NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 895, 22 September 1910, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

A rather good joke, that lends to show the value —or otherwise — of expert evidence was recently played off in a northern centre to a number of farmers, wool buyers, etc., by an agent of a well-known meat freezing company. He produced a silky looking lock of what looked like rather coarse wool, and asked the experts what sort of sheep they thought it came off. One immediately said that it was from an Euglish-Leicester lamb, another thought that it looked like Lincoln wool, some thought it was hair from an Angora goal, others gave other opinions, but none of them got near the correct article. As a matter of fact the lock in question was cut oil the neck of a poodle dog !

A remarkable story was told at the inquest on Percy George Petherbridge, a Worthing bank clerk, who was drowned while bat hing from a boat off the parade. It was shown that the young man had become engaged to two girls Miss Florence Mabel Saunders, a local girl whom he had known for nine years, and Miss Ellen Clarke, a Cambridgeshire governess —and had arranged to marry both at Christmas. Miss Clarke was staying at Worthing at the invitation of Petherbridge, and she saw him on the parade early one Saturday morning, when he arranged to see her again in the afternoon. He had also promised the Worthing girl that he would call for her at her home at about the same time. The doctor who examined the body could not find anything the matter with the heart or any injury to the head, and the jury found that the young man had committed suicide by drowning.

A new chum writing in the Auckland Star of his earliest impressions in New Zealand says: I was led to believe that living was a very expensive matter here as compared with Home. Now, I think that there is no great difference, except that house rent is very high. 1 stayed for some time at a first-class hotel in the city, and was agreeably surprised to find the cost of staying there but eight shillings per day—and 0 ! blessed ness, no “tips.” I had a good deal of experience of - hotel life at Home, but 1 connot remember staying at a house of similar class under half a guinea a dav, not to mention “ tips ” to the porter, and waiter, and “ buttons,” and the chambermaid upon leaving. A dinner such as one is able to obtain for a shilling in Auckland would cost at least two shillings or half a crown in any good restaurant in Great Britain —then again the “tip.”

A Japanese engineer named Yamaskavva has conceived a method of silencing Parliamentary bores, and from his invention he is entitled to be considered a benefactor of the human race. Attached to each seat in the House of Parliament he proposes to have a metal tube, the top being about the size of a franc piece or shilling. Each member of the House is to receive a leaden bullet on entering. These balls can be easily passed into the leads to a receptacle immediately under the place where a member stands when addressing the Assembly. This spot is like the traps on the stage of a theatre. The trap is so arranged that when a certain number ot balls —not less than one-half the number of members of a full house—have reached their receptacle the trap is made to descend automatically, carrying with it the garrulous speaker or bore, as the case may be. No points ot order have to be raised, the displeasure of the House is manifest in silence. Away goes the bore, and another speaker is called upon.