Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1884. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 279, 22 October 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1884. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A nod is as pood as a wink to a blind horse. The Mayor provoked a geueral laugh during the deliberations of the Borough Council on Mouday evening (says the Taranaki News). A long and somewhat irregular debate had transpired, when His Worship brought some of the councillors to book in the followiug fashion : — " I have listened with great pleasure to the now members airing their eloquencu to-ni»ht,l)ut as there is noth'ug now before tho Council to warrant the present discussion, we will proceed to busiucsa." A man named William Searle was charged at' the Wellington Resident Magistrate's Court on {Saturday with having assaulted George Peck, assistant bailiff. From the evidence it appeared accused, while under the influence of liquor, struck prosecutor. Accused was sentenced to a fine of 40s ; iu default, fourteen days' imprisonment with hard labor. Mr* Searle, who was iu Court, expressed great indignation at the sentence, and stated that " the blood of her husband would be on the head of the magistrate." She subsequently worked herself up iuto such a fit of indignation that she had to be forcibly ejected from the Court. The Waikato Times says: — " There are at the present time no less than six life insurance agents busily engaged ' taking lives' iu the Cambridge district. The resources of this district from a lifo insurance point of view, must be well nigh inexhaustible, considering that it has been undergoing one un broken canvass for the past two years.". The following is told of a distinguished Edinburgh professor : Desiring to go to church one wot Sunday he hired a cab. Un reaching the church door he tendered a shilling — the legal fare— to cabby, and was somewhat surprised to hear the cabman say, "Twa shilling sir." The professor fixing, his eye upou the extortioner, demanded why he charged two shillings : up on which the cabman drily answered, " We wish to discouragu travelling on the Sawbath as much as possible, sir.' Writes the Auckland correspondent of a Waikato contemporary : — People tell mo that the prosperity of Auckland now is apparent, not real, and that the stir in building is caused by an expenditure which uever came from the North Island. 1 feel convinced that, after "the present impetus, owing to present expbiiditure, lias exhausted itself, that a terrible depression will overtake the North Island, for it is obvious that too many people from the South have rushed the Auckland labor market. Keen distress exists here, and a few may regret the day that took them away from the Middle Island. His Honor Chief Justice Prendergast is expected to reach Wellington from England at the end of next moutli. We understand that His Honor's health has much imyroved through his absence from judicial duties. Among the feathered creation, the eagle and the raven, the swan and parrot are each centenarians, An eagle kept in Vienna died after a confinement of 114 years ; and en on ancient oak in Selborne, England, still known as "'The Raven Tree," the same pair of ravens are believed to have fixed their residence for over ninety years. Swans on the river Thames — about whose ages there can be no mistake, since they are . nicked annually by the Vintner's Company, under whose keeping they have been for five centuries— have been known to survive 150 years or idoie. The 106-iton gun at Gibraltar, recently injured by the bursting of the shot before leaving the gun, cost the Enjlish Government £16,000. American husband : " I am shocked,, my dear, that you should waltz with that stranger ; the idea of allowing a | man you never saw before to put his i arm around you in that style." Wife : " I should not have done it, love, only I found, after a few minutes' conversation that I formerly knew hitp." " Indeed !', " Yes. he was one of my early husbands." During the Doniliquin, N.S.W. show week a somewhat sensational sale of 10 two-tooth merino rams was made by Mcrsi-s Austin and Millear, of Wanganella. The purchaser was Mr S. M'Caughey, of Coonong, and the price 4,000 guineas for tho lot. These rams cut fleeces giving an average weight of 121b 2oz of greasy wool. As a part of marriage ceremony in Servia, the bride has to hold a piece of sugar between her lips a sign that she will speak little and sweetly during her married life. The sugar soon melts away. Some idea of the losses sustained by the Woodville settlers during the late floods may bo gathered (says the Napier 'Telegraph) by the sight of 300 sheepskin's now at Messrs Hoadley and Co.'s wool mart, that were taken of tho backs of drowned sheep. A man may love domestic quiet and harmony enough to keep his mouth shut while his wife's relations are in tho house, but when he sees one of his fiue rutted shirts on bis brother-in-law, what wonder if ho feels that ho mast go down in the cellar and shovel coal, or burst. »