GENERAL NEWS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9066, 5 February 1908, Page 2

GENERAL NEWS.

When the Civil War was just beginning the commander of a volunteer military company reported to General Lee in great agitation that it would require some time for the old flintlock guns of his company to be changed and fitte%for percussion caps. “The only way I can see,”, replied General Lee, “ is to telegraph to Mr have the war put off for three weeks.” When Dr. Edward Everett Hale was asked for his ideas on birthdays in connection with the approaching celebration of his eighty-fifth, he replied with this story: “In my ideas about birthdays I am like a certain schoolboy. ‘Which do you like best’ I asked this boy, ‘day school or Sunday school?’ ‘Sunday school,’ he answered promptly. ‘Why?’ ‘Because it only comes once 2i * * * The real estate firm of Solomon and O’Sullivan had lots for sale in a new suburban addition. O’Sullivan —young, enthusiastic, and Irish—was writing the advertisement, the national eloquence flowing from his pen. He urged impending purchasers to seize the passing moment. ‘ only met opportunity; he created it.” Mr Solomon read this line in the advertisement slowly and carefully. “This fellow Napoleon,” he said, “what’s the use of 'advertising him with our money?” It was a time of famine, and Miss Balfour, the sister of the ex-Premier of England, Arthur Balfour, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, was one of the noble-hearted band of men and women who were helping with food and clothes the victims of those black days. As she eat in a cabin one morning an old man called down blessings on the head of her distinguished brother, and on the heads of all those who had ministered to the wants of the poor. “And sure, me sweet lady,” he said, “if it hadn’t been for the famine, it’s starving we’d be this day.” Two more competitors in the round-the-world motor race being organised by the Matin, says a Paris despatch of December Bth, have come forward. They are the Marquis Joseph Boschi and Dr. Charles Yiviandi, of Turin. To the general disappointment, Prince Borghese, yictor in the Pekin-Paris race, announces|he will not take part in the new race. His reason is not that he thinks the journey impossible. There is always a way, the prince remarks, where there is a will and q well-filled cash-box. Ronald Amundsen, the Arctic explorer, lias declared in a message to the New York Times, transmitted here, that the crossing of the frozen Behring Sea will be the most difficult part of the journey from New York to Russia. Everyjt car, he thinks, should carry a collapsible boat and sledge-runners, as well as a store of concentrated food. Amundsen does not think the journey impossible, but will not predict the time it may take.