General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 22, 26 August 1893, Page 8

General News

Siam has paid France an indemnity of £120,000. A mail for the United Kingdom, due in London on 11th October, closes at Invercargill at 3.15 p.m. on Tuesday. The Pollard Juvenile Opera Company concluded a very successful season on Thursday evening. The second reading of the Electoral Bill, which confers the franchise on women, has been carried in the Legislative Council. At the Invercargill saleyards on Tuesday last, 6 prime Hereford stee s 2 years I'J months old, wore sold at £l4 5s per head. The division on the third reading of the Home Eule Bill will be taken on September 1, and the debate in the House of Lords will begin on September 11. A Masterton resident who lately returned from a visit to Sydney expresses his opinion of that city in six words—“ splendid for amusement —terrible for unemployed.” The stall-fattening of cattle evidently pays. At Burnside on Wednesday Mr Chas.'shand (of Balclutha) sold a draft fattened in this way, which were admitted to bo the primestconditioned cattle that had been in the yards for a long time. They brought £l3 per head. Inquiry is made in the Missing Friends Column of Lloyd’s newspaper, London as to the wnercabouts of Alfred Burton, professor of music, who was last hoard of at itiverlon, N.Z., in June, 1891. In Sydney, on 23rd inst., chick wheat was selling at 8s 3d ; milling, 3s 7d. Oats— Fair feed, 2s to 2s 9d ; bright feed, 2s 9-Jd ; extra heavy, 2s 10d ; Tartarians, 2s lid to 3s. Maize, 3s Gd. Barley (Cape), 2s lOd to 3s. Potatoes —£4 15s ; Circular Heads, £G to £6 ss. Onions, £8 os. Butter Dairy, 10d; factory, Is. Cheese, 3d to scl. Bacon, 4d to 7^d; hams (New Zealand), lid. ' Worth Trying.— lf you find your hair falling out or getting thin, just try a bottle or two of Mrs Mclntosh’s famous hair restorer; it is acknowledged to be one of the best known preparations to use for stimulating the growth of the hair. Once used always used. Only Is 6d per bottle, to be had wholesale and retail from J. S. Baxter, the cash grocer. —Advt.

One of the Masterfcon papers complains that whilst hundreds of poor, miserable families are crying out in New Zealand for bread, and are licking their very jaws in hunger, hundreds of pounds are being lavishly thrown away in procuring Government returns of little or no value. The present Government is no worse than its predecessors in this respect, and the member for Masterton, who has already asked for a number of almost useles returns, is no better than he should be.

P.P.G.M., Pro. F. G. Stone, of the Shamrock, Pose, and Thistle Lodge of Oddfellows, evidently believes in doing all he can fox the good and welfare of the Order/’ At the last meeting of the lodge his two youngest _ sons were, with two other* candidates, duly initiated. Three of his sons joined the lodge some time ago, so that it can now boast of having six members of one family— father and five sor s on its roll. Several other members arc following his footsteps, but at present he ‘‘holds the cane.”

How would it work? Our Masterton eontempory, the Star*, states that the Thursday half-holiday there is a failure, and adds : (< Te ry sensible suggestion has been made by a Masterton tradesman, and that is that a full holiday should be obsei'ved oxxce a fortnight.” We shall be glad to find him space for correspondence on this subject in the columns of the Southern Cross. So far, the Wednesday half-holiday appears to have worked well in Invercargill.

Geo. Harper and T. W. Maude, of the firm of Harper and Co., Christchurch, which recentlv became became bankrupt, have been committed for trial on a charge of contracting debts without any reasonable or probable ground of expectation of being able to pay them. The defendants were admitted to bail. One witness stated that the firm was practic illy insolvent in July, 1891, when Leonard Harper went Home to finance for the firm generally. The deficiency had been estimated at about £150,000.

