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Manawatu Herald, 17 May 1900, Page 2

Up to last Saturday 216 cases of plague had been reported in Sydney and suburbs./ Of the patients, seventysix had diedi and fifty-seven had been discharged as cured.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius has ceased. One of the features ot the recent activity had been the engulfing of the cone of the mountain in the crater.

Mr John Plimmer, of Wellington writes to tbe N.Z. Times that, " The Inspector of Nuisances in his report has attacked my property on Plimmer Steps and the Terrace as being unhealthy and unfit to live in, doing me and my tenants a serious injury. He also says that they must all come down." This he does not like and concludes with, " New Zealand is as free from plague as it has always been, except the plague of place-hunters and mischief-makers, which, I am afraid, we shall not get rid of so easily as the Auckland people did of the rat. I like cleanliness ; and apparently he feels like everyone else does who is called upon to do something for the public good." He will have to do what he has been told all the same.

The Horowhenua County Council has instructed their new and our late Inspector of Nuisances to visit and report upon the sanitary condition of the slaughterhouses in and near Shannon, and to remove all encroachments on the County road at Waikanae after June ist next, and that Mr Hira Parata be notified to this effect,

" A man can lose his head without being beheaded." That is only too apparent if he attempts to address a public meeting.

A cable message has been received from Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of Cape Colony, stating that Corporal A. C. Hadfield, of the New Zealand Hotchkiss Battery, is seriously ill at Capetown with enteric tever. Corporal Hadfield is a son of Bishop Hadfield, ex-primate of New Zealand.

The Boers have between 220 and 230 heavy guns and field-pieces, every individual gun being of the latest uesign and with the latest improvements, and the entire number superior in nearly every way to those possessed by tbe British.

Enterprise ! Messrs Cook & Son announce a conducted tour to the battlefields and other places of interest, in connection with the war, at present accessible, in Cape Colony and the Orange Free Stale. The start was to have taken place at the end of April.

It W v said that the evacuation of Kroonstad means the complete British occupation of the Free State. It i? the key to the passes through the Drakensburg mountains to Natal.

The Post's London correspondent writes, Mr F. W. Frankland, formerly Chief Commissioner of the New -Tealand Government Insurance Department, and now one of the principal New York actuaries, is at present on a holiday visit to Switzerland, and is staying at Zurich. Mr Frankland came into a very handsome property on the death of his father, the late Sir Frankland, the famous scientist.

The Sydney representative of a big London firm, which conducts an extensive business in frozen produce trom Sydney, has received a cable message from his principals directing him not to send any more New South Wales produce. The countermanding of orders is believed to be due to the plague.

The Imperial Yeomanry, recently formed for service in South Africa, consists ot 20 battalious, comprising 79 companies oi 12 1 rank and file, and machine gun sections, making in all over 10,000 men. The Duke of Norfolk has retired from his position as Post-master-General to join the Sussex Company of the battalion. His only brother, Major Lord Edmund Talbot, M.P., is with General French.

At Woodville two deliberate attempts were made to burn down the English parsonage on Friday evening. The house was fired in two places but was discovered in time. The police are investigating but have no clue to work on.

The Westminster Gazette has a picture of Lord Roberts standing with arms akimbo watching Mr Rhodes ascending a well by a ladder, and to whom he says, "Mr Rhodes I presume." The N.Z. Graphic has a view of Auckland harbour and patt of a wall with a sewer opening out, opposite to which are a party of rats on a raft with a parcel labelled " plague." The picture is called " Rough on rats," apd the papa rat is made to exclaim, " Now, Rodie, my love, be quick and get the kids ashore, and I'll look after the luggage."

