NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 6 November 1901, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Great Britain spends £123,886 a year on the British Museum There ars 48 different kinds of housefly known and classified. The inventor of the diamond drill, a device which has added millions to the mineral wealth of the world; Ashel J. Severance, died in poverty, and was hurried recently at Denver, U.S.A., by friends.

Mr F. M. Garlank, a well-known gunmaker of Connecticut, has invented a one pound gun designed for use in the fighting tops of battleships. He claims that his new gun will fire 280 projectiles automatically in a minute, which can pierce an inch thickness of chilled steel. The agents of the Eussian Admiralty have opened up negotiations with a view to purchasing the plant. Not only will it he made a penal offence to drink a glass of beer, but smoking by adults will bo prohibited. Then we will have laws closing the theatres in the interests of public morality, then other laws making church attendance compulsory, and finally the Millennium. God save the King ! Auckland Observer.

Clergyman (after being rescued from the shipwreck): “Mr Smith, did I really appear scared when we thought all would be lost?” Mr Smith :“I can’t say that you were scared, but for a man who has been trying to get to heaven all these years you appeared most reluctant to accept the opportunity.**

Nelson fruitgrowers are thereatened with another and, in the district, quite novel species of “curse.” One grower was recently surprised to find his apple trees stripped with blossoms. Ho attributed the damage to the swarms of goldfinches, green linnets, sparrows, and other small birds, The birds take out the heart of the bud, and thus make it impossible for the flower to produce fruit.

The native health officer, Dr. Pamara, states that tohungaism is still strenuously believed in by the Maoris. Ho finds that one of the greatest difficulties ho has to contend with in his mission to instruct the Natives is to impress upon them the importance of putting their homes and places in a sanitaty condition. Twenty Indianapolis business men have contributed £9OO each to send 20 insured miners to Klondyke, the calculation being that a sufficient number will die to reimburse the investors by the insurance money, whether any gold should bo found or not.