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Motueka Star, Volume IV, Issue 171, 10 April 1903, Page 3

Shareholders of the Motueka Fruitgrowers’ Co-operative Society will learn with satisfaction that a substantial dividend is to be paid out next week. It is understood that Messrs Howard Smith and Co., the well known Australian shipowners, contemplate establishing a regular service of steamers between the Commonwealth and Zealand. Talking of mosquitoes, a friend of ours assures us that an acquaintance of his was once so plagued with these insect pests while in Florida that he endeavoured to protect his face by wearing an iron bucket over his head. The mosquitoes, however, succeedid in puncturing the iron and the unfortunate man, frenzied with rage, seized a hammer and clinched down the ends of their probosces inside the impromptu helmet. The mosquitoes then flew away with the bucket, the price of which was stopped out of the sufferer’s salary. The Westport Coal Company’s output for the month of March was 48,270 tons 4cwt. The output for the March quarter shows an increase of 27.669 tons lOewt over the corresponding quarter of last year. . The export of beef from New Zealand has increased about tenfold during the last eight years. In 1895 it was valued at £33,554. Last year it was £323,711, an increase of over 900 per cent. I A wedding was solemnised at a Palmerston church on Saturday last between a bridegroom aged 47 years and a bride of 73 summers ! The oldest volunteer in the United Kingdom is Mr Longmore, F.R.1.8.A., who.was enrolled in the Honourable Artillery Company in the year 1851. - This nine years before the establishment of any other volunteer regiment. ®