed that to oarry the Representation Aots of 1887 into offset would be injurious — there can be no question that the verdiot of the oolony is that he asked Parliament to make a retro* gressive movement. Jf there was one thing more than another that the oolony imperatively demanded during the last general elootion it was that the number of members m both Houses of legislature Bhould be appreciably reduced. The people had at last been driven to the conolusion that a multitude of counsellors had not, so far as the oolony was concerned, been produotive of wisdom. . . . . If the death of party were supplemented by the extinction of localism m the Colonial Legislature, through the substitution of Hare's system of elootion for that m vogue now, and the establishment of a plan of local Government that would abolish the necessity for attention being given to local questions jn Parliament, then we would have attained a basis on whioh our wisest nien— having been freed from the poisoning influence of self interest— might build up a prosperity of whioh we now do not even dream.