OPIUM-SMOKERS IN SYDNEY.

Patea Mail, 5 March 1881, Page 4

OPIUM-SMOKERS IN SYDNEY.

During the raids on the rookeries in the city some most unlovely localities were visited. Occasionally dens of thieves, harems, and homes of larrikins were suddenly dropped upon, each of which was an aggregation of material and moral filth; and the occupants would start to escape when they saw the face of a certain inspector, as rats do at the sight of a terrier. In nearly all cases the occupants were unprepared for an official visit, and while literally many were caught napping, excellent opportunities were provided for examining the condition of the tenements and observing the habits of the persons who lived in them, but who, by the interposition of the law, will before long be forced into brighter, cleanlier, and healthier homes. In a few instances visits appeared anticipated, and consequently efforts had been made to hide cracks in walls, to patch up windows, and to cover well-worn unsafe flooring with matting that had done service for many a long year. But for all this the professional eyes of the visitors quickly saw in the buildings defects which very promptly determined them to order them to be either repaired or pulled down. Surprise was frequently manifested at finding many buildings totally unfitted for human occupation crowded into the smallest possible areas, and provided with the most deficient means of ventilation and lighting. It was in Chinese quarters, however, filth had accumulated in the greatest proportions ; that the foulest smells were experienced ; that the largest numbers of human beings were congregated in the smallest spaces. Some of the Chinese dens were partitioned off in the manner of immigrant ships, each partition being occupied by three or four celestials, or by a celestial and a white woman nominally his wife. Occasionally one nearly fell over little whity-brown children crawling over the floor, or gambolling like so many kittens. How their infantile constitutions bore the oppressive atmosphere, and the fumes of opium and tobacco-smoke, without collapsing, and how their tiny frames escaped injury, was marvellous. No one seemed to know whose children they were. Most of the Chinamen smiled when it was attempted to fix the parentage on them, and declined the soft impeachment.— S.M. Herald.

It is said that the value of the offerings at a recent heathen festival in Indian amounted to £2oo,ooo,most of which came from poor people. Government have decided to accept the offer of nine monkeys for the Wellington Botanical Gardens by Messrs Turnbull and Co.

The flavour of butter consists of fatty matters which do not combine with water, therefore cannot be washed away by it. Bread made from whole wheat soaked before being coarsely ground is used in the French army. Sea water used in the kneading is said to add flavor to the bread.

Says a writer in an Australian paper, “If you cannot find out how to grow wheat at 2s 6d per bushel and live, you will either have to give up wheat growing or die.” Every farmer should allot a portion of each field to his son, and let him try and “ beat the old man’s crop.” Let the lad keep the proceedings for his wages. The Board of Governors of the Canterbury College have requested the Agricultural School Committee to consider the question of the establishment of sericulture in the school, with the object of introducing silk worm rearing as a colonial industry.

An experiment is being made with the heliograph between the dome of the Melbourne Exhibition and Mount Macedon, a distance of thirty miles. The first attempt was only partially successful, owing to the state of the atmosphere. A writer iu the Portsmouth Weekly says he protects his cabbage against the green worm by a dish of cold water “ applied early every morning.” A Californian vigneron says that grapes grown in paper bags this season were not only saved from “ birds, insects and rabbits,” but from decay, while adjoining bunches not thus protected “were all rotten.”

In wheat growing Mr Mechi pinned his faith of high fertilisation, deep workingof the soil, thorough drainage, and thin sowing with selected seed. One at least of the new Cunrad steamships will be of steel, The weight of a steel bull is tess than iron by 150 or ,200 tons to the 1000. The Rev. J. Davis, of Dunedin, is about to get up a monster petition to Parliament far the suppression of consultations, sweeps, lotteries, and other common forms of gambling.

A Sydney paper relates the following : Near Albany four little children were playing about their father’s stacks ; one, a boy of six years, struck a match, and on its burning his fingers threw it down. The straw quickly caught, and hurrying the younger children to some distance, he ran screaming to alarm his mother. On returning with his mother it was found that the baby, a boy of two years, had been caught by the flames and was burnt to a cinder.