NEWS ITEMS.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 73, 25 April 1902, Page 4

NEWS ITEMS.

During the stay in Hobart of the Commonwealth transport Englishman, several members of the Queensland Contingent made themselves objectionable. Two were court-martialled and sent to gaol, preparatory, to being returned to the place of embarkation. Roller skating is said to be catching on again in Christchurch, and no doubt will spread like the influenza through the colony. As an instance of close tendering it was mentioned at a meeting of the North-east Yalley Borough Council that an accepted tender for bridgebuilding was only Is 3d under the estimate of the Council’s inspector, and a tender for an alternative design for a stronger structure only 5s 9d out.

The Liverpool Daily Post understands that the ‘directors of the Cunard Company have decided to build two new steamers for their Atlantic passenger trade which will eclipse anything afloat. According to the information available, these vessels will be over 700 ft long, and with engines of 48,000 horse-power, will have a speed of 25 knots. This will be a great advance on anything hitherto attempted in the British mercantile marine. The general outlines of the company’s steamers Campania and Lucania will be followed.

An Otago exchange publishes this item :—Mr Walter Blackie, who has just returned from a visit to Oamaru, informs us that the damage done by the floods to the crops is even greater than he thought. Hundreds of acres of crops have been ruined, A South Canterbury farmer told us last week that he had 300 acres of splendid crop in stook, averaging between fifty and sixty bushels to the acre. The whole was destroyed in two days. He will have to burn it off before he can plough. Mr Northcroft, S.M., (says a Waikato paper), made some very caustic * comments upon the evidence given by witnesses in the sly grog cases at Awamutu. He said the King Country produced the greatest lot of liars he has had to do with in all his experience as a magistrate. If Ananias were present in the King Country he would be taken as a paragon of veracity. He thought the King Country contained the sweepings of New Zealand —he felt tempted to say the world—so far as accomplished liars were concerned. He did not intend his remarks to apply to the general body of settlers in the King country, but to those who had come before him in connection with these cases during the last two years. The Waimate County Council has decided to experiment with rape seed poisoned with red lead for small birds. Last week the Picton freezing works put through 4300 sheep and lambs, and loaded 13,000 carcases into the Karamea. The Kumara is expected ta take away another shipment at the end of the month.

The Mariawatu Herald says that in the Foxton Justices Court the other day a case of obscene language was being heard. The witness was asked to write the words used, but the prosecuting constable urged him to utter them as there was no one in Court but was used to them! That constable knew a thing or two. During the last nine years the principal one hundred trade unions of Great Britain spent over .£8,000,000 on friendly benefits, and about £2,750,000 on trade dispute pay. A WORD TO TRAVELLERS-

The excitement incident to travelling and change of food and water often brings on diarrhoea, and for this reason no one should leave heme withot a bottle ot Chambert lain’s Colic, Cholera and Diarrhoea Remedy. For sale by A. Manoy, Motueka.