Local & General News.

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 48, 24 April 1884, Page 2

Local & General News.

A Bpecial and ordinary meeting of the Borough Council will be held this evening. At the District Court held in Palmer* ston yesterday a nonsuit was entered up in the case Whisker y Haybittle, no evidence was called for the defence. A man named Burrows, employed on the railway line near Okoio. and wellknown in the Wanganui district, was killed last evening on No. 3 Line by the upsetting of a trap in which he was driving a young horse. On Tuesday afternoon a chimney in a house ocoupied by Mr T. Price in Eyre street took fire. Mr P. Thompson and Mr Lightbourne promptly took successful means to entingtush it, and prevent the shingles being ignited. Constable Price will take proceedings, under the Borough Bye-laws against, MrT. Price. The many friends of Mr Parr will be glad to know that he is progressing very favorably towards recovery from the injury he sustained in connection with the late accident. A notice will be found elsewhere that business will he carried on as usual at Messrs Parr and Bennett's new coach factory in Kimbolton road.

" There's wisdom in the cask," sings an old poet who knew how to have a good time. And he is right. A cask has two heads. j Since the opening of the Suez Canal, the price of tea in England has, 1879 I excepted, declined each year. It ha s j never beenjlower than now. j A scheme is under consideration for ■ making England and Scotland two distinct islands by constructing a canal fromfthe Tyne to the Solway. Th<-re has been a " fire epidemic" in Adelaide. In a fortnight fifteen conflagrations occurred, destroying upwards of £50,000 worth of property. The Lowland Scotch, as a great American employer of labour testified before a Committee of the House of Commons, are, as labourers in the United States, of no use at all. They all become masters in two years. In Sweden, at one time, 35 gallons of brandy fell annually to the share of each inhabitant. The custom was discontinued many years ago, hence immigration to Sweden is unknown. Father Lima, canon of Evora Cathedral, Lisbon, and a peer of Portugal, shot himself with a revolver in a cemetery in Lisbon, while under the influence of a monomania, which took the form of the apprebeftsiaft of persecution. A Temperance Colonisation Society, has been formed in Canada, which proposes td fill a traot of land two million acres'in.reitent, with »ettlers who will engage neither to make, import, nor sell intoxicating liquors. Cardinal Manning has issued nn order that a branch of the Catholic Total Abstinence League of the Cross be founded in every Catholic school, and that the manager of such school must be a total abstainer. The deacon's wife wanted to jot down the text, and leaning over to her scapegrace nephew, she whispered, " Have you a card about you ?'* " You can't play in church !" was his solemn, reproving answer ; and the good woman was so flustered that she forgot all about the text. A city clergyman, who had just obtained some weeks' vacation from his labours in the midst ot the hot weather, when he had got into the country erhere he could feel himself truly at leisure, exclaimed, " Thank goodness I do not have to preach or pray for the next six weeks." It is all well enough to advise a young man to overcome all obstacles by " taking the bull by the horus ; " but when the youth is in the middle of a field and the bull is coming towards him with its head down and his tail lashing the air, the young man prefers to take the fence. English naval and military papers are deploring a scarcity of men for the Royal navy. It is recorded that the stock of men is so low that two ships fitting out, requiring 800 men, would exhaust all the available material. The authorities will have to give Jack better pay, and more liberty, to make the service popular. The plans and specifications for the re-erection of Mr Rees' coach factory are being prepared by Messrs Atkins and Clere. The new building will be on the same site as the one which was burned down, and is to be larger and of still more substantial construction. As soon as the plans are ready, tenders will be called for the work. In the meantime Mr Rees is carrying on his business in the Corporation shed opposite the site of the factory. Replying to a question ih Patea, says the Star, Major Atkinson said he did not think the triennial parliament was satisfactory, but it would be Unwise to make a charge until they saw if they should get on better. He feared that next session the members would be restless as they would imagine their opponent*) were convassing the constituencies, and he would like tbe electors to turn it over in their minds whether a triennial was the best Parliament. Many who euppprted it at first had come ta the eonctasion that it was not. Auckland is the place just now for amusements, and they are well patronised too. On Easter Monday (says the Star), it was estimated that £130 was taken at Woodyear's Circus; while the Opera House was also crowded, and represented on a rough computation about £175. The Choral Hall (Kennedy's), and St. James' Hall were crowded, and the service at the latter place was expected to yield something like £80. The world Circus had a good attendance, say £60, so it is supposed that fully £500 was spent in amusement on that night. Notwithstanding the lovely weather we are now enjoying, the publio health is anything but satisfactory. Infectious disease is prevalent to a considerable extent, and deaths have been undesirably frequent lately. Probably the principal cause of this state of things is the incomplete drainage in the new wards. Where the arrangements for the disposal of refuse and sewage are defective, there will inevitably be epidemical sickness, and the very first dnty of municipal bodies is to grapple this subject promptly and energetically. — Auckland Free Lance. In the Liverpool Courier is an account of a perilous ride taken by a man named Geo. Adams nnder an express train. ■He had taken a piece of ropeand by throwing it over the axle bar, and, noosing it at each end, made a support for his head and feet. In this position be travelled all the road from Liverpool to Wolverhampton, and when noticed by a carriage examiner was in a very exhausted condition. When taken before the Magistrate he admitted that as the train flew ..along he became frightened, and would have got off, . bu t was afraid of being cut to pieces. He was let off by paying Court fees.

