Miscellaneous Extracts.

Hastings Standard, Issue 492, 3 December 1897, Page 4

Miscellaneous Extracts.

DISMAL I'xiOPHECIES

Nov; is the season of the prophets, so the Sydney Daily Telegraph reminds us. " Old Moore " and the leaser lights of the almanac-prognosti-cating profession have issued their usual annual forecasts, and mankind knows exactly what to expect in the year 1898. According to " Old Moore" we are in for a really bad time next year. " Dire distress and trouble," he says, " will envelope the nations as with a garment. Crowns will fall, and, in some cases, heads with them." So much for Europe, but the trouble is not to be confined to the area of the older civilisation. In America " a fearful and bloody " racial war is to come about. The Southern States are to be " deluged with blood," and "scenes enacted recalling the days of '63 and '64." And in the end the negro has got to go. Where be is going to the prophet dosen't condescend to explain. August is to be an especially unlucky month. There will be " rum, havoc, death," and a few other distressful things in the air, and the ancient warns all good people to put their houses in order. In that month London is to be startled by the news of a great riot in Sydney. This, he tells us, " will be called by a large and wellorganised strike amongst many of" the railway men, the grievance being that considering their prolonged hours of labor, they feel they are justly entitled to better pay. The authorities will have to call out an armed force." Bloody murders in Africa and "a combination of events will come as an astounding disclosure, involving as they will the whole of our commercial interests," are also down to August's share of calamitous '9B. And, finally, that unhappy monarch, the Czar of Russia, is to be killed.

A BRUTAL PARENT. At the Palmerston North Magistrate's Court a few days ago, Michael M'Grath pleaded guilty to a charge of ill-treating his son, Thomas M'Grath, 9 years of age, in a manner likely to cause injury to his health. It appeared from the evidence that the lad was sent to buy a loaf of bread, but spent the money m lollies, and then, afraid to go home without the loaves, entered a baker's shop and appropriated two loaves. He was seen to take them, and was pursued and the loaves taken from him, and a charge of theft laid against him. The boy, in preference lo going home, spent the night in a paddock without anything to eat until the next day, when he was discovered by an elder brother, who took him home. On arrival there accused tied the lad up to a bed with his hands behind him, and after previously undressing him inflicted a brutal thrashing upon him with a dry supplejack about two feet long. The boy's back was a mass of cuts and black bruises from a thrashing received three weeks previously. The cuts caused by the last thrashing vary in length, some two or three inches long and running crossways. The scars will remain there as long as the boy lives. The punishment was inflicted about twelve o'clock, and at 2-30, when Detective Bishop went to the house to inquire in the charge of theft, he found rhe boy still tied, with the rope cutting into his flesh, to a bed. Mrs M'Grath, who, with her other children, had fled from the house to be away from the child's screams, stated, in answer to the officer's inquiries, that she had been afraid to release the boy. The Bench fined the accused £5, in default two months' imprisonment in the Wanganui gaol.

A REMARKABLE ESCAPE. Tbe Melbourne Argus reports a remarkable escape experienced by Mr James Eastman, while photgraphing the blowing away of a mass of earth and rock in the course of the new Yarra improvements. Mr Eastman, anxious to get tbe best view of the incident, took up his stand on the north benk, within about thirty yards of the mine, and prepared his lens for a "shot." At the critical moment, when Mr Taverner, at a safe distance, placed the two electric wires in contact, and thus completed the current, there was a terrible crash, and instantaneously some tons of rock and earth shot, not skyward as was expected, but in a north-west direction. The moments that followed w r ere full of breathless interest, for the only obstacle that appeared in the way of the flying fragments was Mr Eastman gazing intently from behind his camera. Tbe onlookers held their breath as they saw what everyone believed was about to prove a shocking tragedy. A lump of rock, about the size of a man's head, flew straight at the photographer's face with all the force of a cannon ball. The artist, with ludicrous promptitude, dived behind his camera for shelter. All round him and over him the lumps of earth and rock fell like hail, yet with the exception of a few of the smaller stones, which struck him, the enthusiastic operator had a complete and miraculous escape. Those who witnessed the incident from the opposite bank could scarcely believe that Mr Eastman had survived. From out of the cloud of flying fragments and smoke the hero emerged almost scratchless. Slipping in an extra slide, he trained bis camera on to the waterfall that burst through the opening of a solid, overpowering volume, as if utterly unconscious of the fact that his life had been spared in the most miraculous way.

THE POMAHAKA ESTATE. Daring the past few months we have heard comparatively little about the Pomahaka Estate. A year or two ago this was a favorite subject for discussion among Opposition speakers and writers, and scarcely a day was allowed to pass by without; a harrow*

ing repetition of the farail:ar story about the iniquity of the Government, the poverty of the soil and the suffering of the settlers. But all the time there was a strong suspicion in the public mind that Potnahaka was disparaged for political purposes, and that the condition of the settlers was not half as bad as it was painted. "When it was discovered that the Conservative Press was drawing its " damning facts " from discontented tenants, who were anxious to obtain a reduction in their rents, the suspicion gave way to conviction, and the estate lost most of its value as a " horrid example " of the failure of the Liberal land policy. The final stroke that was required to demolish the whole fabric of party inventions has just been administered by the Tuapeka Times. That journal sent a member of its staff, under the guidance of a practical farmer, to make a thorough examination of the estate last week, and they have returned with a report which shows that the land, so far from being barren and unproductive, is capable, under proper cultivation, of growing the most abundant crops of and cereals. Of course there the dissatisfied people on the estate—they may be found everywhere—but the majority of the settlers are by no means discouraged by the experience of the past two or three years. " I am confident," one of them declares, " that a man couldn't do better in any other part of the country. If it weren't for the newspapers and the politicians there would have been none of this bother. They're at the back of the whole business." These statements were confirmed by several of the other settlers, and seem to fully justify the reporter's conclusion that political bias, rather than the poverty of the soil, is responsible for the attacks that have been made upon the purchase of the estate. It will be interesting to see what Mr G. F. Richardson and Mr Rolleston, who have been most assiduous in decrying the property, will have to say in reply to the latest testimony to the prosperity and contentment of the graat bulk of the practical settlers.—Lyttelton Times.