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Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2210, 14 October 1907, Page 2

'lno halt-yearly meeting of the Frcezors’ Union will be held .this evening.

A smoke concert is to he held by tho Povery Bay Farmers’ Club on tho evening of the first day of tho Show. On tho 27tli and 28th of next month a fancy fair will be held to raise funds for the Anglican foreign missions.

On Tuesday evening the Rov. C. Grifiin will deliver in Wesley Church a popular lecturo, entitled “Old Clothes.”

All arrangements are now completed for the appearance of Fuller’s Touring Company at His Majesty’s Theatre oil Wednesday evening.

Tho monthly meeting of tho NoLiconso League will be held in Wesley Schoolroom this evening. In addition to other important business a discussion will be held on “Reduction.”

Messrs Williams and Kettlo submitted to auction on Saturday the right to take charge of horses at the Show (both days). Mr. W. Pilcher secured tho privilege for £lB ss. At tho Patutalii Public Hall on Thursday evening, tlio annual Catholic social will be held. Dancing is to commence at 8. Visitors are notified that a brake leaves tho Railway Stables at 7.30.

Letters for tho following are lying unclaimed at the Gisborne Post Office:—From United Kingdom—A. Anderson, T. A. Baxter, H. H. Dyke; Denmark—J. M. Olesen; Tasmania— P. J. O’Rourke; United States of America—G. Thompson.

A meeting of the committee of the Gisborne United Band of Hope Union was (held at the Wesleyan Church on Friday night to complete arrangement's for the holding of the meeting on Thursday night at Whinray’s Hall, under their auspices, which is to decide on the merits of various reciters. Several prizes are to be given, and musical items are to bo rendered during the evening. Mr. Porter and his staff spent a very busy day on Saturday receiving general entries for tho A. and P. Show. When the last form had been filled in at 9 p.m. the secretary regarded the total as highly satisfactory, but was imablo to givo the figures. “You can safely announce, I think,” he remarked to a Times representative, “that we have topped the record, and that all classes have been well supported. The figures will bo available on Monday.” | The City Band is unlikely to obtain the services of Mr. Seymour, of Hokitika, as bandmaster, owing. to a difficulty having arisen regarding his transfer. Mr. Seymour is in the Lands Department, but it was hoped that his transference to Gisborne would bo sanctioned. The Hon. Captain Tucker, asked to use his influence, wired on Saturday morning that he had spoken to the Hon. Mr, Carroll, who would probably succeed in the matter. However, advice indicated that the regulation prohibiting civil servants from engaging in the tuition of music was tho obstacle, the Hon. Tucker wiring that the Lands Department absolutely refused to allow Mr. Seymour to be transferred to Gisborne, or to allow him to undertake the bandinastersliixi.

At tho Salvation Army Barracks yesterday special services were held as a farewell to Cadets Morgan and Hansford, who leave on Wednesday for the Training Homo in Melbourne. I Good congregations assembled, and in the evening rbho hall was not large enough to Ihold the crowd which 'gathered. During tho evening service Mrs. Dickens sang a solo, entitled, “I must have the Saviour with me,” tho glee party rendered a very effective company piece entitled “Straying from God,” and the band, under Bandmaster Nicliolls gave a selection, “Jerusalem, my glorious own.” To-morrow evening a farewell social will.bo tendered to the departing oadets; A programme of special items 'nil be given, commencing at 8 ° mi,’ l (Le ]) rice of admission wall bo sixpence.

The Hazel Craig, contrary to.oxpccI tations after her sudden return to I port, has been pronounced quite seaI worthy. A marine survey was mode lon Saturday by Captain Davidson (Lloyd’s surveyor at Napier), who cx- | pressed himself satisfied that the vesI sel was in a fit condition to put to sea, Captains Fernandez and Gumming fully eoncurrng with his findI mg. The bottom of the ship, stripped of the limber boards, was found dry, and no trace of a “weep” was discovered, nor was there any sigii of a plate starting. That tho sand ballast must have been very wet when shipped is the theory advanced to account for tho finding of water in the hold when tho Hazel Craig put back. The ballast is to bo replaced, bagged, so that in the event of a recurrence of the leakage, which is not anticipated, the pumps will not again be choked. The ship is to resume her voyage.

A sitting of tho Land Board will opon in Gisborne this morning. Tho Commissioner and members arrived on Saturday evening. There will bo no lack of novel and interesting side attractions at tho Show next week. The young folks will bo catered for by a morry-go-roillld.

Several ncav members have recently joined tho Salvation Army Band, and moro are expected shortly. Mr. Farthing, latch’ ‘bandmaster, ,i» now deputy bandmaster.

A lecture is announced in tho Bap-

tist Tabernacle on Tuesday evening, on “Spiritism : Is it of God or of the Devil P” to bo delivered by Mr. AV. Corrie Johnston.

At th 0 Magistrate’s Court on Saturday morning, before Mr. AV. A. Barton, S.M., a first offender was convicted of drunkenness, and was fined tho usual amount.

It is Dr. Hallen’s intention to open

a private hospital at To Karaka, should the enterprise meet with sufficient support. To this end ho has onguged a well-known nurse, highly certificated, with Homo and colonial training. Dr. Hallen’s residcnco is connected by telephone with (the pr-i----vnto exchange at Air. Lewis’s storo, thus establishing communication throughout the district.

