The Manawatu Standard. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1885. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1593, 28 December 1885, Page 2

Manawatu Standard. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1885. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

At Napier last week the thermometer registered 135 degrees m the sun. At least ao the Telegraph says. We are inclined to think that the man who read the figures must have keen •' m the sun " himself for some time before. Mr C, Brown, of Feilding, has resigned his commission ot the peace, and his resignation has been accepted. The Chief Justice haa ruled m Napier that where there are no assets m an estate the bankrupt must pay the two guineas to th< assignee out of his own pocket. Mr Clere, of Atkins and Clere, C.E. and architects ot Wanganui, has been «n---gaged to draw the plans, and superintend the erection, of a now hotel to be built at Hunterville for Mr Dalziell, of Bulls. The Herald is informed that Mr Joha Bendell has purchased the freehold of the Red Lion Hotel, and will take posaeesion on the Ist January. The prica given was £1100, stock and furniture to be taken at a valuation. The duces of the Boys' and Girls' High Schools m Dunedin are a brother and sister named Mois. This is the first occasion on which such a thing has occurred. The Peilding Star regrets to learn that diphtheria has niadeit* appearance m Gladstone-street, and two children died on Monday morning. The sufferers are of a family which recently arrived from the Wairarapa. Looking at the number of people m the streets on Thursday evening, making their purchases for Christmas, and the amount of money pawing over the counters of the shops and hotels, there was not much appearance of the depression that has been so acutely felt fsr Borne months past. There is considerable dissatisfaction expressed at the delay m making known the name of the succespf ul tenderer for the Gorge Bridge. We have received a letter on the subject, which is held over m the meantime. The hotels did a brisk trade on iK«raday evening and during Saturday, but we did not learn that drunkenness or disorderly conduct had prevailed to any extent. A Royal Commission of Inquiry has been privately opened at Auckland before Judge Smith, connected with Native land business. The matter related to a case heard several yearn ago at Wanganui. In that case the late Mr John Sheehan and Mr J. M. Fraser appeared. The matter m course of investigation is to the effect that the hapu for which Mr Sheehan appeared was awarded the land m dispute, and that the Native Assessor, who sat m the case, received through Mr j Fraser a cheque bearing the signature of Wi S. Moorhonse. As Mr J. M. Fraser has applied for an interpreter's licence, it is necessary he should clear himself from all blame m the matter. Dr Buller, Major Jackson, Mr Fraser, and Pomare, J King's assessor, were examined. Other ) evidence will be taken. r { A locomotive driver who can point to 40 years of uninterrupted service without a sinrie accident is (says St James's Gazette) not a man to be met with every day. Such a one is a Saxon engine driver of the name of Henze, who has just gone into retirement. During his 40 years of railway riding Henze has travelled a distance of 253,347 geographical miles, qr 1,900,102 kilometres— in other words, a distance equal to 47 journeys round the earth. Germany is admittedly by far the safest country for railway travelling—perhaps one of the slowest as well — but the performance of this veteran of the line is all the same « remarkable one. All boys, rich or poor,idlo or working, derive great advantage from drill and discipline, nor is there anything m these portions of military training to render them necessarily distasteful to the young, Variety can be easily imparted by constant changes of routine, and as soon as the elements are mastejeo I , route i marching will do all the rest. - Globe. Duriug eight centuries — say to the time of the Norman oonquest — one's direct ancestor* amount to a far greater number than would at first be contemplated. Taking three generations to a century, one has father and mother (2), grandparents (4), great-grandparents (8). At the end of the iecond century the number of ancestors springs to 64. Following the calculation you will find that the end of eight centuries one is descended from no less than 16,000,000 ancestors. Intermarriages, of course, would reduce this estimate, and there is no doubt it must have largely prevailed. The continued depression of the tinned meat market (according to the London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times) is proving a very serious matter tor the Home importers, many of whom have never been able to move off the large consignments which were ordered during the Russian war scare. The Government, too, laid m large supplies then : consequently the autumn orders are smaller than usual. Meanwhile the imports are increasing prodigiously, as many of the tinned meat companies whtch started at the Plate and m the colonies when things locked rosy have just got into active work, An electrician asserts that m bodies m which life is notiextinct the temperature Wees upon the application of an electric current, but never m the case of actual death. This fact supplies a test for use m cases where life is suspected to re- 1 main m persons apparently dead. A skeleton has been discovered by a man while fishing near the mouth of the Faien River. It is supposed to be that }f a man named Erring, drowned m the river 12 months ago,