LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 172, 18 June 1884, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

There was a high flood at the Lower Ferry on Saturday night and during Suuday and it was found impossible to work the punt with heavy conveyances until the tiood subsided. Further add'lions are made elsewhere to the catalogue of Messrs Stevens & Gorton's stock sale at Awahuri to take place next Friday at the sale yards there commencing at 1 o'clock. The direct steamer Doric may be expected to reach Wellington from Aucklaud next Saturday or Sunday. In order to try and run tho local carriers off the road, Oobb and Co. are now : charging 5s for the faro from Woodville to Makotoku, a distance of over 30 miles yet the same conveyance charges 10s from Palmerston to Woodville, equal to about half the former distance. Woodville residents and the travelling public strongly resent this endeavour on the part of Cobb arid Co. to crush people who aie trying to make an honest living on the road. : At the civil sittings of the Wellington Supreme Court which opened on Monday owing to a variety of causes not one of the eighteen cases down on the list was proceeded, with the whoielet having been eilher adjourned, withdi-Mwu, settled out of Court, or wrongly m • ffd. Such an occurrence is probably without precedent m the a: nils ofjudicial hißlory m this colony. A passenger by the Dunedin, which arrived on Saturday, informs the Star that she had a rather narrow escape just before reaching port. The night was foggy, and land hod not been sighted, when breakers were sighted on the wea'.her-bow. '"Bout ship" was immediately ordered, and the vessel answer"ng her helm, managed to clear White Island safely. White Island is a small rock off the Ocean Beach within view oE Dunedin. A dogfight recently took place m Napier, which the local Telegraph thus placed on record : — Amongst the "dinall bee." chronicles of the day may be mentioned a fight between a couple of bulldogs underneath Messrs Kuddock and Fryer's verandah this morning. The animals could not be separated, and they fought to the bitter end. The victory remained with a dun colored dog, his opponent, white and black, having to be put m a cab and conveyed to his home. The pavement had to be washed down to remove the stains of tho fray. General Gordon, the commander of English forces m Egypt, thus expresses his views as to a future life :-.." I think this life is only one of the series of lives, which our incarnated part has lived. I have little doubt o£ our having preexisted ; and that, also, m the time of our pro existence we were actively employed. So, therefore, I believe m our active employment m a future life, and like the thought. "We shall, I think be far from perfect m a future life, and indeed, go on towards perfection, but never attain it." " I have," says Mr G. A. Sala, m the Illustrated London News, " seen a good deal of husbands and wives m my time, and I if have any faculty of observation, it has generally: led to the conclusion (hat the happiest marriages are tin s • m which the bride,when she comes to the altar rails, has m the way of the world's goods precisely what she stands upright m, and no more." Tho hangman who officiated at O'Donoghue's execution at Hokitika on Wfdnesday is not unknown at Hokitika. He is a prisoner named Levy, who was sentenced to some three years' imprisonment for forgery, and was an iumate <f Hokitika gaol for some time. Latter'v (says the Post) he has been at Mom t Cook helping to build the colonial prison m cours« of erection there, and the remainder of his sentence will be cancelled for acting as Jack Ketch on this occasion. Mr Micaiah Reid, the Cf vernor of the Terrace Gaol here, superintended tho proceedings.

Doctor — Have you got the better t>; the ague yet ? Patient— No, stir. Me and mo wife is as bad as iver, sor. Durtor — Did you get that whisky ami quinine I prescribed ? Patient — Vis, sor ; but it did no good at .all, at all. Doctor— That is strange ! You took it according to the diie tions, I suppose ? Palionl — Vis sor ; ye know a man and his wife are one? Doctor — What lit.s that lo do with it? Patient— Well, ye sec. sor, bein' urn we nni one Hush, I dik the whisky and gave Uiddy the quinine. Some excitement I: as been caused m the neighborhood of Mastertim recently (according to a Wellington paper) by a I reputed discovery of gold, specimens of j the quartz having been pronounced by! experts to be rich m the precious metal. I Although the " find" is said to have taken place within ten or twelve miles of Mastorton, the fortunate prospectors have, with excusable cautiop, kept the secret so well that next to" nothing is known as to the locality. It haa transpired, ho .vover,that the quartz was found on native land. . • According to the Photographic News, M. do St. Pol Lias, a French traveller m New Zealand, has recently published the views of of a Maori upon the ..theory of photography. This is how one of the aborigin s explains the modus operandi of tlio photographer : — "The white man is taking pictures of our country. Whenever he sees a nice view, he stands still, and looking at it steadily with his big eyes, absorbs the picture inside him, making terrible grimaces the while. Then he pnts his head into a bag, and spits out the view upon a glass plate, of which he carries a goodly number with, him. Finally the glass is washed with water, the picture of the landscape remaining behind on the surface."