Local and General News.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 5, 6 July 1897, Page 2

Local and General News.

♦ Tbe Italian Government raiße £'3,000,---000 yearly by holding lotteries. Here lies a cam who, while be lived, was happy as a linnet ; he always lied while on the eartb, and now he's lying in it. A Youcg Men and Boys' Club is to be formed in Palmerston. We can only bope it will have the same success as that of Feildiug. Entries for Messrs Abraham and Wil Hams sale on July lOtb, of horses, are advertised to day, and additions are made to the entries of the firm's Palmerston stock saleWhile the population of Britain Las increased 20 per cent in tbe last twenty years, tbe expenditure has increased 63 per cent, the greater part of which has been spent on education. Edison, tbe great inventor, has over 36,000 men in his employ in various parts of the world, white £400,000 rep resents his invested capital. His inven tions are numbered by hundreds. Tbe editor and proprietor of the Chicago Despatch has received bis desetts for publishing nasty advertisements in his paper. He has just been sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. Women in Canada are to be allowed to practise as batristers. They must bs bareheaded, wear black gowns over a black dress, and white collars and cuffs. Electric search lights are now being adopted by customs officers in order to avoid the possibility of explosion while rummaging for goods on board tank and other vessels carrying petroleum or explosives. Notice is given to day that a snle by auction oi leased of Pipiriki township teciions will be held at "Wangnnui on Tuesday, the 27th inst. Full particulars as to term* and conditions of sale are de tailed in tbe advertisement. With tbe exception of the tartan and tbe sheepskin of the bag, there is nothing Scotch about the bagpipes. Tbe woodebony or crocus -comes from Africa and Jamaica, tbe ivory from Africa, tbe horn from Australia, and the cane for the reeds from Spaiu. The Masterton correspondent of the Wellington Times says:— There is a scarcity of busbfellers in this district. Several large contracts have been let of late, and theße have absorbed all the local labour. Unless outside men can be procured a number of settlers will have to defer their busbfelling until next year, Tbe committee appointed to carry out the necessary arrangements for a social and dance in connection with the local Oddfellows Lodge will meet this evening. The social is being held for the purpose of entertaining the District officers, delegates and visiting brothers to tbe half yearly meeting to be bald on July 23rd. They were discussing bow to distribute a certain sum of mosey. They got s little warm over it as the best natured people sometimes will. At last one of them said " Well, after all said and done tbe best way will be to divide it pro rata." The most angry man said " You can divide it pro rata, or matai or totara bnt I'm hanged if I consent." He is there yet. Speaking at the Prohibition League, Mr A. R. Atkinson said tbe chief object of the series of meetings which bad begun was to increase the league mem* bersbip so as to make it thoroughly representative of 5000 prohibition voters in Wellington and at the same time to work to increase that number to 7000, which would be necessary to carry •' bo license " at the next local option poll.— N.Z. Times. It was a common saying among tbe miners on the West Coast, when the Premier was a member of a local body there, that in tbe end Mr Seddon would bpcome Premier of the colony. Men who worked on the Greenstone or Waimea about thirty years ago will remember the fact. Not to put too fine a point upon it Mr Seddon was a very troublesome member of tbe Board, and his "goings on" were watched with the keenest enjoyment by the miners. A New Plymouth resident who had some dealings in Maori land the other day was waited on by a native, dressed in covert overcoat of the latest style and weiring a Senator hard hitter. Tbe Maori introduced himself as " Me the native lawyer. I want two shillings from you ; me push (suiting the action to tbe word) Hori in that land case tbe other day for you." Although tbe professional fee wafl only a modest one tbe pakeba coal I not see tbe force of parting np for the aid be was supposed to have received.—Herald. An explanation of tbe cabled statement that a detachment of Greek troops were being led on by another " Joan of Arc " is supplied by one of the correspondents of the Daily Mail. He says : — " At Caravasßara I found a new type of new women, who had donned the national costume after the pattern of the uniform worn by the National Society's Volunteers, and had joined a band of these irregular troops. She ia the daughter of a wealthy doctor at Athens, and told mo that as the campaign had been mismanaged by men she felt it was time for women to come to the rescue." A woman who is a settler in the southern part of this colony has suffered such numerous bereavements that her bitter experience in this respect reads like a romance. Her first husband died through drink; her second was killed through an accident on the farm ; her eldest son died of bydaties ; her eldest daughter is crippled for life through a trap accident ; her second daughter died and her youngest son picked up an old rusty gun barrell, inadvertently put a match to it, and blew out bis eyes. She has two cbfldren left, and is good and kind, and greatly respected. la the old days when there was fighting with the Maoris within a few miles of Wellington, a settler was trudging along the track which afterwards was tbe Hutt road, carrying a kit of -potatoes. He was thinking of the dangers which might beset him and as be pushed bis way through some scrub he was startled by bearing close to his sido a voice Baying " Tona koe Pakeba." Ho was equal to tho occasion and with considerable politeness roared out " Kapai the Maori," He dropped his potatoes and tied on the wJDgs of fear as bard as he could go. A fow seconds afterwards a young English lad was s.een wondin« liin way homewards with a basket of potatoes on his back, suspiciously like that which his " white brother " had cast away iv bis fear.

There are 2,000,000 married couples in France without children. Water is so scarce on the bill parts of Dunedin that it is being sold by tbe barrel. It is reported tbat Mr Pascal has sold bis farm at Awahuri to a well known Hawke's Bay resident. An open verdiot was returned at the inquest on tbe body of Arthur Ernest Livingstone, who was found drowned in the harbour. The evidence disclosed nothing to explain how the deceased got into the water. | The mother of Mr Livingstone resides in Roslyn (Ofcago). Deceased was a son of the late Provincial Auditor, and was 21 years old.] With reference to Messrs Abraham and Williams' sale at Shannon, on Friday, July 9, we have been requested to draw special attention to the entries of sheep made by Mr Duncan Mcßetb, whose lease having expired, is disposing of some very fine lots of ewes and wethers— well bred Lincolns. This will be a splendid opportunity for anyone desirous of obtaining the nucleus of a really useful flock. In bis address to tbo jury at Napier on Friday on behalf of the prisoners in the murder case. Mr Cresswell told the jury to think of their consciences if they made a mistake in their verdict and in pointing out that mistakes had been made by juries before, he instanced the Uhcmis case. His Honor stopped counsel at once, and intimated that such references were most improper. He thought it was known throughout tbe colony that references like these were not allowed. Moreover, the jury, he said, did not know anything of the Cbemis trial. Mr Cresswell said it was tho first time he bad heard of that decision. Counsel i was obliged to wave tbe point.