An Invercargill citizen, Mr Abraham Watson, was charged at the R,M. Court on Thursday, on the information of the Commissioner of Taxes, with having neglected to furnish, on or before the prescribed day, a return of income for the year ended the 30th March, 1892, as required by the Land and Income Assessment Acts. Mr Watson admitted he had not furnished the return, but said he had no taxable income for the period mentioned. —Mr T. M. Macdonald, who appeared for the Commissioner, after quoting the sections of the Act and the Gazette notices, said the duty was imposed by the Act upon every person, whether or not liable to taxation under the Act, to furnish a return of his income. The lowest penalty (£5) and costs £1 Bs, was imposed, and an order made for payment of treble the tax payable as required by the Act.

The recent capture of the highwayman Wallath at New Plymouth was turned to good account by the newspapers of that place. Immediately after the event they published full reports of the career of the local “terror,” and followed this up with engravings of the building in which he was captured, of the highwayman himself, and of Mr Harold Thomson, who caught his man after a severe struggle, and who is, by the way, a son of Insnector Thomson, formerly of this district. He is certainly a “chip” of whom the “old block ” may feel proud. From recent files of the newspapers we learn that Mr Thomson has been publicly presented with a watch and chain and purse oi sovereigns, while Mr Holmes, who assisted in the capture of the desperado, was the recipient of a ring.

A first-class piece of work, in the shape of a plan and series of photos of Bluff Harbour, is now receiving the finishing touches in the establishment of Mr D. Ross, Tay street. The photos, and plan, with official and statistical information, occupy a space 6x5 feet, and form a very striking and attractive advertisement .of Southland’s port-. There are in all seven photos, the majority of which were executed by Mr K. Gerstenkorn, Mr Ross being responsible for the remainder. Both gentlemen have been very successful in obtaining good pictures or the port, shipping and works. The plan (which was prepared by Mr W. Sharp, C.E.,) and phetos have since been litnogruphed, and after the whole has boon mounted on rollers, a number of copies will be despatched to various shipping and business centres at Home and abroad.

“ The itinerary of a Methodist minister may have its unpleasant features,” remarked a well-known Maine divine to an American newspaper man, “ but it has its advantages, too. 1 There is a little, dried-up Scotchman who used to be on the Maine conference list who never failed to get oven veil h his congregation. At one station he fared badly, and on the last Sunday ho addressed the church, as all settled back to listen with ease: ‘ Now, brethren, it is nut fair to go asleep as ye always ha done untill I get a king with my sermon. This is my last one—so waitawee till I gctalang; and then, if I’m nat worth hear! ig, sleep awa’ wi’ ye, and I will not care; but denna go before I ha’ commenced. Gi. me this one chance.’ And they were all pretty well awake by that time, so he went on : I shall take for my last text among ye the two strong words ‘ Know thyself’, but I will say, before I begin the main discourse, that I would nat advise this congregation tomake mony such profitless act quaintances !’ You may believe there was noa snore or a nod in the bouse that morning.”

We are in Receipt from the Government of a copy of the annual report of the Lands and Sui’vey Department. In this Mr G. W. Williams, Chief Surveyor for Southland, outlines the pi’oposed operations for 1893-91 as follows :—Triangulation of Waikawa District is to be completed as eaxdy as possible, as also the country between Mararoa and Te Arrau. It is proposed to extend trig and topographical survey across the Waiau river and along the south coast preparatory to surveying the land allotted to Middle Island Natives. The same is also required at Stewart Island, in order to control surveys of isolated pieces which axe applied for from time to time. All the rxxns are expected to be subdivided aboxxt the end of May. Settlement surveys of some forty thousand acres in Waikawa Distinct are to be proceeded with as quickly as circrrmstances will permit. These and various other smaller works will fully occupy the present staff for a considerable time to come, as nearly all the country referred to is forest land.

A New and Marvellous Remedy :—The small sum of two shillings and sixpence will purchase a bottle of the Solomon Solution. Owing to its wonderful curative properties needs only to be tried once to convince the most sceptical. It is a positive cure for rheumatic gout, rheumatism, sciatica, lumbago, neuralgia, sprains, wounds, sores, swellings, etc., etc. Numerous testimonials. