LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 36, 10 July 1885, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

. Oft bur fourth page to-day will "beT found Cable News, Telegrams, Coimmuv cial News, an exract from the Dunvdin Evening Herald on the Chinese, ati'd- a/ quantity of interesting matter with regard, to the Anglo-Rusaian difficulty. Tenders are invited .for falling about 35 acres of bush at Bunnyihorpe. ■■; '-; Referring to Jacob Faithful's' last drawing; the. News' says : — " Jacou Faithful's" "drawing took place rthia morning, m the presence of a large committee, of whom Mr Hooper acted as Chairman, and Press representatives, the whole management of the drawing . watt m the hands of the committee, and was done m a; thoroughly fair and, straitforward manne.r, and to the entire satisfaction of all present. 4050 shares Jiad been applied for, making the total amount of money for distribution £2025, or £25 more than originally intended, thus showing the popularity m L 6 which "Jacob" has growu with the people of liawfce'B Bay," ■ Mr • Milltas has : presented to the National Gallery of the Dominion a portrait of its late Governor, the Marquis of Lome. \ The Nile is like the tide — it waits for no one. It is regular as the seasons. It begins to rise ahout June the 21st, rises steadily^until about September Ist, . remains steady until about the 2lßt, and then decreases regularly until about the next June. It does not vary more than five or six days from year to year m -deiiturioSj or since Herodotus -vrrbte, 400 years B.C. ■ While members of tho gentler sex have invaded almost <»very walk of life once considered sacred to men, it has riot been, as a general rule, supposed that they would ever undertake to perform the duties of theatrical Press agents. '- The occupant of a position which involves *' working " newspaper men. is usnally supposed to contain m .his composition a very large proportion of the metal of which cannon are sometimes made. But, there is at least a female i Press agent who hands journalists a card bearing the following inscription : — " Bessie Bernard, a plain, ordinary, every-day, old-fashioned Press agent, n-presmting a genuine American giil, Grace Hawthorn an actress, whohopes to win on meritialone." The Miss Bernard who acts as Press agent for this enterprise is a young lady who wears eye glasses, and alludes to herself as an old newspaper roan. — American paper. . They were discussing an elbpment, and one lady, turning to her friend,, said, " Don't you believe it : would Itill you if your husband were to run away, with another woni an ?" ll It ini»ht," was the cool Te'ply. "Groat joy some.- ) times kills." \ A rich saddle^ whose daughter was afterwnrits married to Dunk, tlre-pelo-bratod Etl of Halifax, ordered i* l»i« will that the should loso the wbolo of. her fortme if sh« di-l not mirry= a saddler. Th« young Rail' of Halifax, iti -'ordiT to witi the bride, actuully served un apprei.iicealiip o£ sevt-n yi.'ars to a saddlyr, ,ai d afterwar Is bound ; ijiiuVclf to tho rich s. ddie'rs da ighter for life..

We (Woodville Examiner) regret to hear it hinted that there is % probability of Mr McCardle resigning his Beat on the Land Board, unless he can obtain his expenses. The caso stands thus : It takes Mr MvCadlc four days to .nake ench attendance at tho Board meetings, which are held fortnightly. The Board rucotnrneii(Jed that he should have the necensary allowance to cover his extra expenses. The Minister, it appears, cannot grant this, but he has made no provision m the Consolidated Act to meet it. Mr McCardle hts been one of -tho most valuable mfembcrs of the Board and it will be a great lohs to tho administration of the Wellington district if ho is compelled to retire. Mr McCardle is | bo public-Bpirited that he does not. object to give his time, but that J ho should bo put to heavy expenses as well for which' he is not recouped is a public shame. It practically shuts but country representation on the Land Board, while country members should bo the most valuable, seeing that they kno v more of the land to be administered than town members. i ■ Mißß ; Mary Anderson is. said .to hay« ; had acurious experience during a visit of many days to Stratford on-A/on,- before commencing; her engagement at the Lyceum. On one occasion the clerk of the church, m which she had bepn'accustomed to spend many hours, asked' her if she would! mind being looked m while he weut ? home to tea. "Nothing 1 loth," we arc told, "she consented, and reanaiued shut up m the still; solemnity of the place. Kneeling down by --.the, grave of Shakespeare, she took out of her pocket 'Romeo aud, Juliet;' aud cecited Juliet's death scene close to the spot where the great master who created her lay m his long sleep. But presently tho wind rose to a storm, the r branches of the surrounding trees dashed agajust, the windows," darkness spread tlirqugli the ghostly aisles, and Urror-strickeu Mary fled to the duor, glad enough- t« be released by the returning janitor;'* ■"'. Lord "Coleridge," iat the Norfolk Assizes, said there had been, for the last ten years, a steady