Local and General News

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 4, 20 June 1885, Page 2

Local and General News

— ♦— ■. ■ . Several interesting items appear in our wanted column. The Rev. J. Clover's letter will appear in our. next issue. Over 350 patents were applied for in the colony last year. The Feildmg State School broke up yesterday for the mid- winter holidays. Several additions have been mado to Stevens and Gorton's sale on Tuesday next. { We have received from the Government printer two parcels of Parliamentary papers. We learn that a considerable number of books will be purchased, by the Library Committee at an early date. Special correspondents are requested to send their telegrams on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in each week. A meeting of the committee of the Rangitikei-Manawatu Poultry and Produce Society will be held at Mr Bray's office this evening at ,8 o'clock. The ordinary monthly meeting! of the Kiwitea Road Board is proceeding as we go to press. A regort of the business done will' appear in our next issue. Several important reductions have been made in tho parcel rates on the N. Z. Railway's, but as' these are not advertised, the public are virtually precluded from taking advantage of them. ■...'. Sir Julius Vogel's Financial Statement clearly entiles him to the prizo of twenty guineas and a gold medal offered by the . Government for an essay on the, best means of fostering the development of the industrial resources of the colony. The exceptionally warm -veathor of the past few days has had tho effect of melting the snow on the ranges in the South Island, and so flooding all the great rivers on tho East and West -Coasts. It is splendid weather, for the gold miners, Tho sale of fruit- trees, : ornamental nhrubs, flowering plants, &c, from the nursery ,qf Mi 4 James Laird, of Wanganui, . . is now proceeding at the auotion rooms of ] ! Messrs IJiUi'ombo and ShovwilL The I ytftemlanCoiSgooU' and-the bidding comparatively brisk. „, , ! • Those persons desirous of taking part in tho establishment of the Feildmg Building Society, are invited a meeting" to be h'oldin the'^restore Hall' onMondaj r evening next ; at; eight o*clock. The business will be 'to receive report of the Provisional Directors; and to discuss pfchor important eubjects in rolatiou to the society. ;;;•:.■.: ,'[■■-:>■■■■■:■:

