NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 4 December 1901, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Both from Barcelona and Cape Corbere comes news of preparations for a Carlist rising. The Carlists are said to have 20,000 rifles that have been smuggled into the country. From a return laid on the table of ibe Federal Parliament it appears that the average annual consumption of beer in Western Australia is 28.85 gallons per head. This far exceeds the record of any other country in the world. A private of the Oth Austrian Infantry Regiment named Karyinski was caught stealing plums from a farmer near Lemberg. The captain of his company had him crucified —that is, hung up on a wall so that the whole weight of his body fell on his wrists and ankles. This causes excruciating tortures, and is a favourite form of punishment in the Austrian army Karpinski died within a few hours of being released.

One thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds worth of debentures in the Trafalgar Company have been taken up. The "Fiji Times" says:—"A private letter from New Zealand informs us, shat at the instigation of Mr Seddon, every Fijian familj is to be at ones supplied with a cow and a dairymaid. But this may be only a canard," very probably. The work of applying the Westinghouse brake to the rolling stock on the "Wellington section of the railways will probably occupy about six months. After that the 6tock on the Auckland section will be fitted with the brake. The Australian Widows' Fund Life Assurance Society has just closed a very successful year. The new business completed for the year ended 31st October amounts to £702.259, being an increase of £64,582 on the previous twelvo months. Towards this increase the New Zealand Branch haß contributed £20,100. The cost for constructing, fitting out, and sailing a Cup challenger or defender would make a handsome fortune for say <me. We daresay the Constitution cost over 200,000 dollars to build, and before ihe reces are over she will undoubtedly cost nearly 100,000 dollars more. She has a crew of 68 men, and the steamer Mount Hope a 3 a tender, besides about half a dozen suits of sails, extra spars, etc. And when her trial horse, the Colnmbia is considered, 350,000 dollars is a conservative estimate of the cost of defending the Cup this year.—" American Shipbuilder."

Some sensation was caused in Shrewsbury recently on it becoming known that, in the course of the construction of a new sewer through St Austin Friar street, a large number of bones had been thrown up by the workmen, which it is now stated on the authority of an eminent local antiquarian, are the remains of the men who fell in the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, when the King's forces, under Prince Henry, defeated the Percies and slew Harry Hotspur. The dead of both forces were interred in the Friars' cemctary, which formerly stood on the spot. With true national commercial instinct the bones were promptly sold to a rag and bone merchant for a few shillings. The announcement of a victory of the Dutch troops in Dj*mbi, Sumatra, serves to remind us that the Dutch have very large possessions in the East Indies, and they involve her in small wars jast as our African possessions involve us. The Dutch East Indies have a total area of 736,400 square miles (nearly 60 times the area of Holland itself) and a population of atout 34,000,000. The Dutch East Indian army consisted at the end of 1898 of 1,428 officers and 42,235 sub-officers and soldier?, comprising 15,911 Europeans, 50 Africans, 4,434 Ambcinese, and 21,140 natives. The army is purely colonial, and no portion of the regular army of the Netherlands is allowed to be sent on colonial service.