diminution m prime throughout England and Wales.; The actual number of criminals .m; England was somewhat, less now than between 40 aud 50 years ago. Considering; that the population m that time iudi increasod by 1 nine or ten millions, the-pro-portional decrease hr- crime-, was ; very great indeed. "f ' : .V "' ' ' V ; 'One of .the latest and.perhapsleapt re- ' preh'eusibie uses of dynamite is, that of the way it . has been applied' inAVest Virginia. A'farmer placed some tjorpe-, does m and about his chicken-roost as A protection, against .jthieyesV *fh'e i next morning ther* was no hen-house 1 to be found, |l»ut at a : Qp4s f %w rods \vas' found the dead body" of a njbgr'o." This sort of Detection may be expensive, hut certainly has the nierit "of being ccwnpreliensi rely efficacious. '■;■.- 1:The "Kingston Board of Guardians received 192 answers' to the letter! sent them by a soldier out at the Cape, ask-; ing for a wife. Many of them seeiu to havebeori ridiculous enough-r-some, no doubt, being .intended as jests. Some, on the other -hand, was business like and . matter.-qf fact ; ' but they ; alt breathed a strong desire for matrimolnialf life. [ The* real' number of ' applications-^ ridiculous aud business-like—was 246. r Solve sent photographs, some were pretty, some .ugly; but'all 'tibreathed a strong desire for matrimony.'! One lady, cut;oufc ; the face from her^cai'te-dem&itey and requested the soldier to (judge her by lier figure alone.* "Two^ young wo'rrien declared- they wouldgO to-South Africa together,; ana Tommy - Atkins choose 1 her he liked best— the other woulaVgo off, : ? she'd be bound." ■ ■■■ ■.; -„; ; . ..; ■'-.",. I • A renowned i clergyman, m .Fifejshire lately preached a long sermon- from the text, " Thou.art.weighed m the balance and. -found wanting." After .the- congregation had listened about an hour, some bagan to get weary s ahd went out. Others soon follovved, greatly to the, annoyance of the minister. Another person started, whereupon the- parson stopped m his sermon and said,* ■ ' That is right, gentlemen, .as soon as> you are weighed pass ■ out!" The xfisi ßtayed. mi; A correspondent of a Christchurcli paper signing himself an "eye witness';' I',1 ', makes sOmeP.yery* untrue and damaging statements (at least to persons who are acquainted with the true facts) regarding' the Manawatu District.; ; This eye (wit-^ , ness declared that during the earthquake which- visited the district abojifcM years ago, the railway^ lines were; torn up and -riot a single chimney -waUlle^t" standing m the.place. A a matter of fact the' damage done at the time m question was nothing m comparison (to what was effected m other pla&es- and; certainly did not consist m the wholesale destruction of our houfle chimneys' "and railway lines. A New York journal announces -that there are m -that city 30 widows who are each of them worth, more thair'a' niiliion dollars. Airs. -A . .T-, Stewart is the richest of them, but there are two others Mfs Commodore Stephens and. Mrs Moses Taylor, who are each of them possessed of over £1,000,000, while Mrs Edvvard D, Morgan and Mrs Commodore .Vanderbill just touch that amount. The- journal m question! goes;on to narrate how Mrs James Brown is worth -and Mrs R. L. Sto\yart and; Mj # s JVilliam' v Cole-> man, £500,000 .each, with widows iDpdge, lireeh, . and Haromersley , close', qn . their heels with £400,000 apiece; ■ 'Finally the ' names of 19 other widows are s> given, whose ■ worldly ■ possessions "amount m each case to niore than £200,000. - A wealthy man who' was dying, and having no children to leave his money to", sent for a frieqd, to w,hpm he left 'half his money, on condition that "the other half was put m his coffin and buried with him. His friend promised to see that, it was done. After his death the executors sent for the friend to carry 'out his promise, so that the coffin might be-fast-ened down. The friend came; arid- looked j at the body, and said :;. ;* < Scr,ew : ' him J down, screw him down." "But how | about the money ?" "Screw Kirn down, ' the moneys all "right ; I put a cheque: m payable to his order and crossed." Unfeeling boy: "Better come away from that fire." Augustus St. John Browne (a haw-legged dude loith tight trousers): "Aw!. Why ?" Unfeeling boy: "It's warpin' you all out of shape." Baron Nordenskjold is now reported to be preparing for a voyage m an attempt to reach the North Pole by way of the islands north of Siberia. 3e intends! to be gone three years,; and his expenbes will be borne ,by the Russian Government. ; ' Irish humor, hard knocks as it receives is not dead yet. A friend of thejwriters, a major m the county militia antl chairman of the petty sessions- lately sentenced an old lady, who had given the police a great deal of trouble through drunk and disorderly conduct, to two months' imprisonment. Pqreeiving *he was Tather astonished, the major asked her if she hadanything to say against it, when ad.vancing, to the front of the dock, she thtia delivered herself : " I have this to say.; I have been divorced by . two husbands, my sister has been unfortunate, one -of 'my sons is m gaol and the other on ticket of leave, but" — aiid here the old lady drew herself up—" I : thank God, and I am proud .to say, that I have no reiciiiom m the militia." '. . , Italy (says the Director-General of Italian prisons) has 325 prisons, with a' constant average population of 40,000 offenders against the law. Of these, over 6000 are murderers. No other nationin > the civilised world has such.a large pro- \ portion ot criminals. « \ •'

