YESTERDAY’S CABLES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2230, 6 November 1907, Page 3

YESTERDAY’S CABLES.

United Press Association —Copyright The Economist, commenting on the Victorian Budget, says tlie revenue has been deliberately under-estimated, in order- to show a large surplus, which is to lie expended on purposes which ought to have been provided for. Any Treasurer, it says, is able to dazzle the public by means of deferred expenditure Budgets. Switzerland, by 326,102 votes to 264,183 votes, ratified a new law throwing the chief burdens of military service on* young men. One .hundred natives massacred an armed police patrol, 18 men, and 8 women -and children on the island of Flores—-a Dutch possession in the Sunda-Group. News from New Caledonia states that female convicts sent out for petty crimes aro to be returned to France in small batches. It is surmised this repatriation may be the beginning of a general scheme. It is reported that male convicts under he .ago of' 50, and who have not less than three years’ sentence to undergo will be sent to French New Guinea. At present' there are about 1600 male convicts, with about an equal number of recidivistes, or incorrigibles. From January next the local troops will bo 'reduced to one company of marine infantry and 13 men of tho marino artillery. The strength of the troops will be made up by local recruits. Professor Koch spent eighteen months on Sezsc Island, Bake. Victoria Nyanza, studying sleepingsiekncss. Ho declares the insect glossina palpales sucks the blood of crocodiles and thenco spreads the germs of sleeping sickness along the banks of the streams'. Ho recommends the destruction of crocodiles, and the removal of bushes whore they lurk. Many members of the right in the Duma favor representative government, thereby assuring a majority for a constitution.

The Sydney Telegraph says that for tho first time for many years trouble was recently experienced in the use of tainted butter-boxes made of New Zealand white pine, How they got tainted lia3 not been ascertained : there are indications either of carelessness on tlie part of the box-maker, or that supplies of first-class pine arc running out. The butter develops a strong smoky scent which permeates and ruins the flavor of the butter. Some has been so affected that it is unsaleable,and is not even fit for pantry purposes. The diffiiculty is aggravated in cases whore the factories obtained boxes from Sydney in stocks. Packed this way. the timber sweats, and the objectionable taint is intensified.