Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1884. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 29, 3 January 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1884. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

« . By c»bla we learn that the Eev. Mnckonochie has resigned the vicarage of St. Peters, London docks, the benefice which was recently sequeafcratfid by the JJ'shop of London. Mr Gladstone has declined an invitation to visit JS ew Zealand on the plea of presn eyre of official duty. The Wellington papers report the following stranae occurrence ;^-*' A man from Christchurch, respectably ponnecfced, became so unmanageable after arriving in the city, though ailing nothing while on

tho voyage, thai he had to be placed under restraint. Ite was lod^od in tho Poliea Station, and was t) be brought up with a view to his being remauded for medical examination. After ft hand-to-mouth existence, the celebrated character known as the "bearded lady" has met with a mysterious death in Sheffield. Deceased was no*- a woman, but a man named Ratcliff, and for years dressed as a woman and appeared at fairs under the above title. He danced, recited, and sang, but recently turned fortue-teller. Although he pro fess-?d that he could tell fortunes of others, he could not make hia owrij' and died in the deepest poverty. From a medical examination, it h;!S been ascer* tained that the man was stabbed thrnueh the eye with a penknife. The eis no clue ' lo lm assailant. ' An advertisement will appear in Monday's issue calling for tenders for tho supnly of totara and straining posts for the use of the Railway Department at Wan'.jauui. There was no meeting of the Borough Council last nicht, a quorum not bein: in attendance. We presume the meeting followed too closely on the Christmas and New Year's holidays. There is in the Chinese camp at Maryborough, in "Victoria, a most extraordinary specimen of female humanity in the per* son of Mrs Wi Fook, the European wife of a Chinese resident in the camp. This intere-iing person is about the most obese female in the colony. She turns the scale at 26 stoue, or 3c wt 2qr», and the weight is such that no chair can be found in the camp capable of supporting her. A brick* work structure has been erected for Mrs Wi Fnok to repose upon. She is a woman ( f medium height, but extraordinary v\ idth. One Sunday recently, while a large party of excursionists were travelling frjoi the village of Secondigliano to Naples, the driver of the locomotive drawing the tramcars in which they were riding lost coi/trol of his engine at a steep incline, and the cars, dashing with fearful velocity to the bottom, ran into another engine. The result was that six persons were killed and fifty injured. The driver and fireman of the locomotive have been arrested on a charge of culpable nogli* gence. The Rev. Ernest James Augusta' Fitzroy, incumbent of St. JudeV, Liverpool accused of immorality and drunkenness' has, 1 been suspended for three years, and, until such further time as he shall pro - duce tho certificate of three clergymen of hia sobriety d iring that period . J A singular phenomenon was observed I by some residents in the vicinity of Tiaio, Queensland, recently. A heavy cloud sent down a few drops of rain ; a patter* ring of what was supposed to be small hailstones followed, but an examination of the missiles showed that they were small' round shells, similar to those which abound on the coast. These shells were probably taken aloft by a waterspout, and carried inland. One of the most enterprising men in the district (says the Wairarapa Daily) is a farmer in the suburbs of Qreytown, Having invited some of his friends from Wellington to spend the Christmas holidays with him, he set them to work haymaking — a la Chinaman and cheap labour. In the evening, while having a wine together on the " bob in" system, he issued another invitation to spend two or three ,weeks in June, when he would be scrubfalling, which was eagerly accepted. There appears a probability of a gathering of the pioneer settlers being held in Wellington to celebrate the 44th anniversary of the foundation of the colony. Mi J. : H. Wallace and Mr Thomas McKenzie have by advertisement asked those pioneer settlers who arrived from 1840 to 1850 to respond to tlieir^ suggestion of a , social gathering on the" 22nd of January. The Taranaki Herald says : — Over 10,000 acres of bush land have been cleared at the back of the VVaimate Plains during the pasb season. The soil takes grass well and it is reckoned that it will fead a bullock to the acre. A petition to Parliament in favor of Local Option baa been signed by orer 13,000 persons in New South Wales. Nearly a hundred convicts from New Caledonia are known to have arrived in Queensland and Victoria.