We have received a bunch of grapes from Mrs Bosher, of the Mangaone road, of good size and splendid quality. The bunch is almost a perfect cone — nine inches long and six inches at the base. One of the best crops yet heard of in the North Canterbury district is (says the Press) that of Mr H. Mahler, of Sefton, who last week threshed out 31 acres of oats, which gave a net yield of 3379 bushels, equal to 109 bushels to the acre* On Thursday the Ist of May at 12 o'clock noon a meeting of Kiwitea ratepayers will be held at the offices of the Board. And on the same day at the Public Hall at 2 o'clock p.m. a general meeting will be held of the ratepayers of the Manchester Road district. John Bright makes notes and headlines for his speeches, and with great care writes down and commits to memory all the important passages. Gladstone merely -jots down facts and figures, aad for expression trusts entirely to the moment. At Messrs Halcombe and Sherwill's stock sale this afternoon there was a fair attendance. All tbe cattle excepting one pen of beef were sold at fairly remunerative rates. Sheep were not in great demand, and the few lots that passed off were at prices considerably in favor of the buyers. Forty-eight "good men and true" were summoned to act as jurors at the District Court, Palmerston, yesterday, but as there was only one criminal case, and the prisoner pleaded guilty, their services were dispensed with, after recovering the " thanks of their conntry" from the lips of Judge Rawson. Some of the jurymen complained loudly of beiug compelled to leave business and work to do nothing, but the more thoughtful were pleased to observe that the orderly character ef the settlements on the West Coast was so well established as to find them no duties to perform. Regarding the reported visit of Mr Sala to Australia, Mr Archibald Forbes writes to the Sydney Morning Herald on 22nd February : — " It is to be regretted that the arrangement by which Mr George Augustus Sala was to visit Australia for a lecturing tour has fallen through. Mr Sala, however, has not altogether relinquished the object he had formed of visiting Australia, and he has had under consideration other proposals for a lecturing arrangement. I hope one or other of these may come to something, because I ardently desire to see a book on Australia from the pen of G.A.S." The Hon. Mr Connolly addressed his constituents at Picton on Tuesday night. He reviewed the work of last session at some length, and also the separation policy put forth by Mr Montgomery, who, he said, was used in the matter as a catspaw by Mr Macandrew. He urged Nelson, Westland, and Marlborough to unite with the North to resist separation to the utmost. He declared he would resist any attempt to restore provincialism or alter the education system, but thought those who wanted secondary education should pay forit. He defended the action of the Government in rising the railway tariff, and maintained the 1 necessity for keeping the Armed Constabulary up, instancing the case of the 1 destruction of the Kawhia beacons. He ' admitted the necessity of room for re- . trenchment. He deprecated a land tax, ' and would like to see the property-tax ■ increased, with some diminution in regard ) to Customs duties. He hoped to see the Crown resume the pre-emptive right over i Native land, to stop land sharking. A vote of thanks and confidence was passed almost unanimously.