Some interesting reminiscences of General Hector Macdonald are cornman icated to the " Daily Telegraph " by Mr W. Mathie, of Redhill, who was formerly in the Royal Engineers, and is now in the office of the Ordnance Survey. * About thirty years ago Mr Mathie was in Inverness, on duty, and lodged in the same house as the future General, who at that time was em-, ployed in a tartan warehouse, but was ambitious of becoming a soldier, and got his first lessons in the art of warfare from the Royal Engineer. Many a morning Macdonald had Mathie out of bed at five o'clock and made that gentleman, willy-nilly, give him preliminary lessons in drill. As this "soldiering" took place in the bedr&W, and both "drill-sergeant" and " recruit " wore only their night garments, one can imagine how funny those matutinal parades must have been. Things thus went on, and Macdonald became proficient in not only the rudiments of drill, but in the manual and bayonet exercises. Shortlyx afterwards Mr Mathie left Inverness, and Hector enlisted with the 92nd — the gallant Gordons.

The port of St. John, New Brunswick, is exceptionally well served by railways, as illustrated by the following facts and figures :— The Colonist car fare fpr the 2,180 miles over the Canadian Pacific Railway from Halifax to Winnipeg is £2 10s. The longest consecutive railway journey in which the Londoner can indulge is from Euston or King's Cross to Wick in Caithness. That is 755 miles, and tbe third class fare (no Colonist car witb its sleeping berths) is £2 13s 3^d. On this scale the fare from Halifax to Winnipeg should exceed £6 instead of £2 10s. Yet an intending emigrant writes to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in London to know whether his £2 10s ticket will not include " cuisine " during the journey.

The deposits in all the banks in Australasia amount to the large sum of one hundred and two million pounds.

The Argus has a special correspondent at the seat oi war, and he mentions that one remarkable feature of modern warfare with the small-bore rifle is the erratic course taken by the bullet. It has frequently turned out that where a man appeared to have been hit by several bullets, the wounds were all from a single shot. I know of one case where the bullet struck a man in the back of the head, passed through his ear, entered the shoulder, passed out again, entered the thigh and finally lodged near the knee. It seems an impossible course for a single shot to follow, even though partly accounted for by the fact that the man was lying down when hit. There are scores of such instances.

There is a disastrous drought in the western districts ot Queensland, and stock are dying wholesale.

Mr Holmes, the Government Engineer, arrived by mid-day coach, and will in company of the Mayor travel up the river to see what snagging is necessary to be done,

Heavy rain fell at Christchnrch during Monday night, and the weather is very cold. Snow is lying on the Port hills.

Mr James Booth, Stipen Jiary Magistrate, died at his residence, RoSeland, Gisborne, on Monday evening after a brief illness. Deceased came to the colony in 1852 in connection with the Church Missionary Society, and in 1856 settled down at Pipiriki, on the Wanganui River, and engaged in teaching and pastoral pursuits. At the time of the Hauhau outbreak in 1864 he and his family were made prisoners, and for three days and nights were kept in constant fear of being murdered. But their lives were spared, and they escaped, losing everything they posssssed. Mr Booth subsequently took an active part in the warfare against the rebels, being given military charge of the Upper Wanganui. When the friendly natives were assailed at Jerusalem and ran short of ammunition, Mr Booth, with a Maori crew, paddled to Wanganui for fresh supplies, and thus saved the allies — services for which he was thanked by the Native Minister. In 1865 he was appointed Magistrate at Wanganui, and two years later he was actively engaged in the suppression of the native rebellion in the Oatea district, living in constant danger of being murdered. In 1883 he was transferred to Poverty Bay, where he gained the respect and esteem of the whole community.

There was almost a collision on the railway yesterday. Owing to a quantity of coal having arrived at the wharf a special train ran down to take it up the line. The special on returning left Carnarvon station for Foxton a little before the tram left Foxton for Carnarvon, and after the special had run two or three miles from Carnarvon the fact that the tram would be met flashed on the minds of the driver and guard with the result that the engine was reversed and haste was made to reach Carnarvon before the tram caught them up.

According to the "Outlook," the Queen is contemplating the publication of another series of her diaries. This time, should the work be really given to the public, it will be found that the pages will deal with her impressions while at Osborne as well as Balmoral. If the Queen does issue this work, the profits from the sale will go to the Mansion House War Fund, an act as gracious as it is characteristic of her open-handed interest in her gallant soldiers.