The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1899

Manawatu Herald, 20 July 1899, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1899

A pigeon service is to be utilised in connection with the naval manoeuvres. Messrs Heasman and Baker, tailors, notify their removal to a more central stand in the shop lately occupied by Mr A. Fraser. The steamer Perthshire, which was lately disabled in the Tasman Sea, has now been repaired. After taking in coal she will resume her voyage to New Zealand. The prisoners at the convict prison, Prince Town, Dartmoor, in Devonshire, are in a rebellious state. Five attempts to escape have been made during the past fortnight. W. Cathro, who has twice been tried on a charge of misappropriating £2084, the jury disagreeing each time, has been admitted to bail, himself in £1500 and two sureties of £1,250 each. It is easy to understand why the ranging has been lax lately when our readers are informed that Mr P. Guerin has been laid up. However we are glad to see him about again and those who have been in the habit of taking advantage of his absence may find it rather a costly matter. The largest searchlight in the world was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition, in Chicago. America. The reflecting lens, 6oin in diameter, weighs Soolbs, and is mounted in a brass ring which weighs 7501 b. The reflected light is equal to that of 750,---000,000 candles. A newspaper could be read by its light a hundred miles away. The Post says, " the Premier likes his " gallery," and knows how to get it. His pose at the great gathering in Hill-street on Sunday, in a great Irish frieze overcoat with shamrock in buttonhole, could not have been surpassed." Everythingcan be turned from what it was meant to be, but taking the suggestion as the Post puts it, does not the very fact prove what an able man the Premier is ? No greater compliment can be paid to a gathering than to associate oneself as intimately as possible with it, and if the gathering was largely Irish, a frieze coat and a shamrock were most fitting.

At Marton no less than seven different residents had their water pipes split through Friday night's frost, it having been the severest fe!t for a number of years. The Chinese are perhaps the most lightly taxed people in the world. In China all the land belongs to the State, and but a small sum per acre is paid nsront. This is the only tax, and it amounts to about ?s M pev head yearly. A trial was heid' in the Gisborne bay on Saturday of Belk's patent propeller, which has. bsen affixed to a small steamer, the Beatrice. The propeller, which is screw-shaped, and does not splash the water, but bores through it, worked with great smoothness. It caused no vibration on the vessel, and it is claimed to considerably increase the speed. When the Union Steamship Company's steamer Waikarc left for the South Sea Islands with excursionists the other day, she had 18,000 fresh eggs in the freezing room, 20 tons of beef, a ton- of fresh butter, 2000 head of poultry, and 10 tons ot ice. Besides she had 330 cases of fruit, of solb each, for the passengers. The marriage of Lord Roseberry's daughter at Westminster Abbey has been photographed for the kinematograph, and in a short time Northcote's Kinematograph will be exhibiting it in the colonies. As this wedding was attended by the Prince of Wales and a very large number of the nobility it is a view that will " draw " well. A French medical paper recommends, as the best cure for nervousness, remaining in bed a few weeks. It reports cases of what seemed incipient insanity cured by this simple method. It recommends a partial return to the custom prevalent in the time of Louis XIV., when the bed was used not only for sleeping, but as a pleasant place to remain while reading, eating, receiving friends, etc. As showing the marked fall in the price of fat sheep a well-known buyer told us the following the other day :— A settler when he asked about fat sheep said " not a hoof goes out of my paddocks under sixteen shillings a head." Being in urgent need of some sheep a couple of weeks or so ago the buyer went to this settler to make a deal, there being some 1500 or so. " I will not sell a sheep unless 1 get eighteen shillings" was the reply he was met x with, so off he went and left the sheep also. Prices began to tumble and this holder for big prices was very glad to sell at fourteen shillings a head. It is easy to calculate the loss he made. The National Provisioner gives the following details of the largest pig ever raised, and recently slaughtered in New York. It was two and a half years old, of the Jersey red board breed, weighed alive i6oglbs, and dressed i336lbs. This huge swine measured over 9ft from tip of its nose to end of its tail. It measured 25ft across the loin, 2^-ft across the hams, and Git in girth. This makes the hog measure 3ft through; From hip bone to toe it measured 3^ft and about the same from the crest of the shoulder blade to the bottom of the foot. The great fat jowls extend nearly 2ft across. From between the ears to the tail is over 7ft. A correspondent of the Advocate writes : What appears to be a daliberate attempt to steal 86 sheep occurred not far from Turakina last week. A settler one morning happened to notice fresh sheep tracks, also tracks of a horse and dog in his gateway. The gate being closed his suspicion was aroused, so he counted his sheep and found a shortage. Search was made, and they were found on the road leading to Bulls, and about three miles from the paddock. An old practice of sheep thieves is to act in this manner, and then if they find the owner has not discovered his loss, to drive them farther away later on. Sheepowners should be on their guard. Things are decidedly brisk at Messrs Swainson & Bevan's flaxmill at the Kuku at present and everything in connection with the mill is in full swing. As in every other undertaking managed by this enterprising firm the mill is fitted with all the latest improvements, and the whole of the arrangements in connection with the work right from the cutting of the green flax to the export of dressed fibre are most complete and uprtodate. It is, we believe, the only mill in the district working with two strippers. The weather of the past week or so has been highly favourable to the flaxmillers, the frosts being very beneficial in bleaching the fibre. The output at the present averages about two tons of dressed fibre per day, and when we consider that some nine tons of green flax are used in the production of one ton of dressed fibre, one has some idea of the work done at the mill, which employs a very large number of hands. We understand that the proprietors have orders in hand sufficient to keep the mill going for about twelve months. — Otaki Mail. The Gardeners' Magazine does not credit the report that the blue rose has at last been found in Bulgaria. Our horticultural contemporary has been told often in the past quarter of a century that the blue rose has made its appearance, and has seen plants of what his friends assured him were those of the veritable black rose, but when the season of flowering arrived the only things that were black were the looks of the owners. In the case of the blue rose he has not even been able to catch a glimpse of a plant bearing blue flowers, nor has anyone stated that he has seen either flowers or plants. The Bulgarian blue roses would appear to closely resemble the chameleon, which frequently changes colour to the eye of tne observer, for in one case they are reported to be of a beautiful azure blue, and in another they are said to be of a greenish blue. A sample of the soil in which the bush is growing has, it is said, been sent to a chemical laboratory to be analysed, but surely, says the Gardeners' Magazine, it would have been more sensible to have taken as many buds as possible from the branch and worked them on to other stocks, with a view to a perpetuation of so remarkable a novelty,

j A large whale rlipportcd itself close j inshore hot ween Worser and Search- '■ j ins< Rhys on Sunday afternoon, and j j went thron^'h all inannor of ;;.i.inbo3s until darkness hid it from view v An i amusing incident in connection* with j \ the aquatic exhibition was provided by two Maoris, belonging to a party camping in Karaka I3ay. The men j went out in their small boat to " have a try to catch the big fellow. When the boat got close to the whale the fiah apparently got scared, for it disappeared, staying down for about a quarter of an hour. Then it came up tor a breather, and dodged the Maoris up and down the coast, and even coaxed them out into the open, but so far the whale has not been converted into oil.— Post.