Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 9 May 1895, Page 3

Notes and Events.

Mr H. Placke is reported to be willing to swim across Cook Strait for a wager. In 1888, Placke was one of the crew of the timber ship Atalanta, bound from Riga to Antwerp, leaped overboard in the early morning and headed for the Holland coast, 10 miles off. He swam the distance successfully, reaching the shore at half-past 10 o'clock at night. He was the only survivor of the wreck, and when he landed was little the worse for the thrilling ad venture. Placke is a Dutchman, and is 6ft s£in in height, and splendidly proportioned.

A correspondent of the Post wiring from New Plymouth states that Mr Charles Fair, the second practical member of a Sydney syndicate inn terested in petroleum boring at Moturoa, arrived on the first of this month. Considerable reticence is observed as to boring operations, but it is known that the bore is now down to 240 feet, and that a flow of between three and four barrels per day has been obtained. Several properties in the vicinity have changed hands at good prices during the past few days, the purchasers being in each case members of the syndicate.

One of the largest camping grounds of the flying-fox ia in the Illawarra district New Soihtfi-Wales. In one place on the Minnamurra river there is a gully in which there art myriads of these bats. The Government are offering a reward of lsd per soalp, as they are most mischievous to orchards and crops. It ia said that the sum is not enough as though the best shots can bring four or five at a time or even more, yet the scalps cannot be secured as a large percentage hang to the trees when dead, very much in the manner our tuis do, and when wounded they crawl away into hiding places or up into the tiees again.