Tho four boxes by .which the world, has boea stated to be governed, are the cartridge box, the ballot box, ;the jury box, and the band box. ; la the year 1755, it Muscovite peasant named Kyrloff, and his wife' were presented to the Empress of Russia. The peasant had bean twice' linamed, • and* was then 70 years of age. +Mi& first wife had been '• brought ito bed " twenty-one times : four times of four children each time ; seven times of throe ; and ten times of twins ; making m all 57 children, who were then alive. His second wife, who accompanied him, .had' been delivered seven times :- once of triplets, and six times of twins ; which made 15 children for her share. Thus the Mils- ' covite patriarch- had seventy-two ehj|di r'en by two wives — a goodly contribution to the population.— Warminster ; Herald. , ; ; . . I There died recently at a place m Perth-, shire, Scotland, a. man inf his jeighty-f t four thi. year, who left aU jhis money, £130,000, to build and endow a Wesleyan chapel, and two curious facts m the case J are that the testator was all bis life connected with the l?ree ehurcli of Scotliaad, and that, so far as is known, no,; ioSnfbers of' the ■ Wesle/an ' sect live, m the place where the chapel is to<belerected. c According to the Engineer iitilhas been ascertained that an iron girder will break with about four, hundr.ed thousand changes ot load, accompanied witiiftbr'ations, j a fact which but' too "clearly' shows that the spontaneous destruction of %\iv ar<ih;f bridges is bnt a question of time, jatfd WM't mot a ; verf long time.;- :- r- There is a maspistrate'ocßasionally sitting on the suburban benches (says the Grey River Argus) ■ whtfs'e^eiucatibnal qualifications are; so limited that to write is a burden .to him, and to read writing an insoluble conundrum. : Before him was ; brought the 'other day a plumber who had exceeded the limits ofsob'rietY. His Worship knew the man -weHi : but with unbending impartiality fined 1 his friend 108. Now Solder had; ■.beeny- effecting^ some repairs, at his Worship'^B.residence,x and it was some time after the account? had been rendered and . paid that the? worthy jr.^.'discdyered this itern-^*' To\' .attending jtfpbn you at^— rcoijrthouse '■. (when:ydtt fined me ten. shiuipgsji £2." "" T6 nioney paid on that occasion, -lOs 1" ■ The ' Tichbourhe - claimant does not find- . exhibiting^; himself/ m England a "very" lucrative .business.' Tho authorities have taken cognizance of his [utter anc^s, and as ' he' '.■'has 'Toned dbVn the violence of his'speeehes, the attendance ''naturally fallen off. He i« now turuing a longing dye towards ihc rich fieifls l "ori th^-^AuKirican 'side of the - water. Thousands ofpam-' phlots illustrative.^ q£ his story are to . prececiH.hiin, and hj^.'friond.S;Bay ;tßat he ißg"uaratite.ed.y t er^. large profits by an American asqociatioif r ■ ■'•■-; .The weil-knftwn ; j4?yrnn,^ of Ages " Ayas writtcir by the R<?\% A. M. Toplady, of the Churcli of England, yi/ the.year 1776. It has receutly heen attributed to a young lady"'iryih^''' m the.> „S tate of Maine. Better givo t<l 'a 'wrong person tho c'r> dit of its authorahip than mangle it as it has been mangled m almost every h)inn book compiled. \ Il'isf sung by^ahnost tyety d«iiomiuation,aud t " ? each has altered and spoilfed it. ' Tlid " We^le^isii yersioni is atrolcious^ The iPrcsby terian not tnuch; betterf while i'.othvr rdeiipmijiatibus' h'ayej treated? it 4 rln'its prigiuaiif6rin it is • regarded by coin pef enfc critics as the finest hymn m th^'English language. Its iiuprbyera hftvc J thoroughlyt, einascu-,ljtted.it,-rbb*b^d;itqf; ijs .paptry and sentimenr, &ud left ito'niy the shadow of its real self. t ( •'" Cij,'--' '■' ''■ ' ' ; : ; ' • ; ' '<* ' Branding sheep is an operation pretty well knowu "to most colonists, but the -bralfdip^giof -humSh beings is nowadays happily- infrequent. ; In the Dutch ;EasJ Indies, .however, , it- appears th.ittl^e'custoiri still preyajiJs, ;t v J Eighty-three ' Chinese coblies, -'says f'a Hon^kohg paperj were recently engaged, "at ; ' Samarang, Java; by a DutcW planter tor Deli,) and were taken by a British steamer to Singapore. Whilst on vthe>r voyage to tiiugaporo they were branded!, on the artn^by the planter with the. letters' " V. D." ' A dayspr two after most of th^iii" had "swollen arms,' and felt, niuch ; pkih vf'arid on arrivab'at. Singapore 5 the matter was reported to the -Dutch Consul who:, referred the complainants to the' mar ine as the incident took place] ,on the,, iii";h :v seas,, and on .board "an" English Isteamer. 1( The qapjtaiu'^ of the Bteainßr denied all knowledge of the mattei', the branding haviag been . done ' very quitely and by means of caustic.