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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 998, 12 November 1881, Page 4

The sum of £125 has been sent from Dunedin as a first instalmant of the fund in aid of the Jews in Southern Russia. Never neglect the lock on the pantry. Some boys have probably turned out first-class housebreakers all on account of this judicious treatment in early childhood. From a case reported in a medical journal it appears that the skewers with which our joints are skilfully trussed up for cooking may, unless care be taken in the selection of the wood from which they are cut, be positively deadly in their effect. We do not, we suppose, often have them made of oleander wood in this country, though, as this flowering shrub is very commonly grown in pots, and flowering shrubs in pots are very apt to become dried-up and dead, it is not improbable that we do occasionally have oleander skewers roasted and boiled with our meat. Used in this way this wood has just caused the death of seven out of twelve persons who partook of the meat into which it had been thrust. It evidently possesses, we are told, properties similar to those of nerium odorum, a plant common in India and Persia, and in which two powerful cardiac poisons have been detected. It is not worth while to make too much of the possibility of meeting “death in the pot” from this cause, but it does seem to be desirable that a substance which is to be roasted and boiled with our food, and which may be so full of sap as a stout new wooden skewer is often found to be, should be inoccuous in character.

Rather a complicated case arising out of certain transactions for the acquisition of Native land is being investigated by the Trust Commissioner. The facts seem to be as follows Some time ago Charles King entered into negotiations with two Maoris, residing at Rotorua, named Pikerau<n Taere, sister, and Wheretak, brother, for the purchase of 800 acres of land belonging to them in the Petetere district. Eventually an agreement was cope to for the sale of the land at 7s per acre, and King at once paid over £2OO on account. In the meantime the New Zealand Land Company had been in treaty for a block of several thousand acres, including the very 800 referred to above, and they succeeded in getting the signatures of all the Nat’ve owners, Pikerangi Taere and Wheretaka amongst the number, to the deed of sale, at 6s per acre The owners of the 800 acres subsequently declared that their names were signed to the deed m profound ignorance of its contents, no interpreter being present te translate its signification to them. 1 hey now wish to be released from its conditions, in order that they may carry out their original arrangement with King ; and for the purpose, therefore, of validating his claim, this gentleman applies to the Trust Commissioner’to refuse a certificate to the Land Company.