NEWS ITEMS

Gisborne Times, Volume XII, Issue 1073, 15 December 1903, Page 3

NEWS ITEMS

A man named Albon was, driviDg a springcart into Coonamble, Now South Wales, to got a loading at the railway station. When eight miles out of town he tfas thrown out of tho cart, the wheels of which passed over his head, smashing it to a pulp. Albon expired shortly afterwards.

In th 6 Scone district, Now South Wales, many tons of hay have gono to waste owing to the impossibility of gotting it in. One industrious but unfortunate farmer offored to take £5 for his 130 acres of wheat —tho finest looking crop up to a certain period that he ever saw in his life, now well past the meridian. Mr Seddon is growing virtuous. He told a Wanganui deputation last week that if it cost him his place and position tomorrow he would not go in for extravagant borrowing and spending. Of courso, the vote of £15,000 for tho late Quoon’s statue in London, an amount equal to the sum authorised for the North of Auckland rail way, is not extravagant spending. Howevor, Mr Seddon cannot be wholly blamod for this waste. Mr Massey and other members of the Opposition recorded their votes in favor pf it. The Bulletin states : “IE the Reid party fails at this election, it is reported that George Yes-No will throw up Australian politics and try to re-enter the State Assembly, where he can attend to his Bar practice with one hand and brush away f Joey ’ Carruthers with the other.” A Sydney paper has the - following unflattering paragraph in reference to the Leg slature : “At the referendum to be taken re the reduction of New South Wales Assembly, the lowest number that anybody is allowed is 90. The best possible advice is, therefore, to vote for 00. To carry that means that there may he 35 less hoodlums in the Assembly, and 35 hoodlums is an item.” Exporc of Wheat

Of the 150 engine-drivers and firemen who. were dismissed after the collapse of the .Victorian railway strike, only eight remain in, .Victoria —BO went to South Africa,- 25 to West Australia, 20 to New South Wales, and most o£ the others came to New Zealand. It is stated that tho officers of the Victorian railway department will now have to rely on the services of inexperienced men to work the heaviest traffic yet seen in Victoria.-

Two stud donkeys from- Spain—one a champion—have recently been imported to South Australia for mulebreeding in the interior. At Carlton, Victoria, a woman of 80, whose only crime was poverty, was given twelve months imprisonment without the option.

A doctor has two favorite jokes. Number one, toils patient to try a different climate.; number two, tells patient not to think about Iris ailment. Price of either joke, half a guinea.

A young German lady writer, Miss Anna Wagcmann, lias written a liook in which she argues that the mysterious “Man in the Iron Mask” .■w.

ay none other than King Charles I. Hiss Wagemann tries to make out Jiat King Charles I. was not reallybeheaded, but spirited away by, his iriends on the night before the execution, while a faithful adherent, who bore a close rcsemblanco to the King, in his stead ofiered himself for execution. Charles then find to Prance, but was taken captive in Dunkirk, and till his death kept by Louis XIV. a prisoner, wearing a velvet—or, as the popular tradition .prefers to have-it, an iron—mask. A country doctor tells this story against Ho responded one night to a note left at his door by a laborer, asking him to go as soon as possible to see his little hoy, who was ill with a very bad cold. The doctor gave one look at the child, and asked, severely : “ Don’t you know that your boy has got the measles?” “.Yes,” replied the wife “ I knowed it.” “ Then what in the world did you mean by saying he had a had cold ?” asked the doctor. The woman hesitated a moment ; then, looking up at her husband, she said, hesitatingly : “ Neither me nor him knowed how to spell measles.”

Doctor : “ I found the patient to ini suffering from abrasion of the'cuticle, tumefaction, echymosis, and extra vasation in the integument and cellular tissue about the left orbit.” Judge : “ You. mean he- had a black eye,” Doctor : “ Yes.” It must be confessed that the British Government has its hands more Ilian full of responsibility. Between

the fiscal question and the re-organi-sation of the forces, there is enough to engage the keenest intellects of the Empire, and to occupy the time of Ministers without any other question/ That the Government should have to endure much hostile criticfsru, is no more than they must have foreseen ; and it is not a prospect that has. been wont to daunt British statesmen hitherto. The country has probably jqoa made up its mind about Mr Chamberlain’s scheme ; and, in any case, the uumbey of competent critics is small ; while in the matter of army, reform the number of the critics and counsellors is legion. The one thing we all desire is to seo a scheme of army •reform unde? which joint harmonious action sjiall, be possible between the forces of the various parts of the Empire.; Once that is secured, the critics will leave the Government to Work out the details. Times.

Passengers on what is called the national route from Gruestrow to Goldberg, on the German coast, the other day witnessed a strange spectacle, which recalled a well-known novel by Jules Verne. It seems a pjccq of land of about 10,000 square yards became detached .from the coast, and began to sail out to sea. A curious feature of the spectacle was the position of some 20 largo aider trees. Some were reclining, while others "were almost Jy ng on fiie ground. Hares and rabbits ran hither and thither, anxious to escape contact with the waves,