GENERAL NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 25 January 1901, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS AND NOTES.

Says the Timaru Post:—Adjutant and Mrs Cummings, who have labored in Timaru in connection with the Salvation Army here for some time, with a good deal of success, have received notice of their removal to Oamaru. On Sunday they took a farewell of their Timaru congregation. There was a large number present at the Sunday services, and it was with much regret that the Adjutant and his wife wore allowed to depart. Dr Parkhouse, the well-known social reformerin New York, wants an American newspaper that will tell him the truth At present, ho says, any statement of fact in a New York paper cannot be accepted until, it is verified by careful collation with other papers. When Dr Parkhouse reads the London Times ho knows that its statements of fact need not be subjected to this process, and he wants tho same guarantee from an American journal.

itats are known to be connected Willi the spread of plague, but the exact relation beiweon the two is not exactly understood. Dr G. Tidewell has recently brought forward evidence that the infection is carried by the fleas natural to rats. This explains the fact that rats which have been killed by plague can be handled with impunity a few hours after death, when the fleas have left them.

The annual report of the chairman of the New Plymouth Harbour Board shows the total trade of the port to bo 10.10 S tons compared with 36,122 tons in 1899. The revenue from dues and wharfage is <C6">."iO against £6OBI last year. The expenditure on dredging is £1458, against C 2670 last year, despite the fact that the latter item was the smallest since 1895, There is less sand than at any time since the breakwater was built, The report foreshadows the enlarging of the wharf.

A'l gases are known to consist of an immense number of minute particles or molecules in rapid motion. According to modem science, the molecules of carbonic acid gas—the effervescing gas in mineral waters —arc so small that if every man, woman, and child in the world were (o lay down a molecule of the gas so that all these molecules should lie in a straight line, and each should touch its neighbor, the row thus formed would be little more than a yard long. The merits of chocolate as food for troops in the field appear to be becoming rapidly and widely appreciated (says a military journal). In the recent autumn manoeuvres of the Austrian Army, in Galieia. a chocolate ration was found to ho equal to about five times its weight of the primest beef. From Russia also come equally favourable reports respecting the use of chocolate, and now wc hear from America that it forms a chief constituent of new emergency ration with which trials have been lately carried out.