NEWS OF THE DAY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2663, 3 October 1881, Page 2

NEWS OF THE DAY.

The Timaru School Committee meet s this evening at 7.30.

A special meeting of the Timaru Borough Council will be held this evening t? consider the Waterworks By-law, and other business,...

The Board of Governors of the Timaru High School hold their usual monthly meeting to-morrow evening. On Saturday there were fourteen patients in the Timaru hospital, 10 males and four females. During the month a total of 42, 31 males and 11 femal s, had been treated.

A man named James McCallum, charged with habitual drunkenness, was fined 20s or three days’ imprisonment, by Mr Beetham,;R.M., this morning. The click for the Timaru Post Office arrived by train on Saturday evening, and operations in connection with its erection wore commenced to-day.

A number of men have been taken on at the Addington work shops, in the place of the strikers.

Grip has been heavily backed in Christchurch for the C.J.C. Handicap and Cup, and Amulet for the Derby and Cup.

Young men of Wanganui in search of excitement are going to get .up a Naval Brigade. Diptberia has caused the temporary closing of the public school at Bussell’s Flat, Malvern.

An eleven-roomed house at Weedon’s was burned down on Thursday last. It was insured in the New Zealand for £450.

Operations were resumed at the works of the Mataura Paper Mill Company on Friday last.

A girl was killed ne ir Auckland last week by being thrown out of a dray by the horse bolting.

A company has been floated at Invercargill to prepare meat and other produce for export by the freezing process.

The Oamaru Woollen Company are sending home a Mr Ballantyne, to purchase be on the ground in abont nine months.. A man named Lane is in custody at Christchurch for stealing 30 copper boilers, value £22 10s. What on earth did he want with them ?

A man named Sparks bombarded the Junction Hotel at Halswell on Saturday, and poured such broadsides of heavy road metal into the windows that he very quickly did £3O worth of damage.

At. the Invercargill horse parade on Saturday a score of draught horses and a number of thoroughbreds and others were shown. At the Auckland one there Were only ten horses altogether.

At the Maorewhenua ploughing match the other day, prizes were given, among others, for the worst matched team, the quietest teamster, the handsomest bachelor, the ploughman with the largest family, the oldest and the 1 youngest ploughman. The north mole of the Oamaru Harbor Works was commenced on Friday. The Harbor Board and other gentlemen were present to see the first truck of stone tipped Into the sea. Champagne at the Star and Garter afterwards as a matter of course.

A correspondent of the " N. Z. Times," having heard that the Farihaka settlement was in a very dirty and unhealthy state made a special examination of the place. He found it singularly clean, and looking as if it were "regularly swept and all dirt removed almost daily." It has good natural drainage, and Is supplied with running water. The latest attempt to contradict Te Whiti’s assertion that " the potato is cooked,” is to convert them by compression into various kinds of useful articles. The " Oamaru Mail ” has been shown mouthpieces for pipes made of compressed potatoes, and says it is claimed that the new material is superior to ambert as it will not break.

Over one hundred miles of railway in the State .of New York, had its gauge narrowed from Oft to 4ft Sin in seven hours on July 30 last, a;d the line between Cairo and New Orleans, 571 miles, was the same day narrowed between 4 p.m. and 3 p.m., about 2500 men being engaged on the latter job. " Civis,” the writer of " Passing Notes,” in the “Otago Daily Times,” says:— “ Whether avowed or not, this is the code by which the elections will be decided ; 1. Go in 3'oursolf, //"//')// ran. 2. IE you can’t go in yourself, then send in your relative, your neighbor, your patron, or your personal chum. 3. IE you can’t do either, then ascertain what your political principles are, and vote for the good of the country." A curiosity in engineering has been constructed in America by a clock-maker named Buck. This is in all probability the smallest steam engine ever made, for it is almost miscropic in its dimensions. It weighs only about fifteen grains, and is entirely covered by an ordinary thimble. Nevertheless, the engine is built of 140 dictinct pieces fastened together by fiftytwo screws: and three drops of water suffice to fill the boiler and set the engine in motion.

Two cows were missed from a farm at Blakely, and were not found for ten days, when they were discovered in a wood with their horns so locked together that a saw had to be used to free tt em. They were almost dead from starvation.

The mightiest lever in the world is atWoolwich, where is one contracted to heave 400 ton weight about. It weighs 1800 tons.

Vanderbilt’s mare " Maud S.” trotted a mile in 2min lOj-secs on August 11. Bhc ran against her own previous record of 2min lOJsecs, and 15,000 people turned out to see her beat it.

Several accidents occurred in North Canterbury the end of last week. A fatal one occurredat Russell’s Flat, Malvern, where a little boy was allowed to lowlow his father to the stable, and one of the horses kicked him, knocking off the top of his skull. A man at Eillinchy had his thigh broken by a kick from a horse. At- Doyleston a Mr Greening’s horse fell upon him, buising him seriously. At Lakeside a Mr Griffiths was gored by a cow, who rushed at a dog but missed it and gored the. man in the thigh. A bicyclist on the Leeston road was chased by a cow, but he put on full steam and got clear.

H. Coxbead, photographer, has taken those premises lately occupied by the Americans, ia George Street, near Railway Station, and having made extensive alterations, can ndw take photos instantaneously. A trial respectfully solicited. Photographic albums and views on sale, and can be seen in the window.—fADVT].