LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 22, 24 December 1884, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Hon. the Premier will probably address the electors of Dnnedin during the first week m January. Ho is expected to return to Wellington on the 7th. A London builder was offered bricks one-eighth ot an inch below the regular thickness. "What matters an eighth of an inch m a brick ?" said the merchant. "It matters 3000 more bricks for my job," was the reply. In an establishment employing 50 hands a loss of one minute each time of ringing the bell means 15 hours a week ; this shows the value of trifles. The cost of compiling, printing, and binding the Domesday Book was The selling price of the book is 30s. At a small dinner party one evening a boy, evidently from the confectioner's shop, had been engaged to do the waiting. When he placed two dishes of torts before the hostess, she, probably thinking .it not correct to know what was coming, asked—" What are these, William ?" Whereupon the boy pointnig first to one dish and then to the other, replied — •' Thorn's a penny each, and them's two for three-'aponce.'! We (Brace Herald) have often wondered why no experiments have been made m this district m the cultivation of the wattle. The Biversdale Manufacturing Company at Auckland has 30 acres planted; The manager recently stripped a four-year-old tree, and the bark when dried yielded 561 b. This would give about 90 tons per acre for four or five years' growth. Bark is quoted at from to £8 10s per ton, chopped and bagged. This is an unusually low figure but taking the mean of these two prices, viz., £7 10s, the gross value of a year's crop would be nearly i>7oo, which represents a yearly value of about from one acre of land. The cost of seed and cultivation is very trivial. The value of the trees as firewood — and it is the best m the world — would, we think, far more than cover all expenses of cultivation, stripping, &c. The Foxton paper hears that Mr Easton, the well-known butcher ot Foxton, is about to have constructed extensive works for the purpose of carrying on the business of mriat preserving. It will be seen by our advertising columns that during the summer months passengers by the s.s. Tui for Wellington will be conveyed at the exceedingly low rate of £1 return fares, and have the option of returning per the Huia or Stormbird to Wanganui.

The first consignment of passenger cars for the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company may be expected to arrive from New York m February next. It is anticipated that the fitting up of the carriages will occupy about a month, and the formal opening of the line, as far as. Johnsonvillee, will take place about the end of March or m the beginning of April next. The first two contract sections, extending to Johnsonville, are finished, with the exception of the ballasting of about a mile close to the above-named hamlet. The work already constructed has been approved of by tne company's engineer, Mr Higginson, who, however, m order to make assurance doubly sure, has decided upon making some trivial alterations m one or two of the culverts between Tawa Flat and Porirua with a view to the stormwater being carried off more rapidly.

Hitherto, (writes the Wellington cor- j respondent of an exchange) nearly allgoods from Wellington have come via Foxton, and the signature of Mr Jarman the chief officer of the s.s. Jane Douglas, has become quite familiar here through the shipping notes. But the expense arid uncertainty of travelling through the Manawatu Gorge neutralises the advantage of the shorter distance by sea and rail. So nearly all the storekeepers intend to make the experiment pt getting their Wellington goods by way of Napier and Tahoraite, and expect to make a saving of five to ten shillings a ton upon them when landed m Woodville. It is not merely a question of the saving of expense either, though, when one remembers that a two-horse brake costs 10s m tolls going to and returning from Palmerston, and a four-horse ditto about 12s or 14s, it becomes also a question of speed, of regularity, and of safety. The boundaries of the new county of Horowhenua (a secession from Manawatu) are published m a supplementary Gazette of December 18. They are as follows : — County of Horowhenua. — bounded towards the north-east and north-west generally by a line along the middle of the Manawatu river from its mouth to a point m line with the southwestern boundary of the township of Fitzherbert ; thence again towards the north-east by a line to and by the said south-western boundary-line to the sum- . init of the Tararua range ; thence towards the south-east by the counties of Wairarapa East and Wairarapa West respectively ; towards the south by the county of Hutt ; and towards the west by the shore of Cook Strait to the place of commencement. The European Mail says : As another instance of the general depreciation m the value of land m this country, we may state that the residential estate of Hilton, near Cupar, m Fifeshire, has just sold for (£12,000. Only a few years ago the late proprietor refused .£20,000 for the property. The s.s. Ruapehu arrived, all well, at Rio on the 17th inst. The refrigerator has worked well, and the meat is m prime condition. The B.M.S.S. Aorangi sailed from Gravesend on the 18th, " You must be a lover of the Lord " may be the orthodox tune tor the streets (says the Napier Telegraph), but it certainly should not be whistled so near the precincts of a church on a Sunday evening as was the case last night. The Napier Telegraph of Monday has the following mysterious paragraph: — " A shocking sight presented itself this morning on the demolition of the erections comprising the Fair buildings. In one of the side' shows, the canvas being stripped and the floor removed, were several bodies m all stages of decomposition, most of them headless, and all of them unclothed. The authorities were at once communicated with, but no inquest was resolved upon. Suspicion rests on a woman called Jarley, who owned the side show at the Fair. departure of the royal mail steamer Kaikoura for London direct marks the commencement of a new era m the history of our mail communication with the Home Country (says the Post) and fulfills the hope, expressed at the dinner on board the Aorangi some time ago — j that the New Zealand mails would soon | be carried under the N.Z, Shipping Com- J pany's flag. There were m all 51 pas- j senerers. Her cargo consists of 13,500 carcases mutton, 40 pieces beef, 2300 bales wool, 4079 sacks wheat, 1500 do flour, 128 kegs butter, 21t casks tallow, I 60 do pelts, 200 cases cheese, 100 do j meat, 52 bundles leather, also 18,358 , ounces of gold, valued at Her | mail consisted of 10,042 letters, 2621 books, and 9529 newspapers. J Ministers have, we [Post) learn, decided to allocate a portion of the vote passed last session for the discovery of new gold fields, as a reward for the discovery of such a field m the North Island. A new and really productive gold field m the North Island would be very acceptable just now. The now evening paper at Napiw is expected to be issued on or abrat 3rd January.

The Shaw-Savill, and Albion Company's now steamer Arawa, arrived tit Hobiirt, from London, on Saturday, and left the same night for Port Chalmers, whore sho is expected to arrive this evening.

The splendid new steamer of the Shaw Savill Albion line, Arawa, is expected m the Napier roadstead early m January, and will take frozen meat, and other cargo from there.