Local & General News.

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 33, 21 August 1883, Page 2

Local & General News.

The tender accepted for repairs to the the Kotouiahana amounts to £4255 10s. TUe gross receipts at the concert amounted to £30 Is. Expenses, £8.;ls — leaving a nett balance of £22. On Saturday afternoon a lar^e tree was blown down accross the Awahuri Road. 700 draught horses hnvo been shipped for Sydney from New Zealand during the past three months. We remind our readers of the entertainment in the Makino road schoolroom this evening in aid of the school prize fund. A remarkably beautiful lunar rainbow was visible here on Saturday evening about eight o'clock. It was elear and well defined from both points of the arc. It is now confidently asserted that the session will close next week, and that the prorogation will either take place on the 31st or the following Tuesday. It is probable that the Knights of the Willow resident in Feilding and Taonui will soon begin to make arrangements for the matches to be played during the coming season. The next quarterly Government parade of the Manchester Rifles will be held on Thursday, the 13th September, and, if the weather is unpropitious, on Tuesday, the 18th. The comparative success of the Terawhit'i gold fields ought to encourage the good people of Palmerston to send out prospectors to try the ground that was partially open' d up some time ago. In adjusting the accounts between the Manawatu and Kiwitea Road Boards, it has been discovered that the amount due by the Kiwitea Board to the Manawatu Board only amounts to £61. Thi9 is about half the amount claimed. Yellow fever has made its appearance at the quarantine lazaretto below Philadelphia. The physicians are apprehensire that Egyptian cholera will visit the United State?. It is travelling just in the same tracks as in former years. It is estimated that 3000 persons, young and old, have joined the Blue Bibbon organisation in Dunedin within the last four weeks. All classes of the community are becoming willing proselytes. A man named McGnire died at Newtown, Wellington, on Saturday, of typhoid fevor, and a girl who gave evidence before the Commission Friday last has been seized with the name-disease. Both were immigrants by the Oxford. At the nomination of candidates for the Oroua riding, Vlanawatu County Council, on Saturday, at Sanson, Mr James Bull was proposed by H. Sanson, seconded by Mr A. C. Burcham ; and Mr Lethbridge was proposed by S. Fagan, and seconded by Mr T. Hensen, senr. A narrow escape from fire was experienced by the inmates of a house opposite the railway station on Saturday night. The chimney caught fire and burned with remarkable fierceness, and as there was a heavy gale blowing at the time the flames were often in unpleasant contact with the roof. ' The ioint committee of the Lords and Commons rejected the Channel tunnel project by six to four. Majority of the committee, however, differed so much relative to their reasons for voting against, that they refrained from pre» senting any collective statement of their news to Parliament. We have received from the Government Printer copies of the followin Acts: Leaseholders' Qualification. Fire and Marine Insurance Companys', Gaming & Lotteries /Amendment, Juries, Animals Protection, Settled Land, Pharmacy, Peace Preservation Continuance, Sheep, West Coast Settlement Reserves and Maori Representation. That most valuable of all insects, " the little busy bee," has at last got a periodical all to himself. It is entitled " The New Zealand and Australian Pee Journal," and is devoted exclusively to advanced bee culture in the colonies, but more especially in New Zealand. The journal which is issued monthly, contains 12 pages of extremely interesting matter to all apiarians, and is yery neatly printed and got up by Mr Wickham of the Free Lance office, Auckland. The editor is Mr I. Hopkins, manager of the Matamata A piary Cambridge, Wuikato, the property of Mr J. C. Firth, containing hundreds of hives, all worked on scientific principles, and a view of which apiary adorns: the cover of the journal. We: command the periodical to all who wish to follow Jiee culture pn the most approved principles, and-, to make, it a pleasant and profitable pursuit. - . / 1.. -. > * *'

Our rudders are reminded that ltainer'* Diorama of the American "War will be exhibited at the Town Hall to-morrow night. Large numbers of valuable presents will bo given awiiy. The San Francisco mail arrived in A neb In ml on Sunday at 8 p.m., and was delivered here to-day at noon. This is • probably an unprecedented font of delivi ery so farastho West Coast is concerned. A male convict at the French penal colonj of Cayenne recently obtained permission to marry a female convict; but as the man was a widower, the Governor declared it was necessary first to obtain a certificate of the death of his first wife. A communication was addressed to the authorities, but the mail returned without reply. The convict insisting that the ceremony should be no longer delayed, the Governor said, " But what is there to prove that your first wife is dead ?" The reply of the convict was satisfactory on this point : " I'm here for having assassinated her !" and the nuptia ; ceremony went on. The lubricating oil now used on all New Zealand railways is thai which is expressed from pea-nuts. The nut ia extensively grown in the islands and iniported largely into New Zealand. The story goes that an enterprising firm at Auckland erected a mill for the manufacture of pea-nut oil, and then called upon the Government to support a colonial industry by employing the oil on the railways. In due course the Government invited tenders for this oil, and, as showing how the " best laid schemes of men and mice gang aft agley." a cute Dunedin 1 Johnny Chinuman secured the contract ! A case possessing features of interest to members of the volunteer force was dealt *with at the civil sitting of the Resident Magistrate's Court, "Wellingtoni when Captain Loveday, of the Guards, , proceeded against Mr William M'Keever, late member of that corps, for the recovery of 30s, amount of fines, &c, due by the latter. Evidence having been taken on either side, His Worship gave 1 j udgment for 10s only, holding that the plaintiff could not recover the remainder of the claim, for which he held an 1.0.U., as the liability has been contracted more than twelve months ago. —Post.