The following tenders were received on Saturday for the erection of a two-storied residence, Childers-road, for Aliss Brooke-Taylor:—J. East £492, Lord and Hoklsworth £499, G. Smith £529, Phcthean £560, Alaekrell and Colley £664, J. Somervell £695, A. Haisman £690.

A statement compiled by tho Town Clerk shows that the valuation of the borough has increased from £25,600 in 1891 to £78,400 in 1907. In the same period the general rate increased .from £1278 to £6852, special rate from £731 .to £1390, and rents from £244 to £4BO. In the period reyenuo from licenses increased from £671 to £IOOO, and miscellaneous revenue from £339 to £2616. The first loan, in 1904, was of £250, land tho last- for £35.000. For tho two years tho abattoirs have been open th 0 revenue has been '£llo3 and £1586 respectively. The revenue of tho borough from all sources lias increased from £3263 in 1891 to £48,924 in 1907.

.Some exciting scenes wero. witnessed in AA’illiams and Kettle’s horse-yards on Saturday afternoon, when a mob of unbroken horses was being bandied. The ticklish part was drafting the lots out of tho yards after the sale, some of -the unbroken ■three-year-olds being as wild as hares. Several experienced hands were required to check the untamed .animals, aiul it required all their expert knowledge of horseflesh to effect a clearance of the yards without a stampede. Some of the horses could jump like stags, and upset calculations by hopping over stiff fences when cornered, in and out of the yards. One little chestnut mare, in particular, almost defied attempts to draft her in a particular yard, scaling the fence like a bird in her eagerness to rejoin her companions. Another incorrigible, who was being picked out, scampered off the beaten track .among some vehicles near by, and surprised all hands by attempting .to jump clean over the fore part of a four-wheeled buggy. The effort was a superb one, but the “lepper’s” hind legs got tangled in the pole as lie alighted, and he' came,to grief. Some little damage was don P the vehicle, but the horse escaped injury. A sigh of relief went up as the mob sot off down the street under mounted escort.

A mtonse running about- the floor at Aliss Ada Alurcutt’s lecture in Dunedin set a hundred or more of the ladies present, in a state of mild alarm, and Aliss Alurcutt had to stop her lecture while the little creature was pursued. During the hunt Miss Alurcutt remarked that the orilv things on earth which she was •afraid of were a revolver and a mouse.

A Alaori girl, evidently not inexperienced at the work, was busy discharrowing a ploughed paddock at AVaikan-ae the other afternoon. She rode on the implement, driving and directing the two horses just as a man would who was accustomed to the work. .In the next paddock Natives of the male sex were playing cricket or enjoying a sun bath. “AY.liy don’t von go into domestic service? You’d earn twice as much there,” said Dr AlcArthnr, S.AI., to a girl nineteen years of age, who glive evidence in the AVetlingbon Magistrate’s Court that she was an apprentice to the dressmaking trade, and was earning 8s per week. This rather astonished the Alngisitrate, but worse was tlo follow. Tile girl went on to state that she would complete her time in three months, when she. would get 11s per week. Her next rise would be obtained a year afterwards, when she would earn 14s a week.

The “Dominion” says: “It is understood that the site of the new Dairy School and Experimental College is to be at Levin. This matter has been under consideration for the last yemr or two. The claims of Palmerston North, Bawera, and Patea. have been in, turn urgent, but though no official declaration lias been made, there seems little doubt that Levin has been finally selected. Since the end of March' the Alinister for Lands, however, has stated over and over again that nothing in the direction of determining the site will he done till Air Singleton (the dairy, expert) returns to' the colony. ’ The recent cabled information- from Sydney of the death, of three children from eating hemlock gives special interest to the fact that this plant is growing on unused pieces of land- in the vicinity of Christchurch. It is a plant with a fairly stout hollow stem with purplish markings. I The stem bears branches on which are carried finely-divided, for-m-liko leaves, the color being a dark glossy I green. It bears small white flowers I arranged something like those of the I "sweetwiLliam” or phlox. It is one of tho oldest-known poisonous plants, I the draught by which Socrates met I his death being a potion made from the hemlock. The principal poison-1 ous ingredient of the hemlock is I alkaloid conine, and the symptoms of poisoning are weakness and stagger- j ing gait, eventually bringing about I paralysis, which passes up the spinal I cord till it reaches the respiratory I centre, when death ensues. Like I most poisonous herbs, hemlock has a I medicinal value as a jiowerful seda- I tive, while in thp sixteenth century I it was much used as a salad-flavor- I

(Some pieces of coal secured on the recent trawling cruise of the Nora Niven were exhibited at the last meeting of the Christchurch Philosophical Institute by Air. E. R. Waite. He stated- that they came from depths of rom 20 to 30 fathoms, and had possibly been washed down by rivers. Mr. R. Speight, who is lecturer on geology at Canterbury College, said that a greater, significance was suggested. The stations near which the pieces were found followed the edge of the continental slielf existing off the coast of Canterbury, about 30 miles out. Possibly the coal measures which outcrop at tlio Alalvern Hills and Alount Somers extend under the plains, and the coal I got by the trawler may be an. out- I crop. Little is known geologically I about.the Canterbury Plains, and it I is possible that they may include a I very large coal-bearing area. He I was pleased to know that a company

intended to bore for petroleum in tho Ashburton district. He was not sanguine tlva.t petroleum would he obtained, hut the operations would add largelv to the knowledge of -the plains ill that district-.