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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1259, 26 January 1883, Page 2

The following advertisement taken from *v Adelaide paper may prove interesting to those of our “ City Fathers ” who have faith in combination of offices :—" Town of Law*.— Applications will be received up to Tuesday, December 26th, for the combined office of town clerk, treasurer, health officer, surveyor, overseer of roads, clerk of works, valuator, park lands ranger, inspector of weights and measures, registrar of dogs, curator of com*, tery, and issuer of licenses, Salary £l6O per annum." They evidently believe ig gvneral utility men in South Australia.

The liquor laws in Norway are somewhat restrictive, and sometimes give troubl* to traveller* who are not prepared for them / the License to sell wine and beer is distinct' from the license of spirit*. AU the hotel* have the former, bnt very f*w of them have the latter, even in the largest town*. Th* consequence is that the traveller has no difficulty in procuring beer or wine at any time but if he should ask for cognac, he must wait till it is proourep for him from a house or shop which has the spirit license. No spirit is sold anywhere, not *ven in the licensad houses, between five o’clock on Saturday night and eight o’clock on Monday morning. This system leads to a great deal of dodging and trickery. Knowing the difficulty of procuring spirits at hotels, the traveUer supplies himself at the larger towns, and carries brandy or whisky with him in valise. Should he, unfortunately run short he will have little difficulty m getting a bottle of cognac or Irish whisky from the landlord, and will find it entered in hie bill as “ old sherry.” The London Times thus comments upon this system “ This is how over-strict laws defeat their object. They do not prevent drinking, and in the case of Norway they have not put down drunkenness, while they tempt honest men to risk their credit in devices which can hardly fail to have a demoralising effect." We know of an in- * stance in this town some time back when n smaller quantity of whisky than that permitted to bejsold by wholesale licensees we* put down as syrup ! ! In a lecture recently delivered at Boston Mr Parton said that' at Eton College the students made in 1880 a flre-horao power steam-engine, which turns the lathes in their workshops. This is a great change from the almost exclusive Latin verse-making of bygone days, and one which the Etonian* highly appreciate. Many of the bigger boys at Eton have their own forges, at which they hammer and mould, and thus profitably amploy leisure hours which previously were spent in schoolboy dissipation. A gallant act is recorded of Lieut. Lang, of the Seaforth Highlanders, during the Egyptian campaign. He swam across the canal at Shaluf, and under a heavy fire, he secured the ferry-boat, by which means he was enabled to get his men across, and put to rout two regiment* of Egyptian*/.' With hi* own hand he killed the colonel; and, though . the number of the enemy was, over the High- ' landers, as ten to one, he succeeded in making them evacuate the place. He wa* recommended by his own officers for the V.C„ and also very strongly by the naval authorities, but was refused by the Commander-in-chief because so few of our men had been killed. “ Twas ever thus ” as the good folk of Gisborne have on many occasion* diicovered. The “H. B. Herald ” says :—•“ When th* Hon. Mr Dick was in Napier some time age the Mayor drove him all round th* town to the Spit, pointing out the encroachment* of the railway on our roads, and of the Government buildings on other streets, and pointed out the urgent necessity for a new railway station, &c. Mr Dick made copious notec, and promised to lay the various matters before the next meeting of the Cabinet. As nothing was done, howevsr, the Mayor again wrote to Mr Dick, reminding him of the notes he made. We now learn, in a roundabout f way, that Mr Dick has lost his notes.