LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 3, 1 December 1883, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

. ♦ " — The police should examine the stat« of an unfortunate horse that is occasionly driven by a Chineae gardener. It is so lame as to be quite unfit to be on the road at all. But that is a matter which does not appear to concern John much. We learn that a writ has been issued against Mr John Duthie, a member of the Wellington Harbour Board, by the retirtiriug en«iueer, for alleged defamation of professional character and claiming sub* stantial damages.

The Railway Department has very sensibly decided spun issuing ' tourist tickets" which will be m force on all the Government railways of the colony during the months of December, January, and February next, and the charge for which has been fixed at tbe Comparatively loir 6gure of £8. Excursionist who may purchase these tickets will be entitled to travel on each and all the State lines m New Zealand on every day during the period stated. The following extract may prove of interest to New Zealand apiaruns : — " The bee has long seen a type of the industrious worker, but there are few people who j know how much labor the sweet hoard of the hive represents. Each head of clover contains about sixty distritct flower tubes, each of which contains a portion of su.-ar not exceeding the five»hundredth part of a grain. Some patient apiarian enthusiast, who had watched their movements, conoludes that the proboscis of the bee must, therefore, be inaerte 1 into 500 clover tubes before one grain of sugar can be obtained. There are 7000 grains m a pound, and as honey contains three fourths of its weight of dry ati^ar, each pound of honey represents 2,500,000 clover tubes sucked by bees." Mohammedans have tbeir Dr. Cum* ming, There is some agitation m Mohatn* medan circles m Calcutta just now, growing out of a report published m the Amur ul Akhbar, to the effect that Mohammed had appeared to the guardian of hU tomb ac Mecca, and announced that from the date of the commencement of ihe Mobrrura, which will complete the 14th century since the Hijra, the sun will; begin to rise m the west, confusion will break out m the world, many people', will die, a cyclone will deluge the. land, the printing iv every Koran will be effaced, and the final end of all things be ushered, m. : A correspondent to a North Island paper, finds out the appended.;— '* We pay our creditors hnlf-a-crown m the pound, we can punch an editor's head 'and half kill him for doing his duty, for ten shillings : while for selling a pint of beer on a Sunday, a publican, who pays the state enormous customs duties, together with forty pounds a year for a license to sell, is liable to a floe of twenty pounds. What an intensely religious people we are to be sure ! Surely we should get to heaven when we die 1