Local and General News.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 134, 5 December 1895, Page 2

Local and General News.

Tbe Borough Council will meet this evening. Messrs Gorton and Son will hold their usual stock sale at Feilding to-morrow. There will be Mass at St. Bridget's. Feilding, on Sunday next, at 8 a.m. We are indebted to Mr J. S. Milson, stationer, for a pictorial calendar for 1896. The death is announced of Mr George Walker, one of the oldest settlers of Hawke's Bay. A Boston man has discovered a new cure for nervous headache — walking backwards for 10 minutes I Mr Mat Quinlivan had his shoulder blade smashed at Hunterville last week through falling from a dray. The Patea Press is informed that the ■weight of the fleece of Mr R. B. Pearce's champion ram shown at Hawera was 29£lbs. Nominations for handicap events at Apiti Athletic Sports, to be held on New Year's day, close on Wednesday, December 18th. The New Zealand Cyclists' Union, at a recent meeting, decided to reduce the I minimum weight of a roadster from 321bs j to 281bs. Mr E. Ellery Gilbert, the well-known pianoforte expert, tuner, and repairer, will visit Feilding and districts on the 10th inst. Orders left with Mr W. Carthew will receive prompt attention. The man Kenny, who has the unenviable distinction of bringing to this colony the most complete set of burglar's tools ever seen here-, has been sentenced to 12 months' hard labor at Auckland. Messrs Rutherford and Son bave bad some splendid mutton in their shop within the past few days, some of the carcases turning the scales at lOOlbs, bred by a local settler. Bicycles fitted with Belk's new patent gearing are now on view in Christchurch, and cyclists who have ridden them are well satisfied with the speed attained. One of the machines is geared up to 140 inches. Messrs Gorton and Son held a stock sale at their Waituna yards yesterday afternoon. The entries were small, but the prices realised were very satisfactory. Their next sale at the Waituna yards will be held on January 22nd. The extraordinary growth of bicycling is shown by the fact that the exports of cycles from England during last August amounted to £103,379, being an increase of 50 per cent, on the corresponding month of last year. We understand that Messrs Gorton and Son intend holding periodical sales of stock at Birmingham. This popular firm deserves every credit for their enterprise which, we feel sure, will result in mutual benefit to farmers and auctioneers. At Auckland Dr Connolly and Mr W. T. Owen, two well-known residents of Wanganui, were mulcted in fines amounting to £19 and costs for having fished out of season and without a license. Both defendants are prominent members of the Wanganui Acclimatisatian Society. Notwithstanding the continued inclemency of the weather, business at the Bon Marche has been very good since the start of the great extension sale. Messrs Spence and Spence are highly pleased at their stock going off so quickly and their clients seem equally gratified with the bargains made. A settler informs ns be has tried tansy tea as a remedy for the bot fly and it proved very effective. The tansy is applied by boiling a handful of the herb in about a quart of water for about an hour and when cold given to the horse. Two doses are sufficient to cure a horse affected with the bot. If any one desires to have a view of a beautiful landscape, a visit to Mount Stewart, or in fact any of the high ground at the rear of Mr Lethbridge's estate, will amply repay the trouble. On every side may be seen smiling homesteads and green fields, intermingled with standing native bash, and gentle undulating hills, the whole making a picture unsurpassed for beauty. A lad named John Stanley, son of Mr E. Stanley, of New Plymouth, died on Monday from tetanus, or lockjaw. It appears (the News says) that he stepped on a piece of glass a few days ago, and received a severe cut on his foot. The wound was attended to, and the boy appeared to be progressing favourably up till Saturday night, when tetanus set in, and he succumbed as eiated above. Cyclists need no longer be haunted by the fear of puncturing, and of having to walk a considerable distance if out touring and ignorant of .how to mend a tyre. Tbe pneumatic self-closing tube, now being made in England, , is absolutely perfect. A blown up tyre was exhibited, and the public cheerfally responded to an invitation to try and let tbe air out of it. Over 200 nails, tacks, and penknife stabs were stuck ia the tyre, but the air did not escape. Government officials seem to carryon w#h a high hand now-a-days, judging from a paragraph in a Wellington contemporary, to the effect that as Monday was the first day of the close season for oysters, 13 sacks of oysters were seized in various restaurants and shops by the ranger, Mr Moorhoaee, and Ibrwar^ejd out by the Ellen Ballance to be: placed at snftablejspots in the harbour. If matters progress at this rate hV'fvill be difficult to:know what one does'/really own. --Stwriftfd' , ; ' -

Notice is given that Mr J. C. Thompson has; retired from the contest in the Borough election. The inward San Francisco mail will arrive by the goods train at 10.15 tonight and will be sorted into the private boxes by about 11 p.m. An advertiser in our wanted column has for sale half an acre of land, with four-roomed dwelling-house and a good orcbard thereon, in tbe Borough of Feilding. Apply Star office. The Colonial Treasurer has renewed the order forbidding the public being made acquainted with the monthly Customs returns, as former Ministers have done, through the press. The man McDonald, who personated a Government official and victimised farmers by pretending to secure them exemption from the land tax, has been sent to goal for twelve months at Grafton, New South Wales. In answer to an Auckland interviewer, Mr Davitt said he expected the coming session of the House of Commons would be "a fighting one." Mr Justin McCarthy was contemplating giving up tbe leadership of the party, and there would be new combinations and new developments. It would be an additional convenience at the railway station afld post office if a step, or platform, was placed for the use of ladies who ride to the post office without an attendant to assist them in mounting their horses. It would cost very little and would be much appreciated. According to the recent census statistics, the ravages of the insect pests cost the fruit growers of the United States 400,000,000 dollars annually, and by careful experiments it has been shown that 75 per cent of this loss can be prevented by the proper use of insecticides and fungicides. I A whale went ashore at New Plymouth on Sunday. The fact was he had got out of his course during the bad weather and was not able to take an observation for some days. When he made the land, and sighted Mount Egmont, he thought it was Mount Cook so, concluding he had plenty of .water under his keel he ventured too near the land with the result mentioned. No enquiry will be held, but anatomical observation will be made and his outer sheathing removed and converted into — petroleum, the oil springs at Taranaki having gone dry. Madame Melba lived, when in New York, at the Savoy Hotel. One day she was practising some part of the Queen in tbe Huguenots, in which there were roulades and trills. At the same time there was a two-year-old baby playing about in the corridor near her door, as she learned afterwards from the mother In the midst of one of the trills the little one ran to his mother excited and said : — " Listen mamma ! Birdie, birdie ! " " And," said the great singer, relating the story, " That pleased me more than all the things I have ever had said to -me in my life." One of the most ludicrous of the many peculiar provisions of that triumph of legal ingenuity, the new Licensing Act, is section 22, subsection 5, where it is solemnly enacted that it shall be lawful for a licensee to sell liquor afc any time to a lodger or a bonaftdc traveller seeking refreshment on arriving from a journey, provided that the liquor so sold is personally consumed on the premises by such traveller and . by no other person! The lodger can buy the liquor but cannot drink it. After purchasing a glass of refreshment the only satisfaction he can get is to see a traveller drink it ; though when no traveller is available even that vicarious satisfaction is denied the unfortunate lodger. — Post.