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Kumara Times, Issue 978, 18 November 1879, Page 2

The inward San Francisco mail is due at Auckland to-morrow. The usual fortnightly meeting of the Hospital Committee will be held this evening, at the Secretary's office. Ihc hill dealing with the Kumara I,‘jd neat lima! Reserve was introduced into too jiouse oy too Hon, air Olivex*, and not, as erroneously supposed, by one of the members of this district.

A meeting of the Local School Committee was held in the Town Hall last evening; present—Messrs Munvard (in the chair), \\ vide, Campbell; and Drummond. After the minutes of the last meeting had been read and confirmed and the outward correspondence approved of, the resignation of Mrs Bahncr, assistant female teacher of the State School, in consequence of her having received the appointment of head teacher to a school in Victoria, was accepted and forwarded to the Central Board of Education. A letter from Miss Oornfoot, intimating that she would probably remain in the school after she had passed her examination was received by the Committee with a unanimously expressed wish that such would be the case. A report from the honorary secretary (Mr Wylde) on the attendance of the school was read and received, and the Committee adjourned.

Our Hokitika evening contemporary has evidently fallen amongst the Philistines in the members of his own staff. In taking to task the honorable member for this district in the House of Representatives for his late telegrams to the Borough Council of this town, the article relative thereto, which was doubtless of a most sarcastic and severe nature when penned, appeared in his last issue ruthlessly mangled into a jargon of unknown words and unconnected sentences that can but leave the reader under the impression that the Lyell Argus and Wellington Punch have amalgamated and come before the public under the well-known cognomen of our Hokitika evening contemporary. One of our local amateur gardeners may be fairly credited with the production of the first potatoes of the season, as we were to-day shown a splendid sample of “Early Rose,” from the garden of Mr J. Hansen, of Dillman’s Town, thoroughly ripe and fit for any table.

Francis Hamilton and Richard Nancarrow were yesterday respectively nominated as Mayor of Greymouth. There being more than one candinate, the election will take place on Wednesday, 26th November. The W ar Office authorities have hit upon a marvellous range finder lately. General Yonnghusband has the credit of it. Working on the basis of the Italian one, he has made' such improvements that in recent experiments it was found possible at the first shot to hit a boat three miles out at sea. A curious case of “ like cures like ” has occurred at the Children’s Hospital, in Paris. A girl of 12 was at school, and during a thunderstorm the electric fluid fell close to her. For a moment she seemed to be su(locating, but this sensation soon passed oft’ into a fit of hiccups. These became so distressing that after throe days her mother took her to the Hospital for advice. The surgeon ordered her to be taken to the operating theatre, where, on seeing a man standing at a table covered with some awful-looking instruments, and surrounded by a number of assistants in white aprons, the child became so terrified that she forgot her hiccups, which did not recommence, and she was thus ciu-ed. “A few evenings ago,” says Vanity Fair “Lord Sydney, Lord Salisbury, Lord Duflcrin, and Lord Hartington, were assembled together, when they were asked by a lady which of them had told the greatest number of lies in his life. Lord Sydney at once replied that lie had never told any, upon which Lord Salisbury remarked, reflectively, that it was his and Hufierin’s trade to tell lies. The lady then said, ‘ Count Schouvaloff declares that he never told a lie in his life.’ Upon this Lord Hartington observed, solemnly, ‘Ah he has never yet grasped the meanof the word.’ ” One of the presents Lord Galway, M.P., received on the occasion of his wedding consisted of a silver paper knife, the handle of which was formed by the pad of the fox killed on the Ist of May (the first May fox killed by his Lordship since he became M.F.). On one side of the blade arc engraved the words “Hilled May Ist, 1879,” and on the reverse side, “He was at last himself caught.” This joke will, doubtless be enjoyed by the members of the Hunt. A curious survival of an oldtime institution exists in some remote places in England viz., the official ale taster. The ale taster takes an oath to “ try, taste, and assize all the beer and ale put on sale’ in his district “ whether the same bo wholesome for men’s body.” The old ale taster’s method of “analyzing” beer for the purpose of detecting the addition of sugar to the lirpior was rather primitive. Like most men in those times, he wore leather breeches and when he went to test the ale for the presence of sugar, a pint of fluid was spilt on a

"'ell cleaned bench, and i-he taster sat upon it till it dried. If on rising the seat of the breeches stuck to the bench then sugar was present, but if not the* beer was pure,