Those whe wish to encourage local industry, should only buy colonial made goods. • There has been a considerable reduction made in the parcel rates on the Now Zealand railways. Packages weighing not more than three pounds are carried up to 100 miles for 3d and under seven pounds up to 100 miles for od. We understand that Mr Dowling, who has been for some time schoolmaster at I Crofton, has accepted a similar position at Reefton, for which place ho will shortly take his departure. Mr Dowling is a son of our local head master. At tha Timaru Magistrate's Court yesterday Frederick Lucas, who escaped from the hard labour gang, but was afterwards recaptured, was sentenced to 30 clays in irons and solitary confinement, and 24 days on bread and water. A petition is in course of signature in the North Otago district praying the Assembly not to sanction the proposed duties on tea and sugar People who object to the duty can protect themselves . by abstaining from the use of these luxuries. A Settler. — Scene — A court of law: trial for manslaughter is going on ; Pat in the witness-box. Counsel for the prisoner: '• Did you see the prisoner, at the bar knock down, the deceased?" Pat: "No, yir honor ; Jie was alive when I see him knocked down." The Evening News states that before leaving Sydney, Deoble, on behalf of Beach, gave Hanlon a commission to inform Teenier that ho would row him, or or any sculler in America, over the champion course on the Paramatta for £1000 and the championship of tho world, and, m the event of Teeiner accepting, would allow £200 for expenses. A Sabbath Observance Society is about to be formed in Auckland to prosecute persons who openly desecrate the Sabbath. The Star says its rules will be in accordance with those of the New South Wales Sabbath Observance Association, which was established upwards of twenty years ago. Branches of this society could be formed with great advantage in every town and borough in the colony. An ingenious individual has calculated that during the course of every year railway servants in England get no less than £300,000 in tips from the public. He asserts, moreover, that the amount . is 1 rather under than over estimated. Nearly the whole of the sum goes to swell the shareholders' dividends, for persons naturally accept lower wages than they would be satisfied with were the tipping system abolished. The deplorable result of a foolish wager has been made public in Birmingham. It appears that a man named Robert Smith' made a bet that he would drink twelve sixpenny- worths of trandy. The wager was accepted, and both men went to a public-house, where the man Smith won his bet by drinking thrirteen sixpennyworths of brandy. He became very drunk, and was obliged to bo carried home, where he died a few minutes afterwards. It is a significant fact (says the Woodville Examiner) that the returns at the Gorge Bridge have fallen off considerably of late as compared with previous periods. The reason is not far to seek. The heavy tolls at the Lower Ferry are killing the traffic between Woodville and Palmerston, and many people who formerly had their goods delivered from Palmerston have changed their market and shipping to Napier. Traffic between Woodville and Tahoraite has increased enormously since the opening of the line. Nobody we know likes to have his name associated publicly with other peoples' wives' but it seems that relieving officers have a particular objection to being represented as having anything at all to do with grass widows. A curious instance of this occurred the other day. A statement was current that a relieving officer was doling out charity to 23 ladies who had been left by their husbands. He was mightily concerned at this, and went straightway to a newspaper to have the damning allegation contradicted. They are not deserted wives but widows, he contended, and the paper good naturedly gave publicity to his explanation and soothed his ruffled feelings. — Exchange, The brigantine Seretha, which arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland, on April 26 from Figueria, brought Captain Bowden and: two seamen, Shaw and Adams, survivors from the lost barquentine Mariner, of St. John's. This vessel was crushed in an icepeak on April 5, and the chief officer and the rest of the crew perished on the same night in the long boat, which was crushed in the floe, whieh was set in violent motion by the heavy eastward swell. Captain Bowden and the two men. were for twenty days exposed to: a storm of snow and sleet with no • covering, little clothing, and scanty bread fare. They were rescued on April 25. They will probably die. The Mariner left Lisbon on January 1, and was ninety-eight days at sea, when she sank amid the ace field. We regret to learn that Mrs Alzdorf, one of the very oldest settlers, died on Saturday last, at Makara. Mrs Alzdorf, who was the widow of Charles Ernest Baron Alzdorf, arrived hero with her husband in 1840 by the ship Adelaide. They took the license of the old Wellington Hotel (which was subsequently changed to the Wellington Club), and old residents of the city will remember that in this house Baron Alzdorf was killed by the fall of a chimney in the great earthquake of 1855. Soon afterwards the widow retired from the hotel, in which she was succeeded by Mr Taprell. Since then Mrs Alzdorf has lived a retired life, haying I ample means for her support. She had : been blind for tho last thirty-five .years, and, while she was universally esteeinod, | was particularly noted for her fondness for and attention to children. — Now- Zealand Times. : A malicious story comes to us about a well-known servant of the Crown, whose inches of stature are in the reverse ratio to his diplomatic talents. This exceedingly ■ small but worthy gentleman is the for- j tunate possossor of a spouse who fills the Homeric description of a stately Juno, towering in the majesty of her massive beauty above tho other goddesses of Olympus. She is as strict a mother as ' ;sho is a fond and dutiful wife. So when when she. heard an incipient riot the other evening in tho nursery after bedtime, she seized her slipper and hastened to subdue the bvor-hilarious youngsters. The latter, | with the guile of childhood, extinguished the light boforo tb,e correcting slipper could reach them, so the maternal. enforcement of discipline had to be carried on in darkness. Two of the offenders acknowledged . the uneasiness of their positions on the maternal knee by juvenile shrieks. .The . third sufferer, instead ef appealing for mercy to tin weak treble childhood, yelled his protestations in such a ponderous voice that the astonished lady dropped hirii and gasp -A : •' Is that you htibby ?" It was. The reckless man had, "with' unthinking fooliarrliness, followed the irate ladyinto the' nursery kntl 'got* misted up with his family;'' Ho will not" do so'again. — Modera-Sdiioiy.-" -i 7/ . ivi.:! A'i -'< 2.L- ;

The Rita-Radcliff Company will appear in the Public Hall on Wednesday, the Ist July, when they will give their popular entertainment which is highly spoken of by the Press in every part of the world. It was announced that this company would appear in Feilding on Monday next, but circumstances have since arisen which prevent this. Immediately after the reading of the indivtment at the trial of Charles Trenjrrove at Tinmru, his Honor Mr Justice Johnston asked who M. A. Pratt was, to which Constable Willoughby stated that she was the sister of the prisoner. His Honor then directed that she should come forward, and sa d he presumed she was anticipating legislation, and was ' desirous of exercising the privilege which i her sex would have of acting as lawyers, and asked her if she wished to appear en her brother's behalf as his counsel and to ask questions, to which Mrs Pratt .answered that she would like to ask Mrs Bennett same questions. His Honor told Mrs Pratt that she niifjht .sit in Court and suggest questions, but she must n<>t interfere, and ineutiened that probably if some legislators had their way anybody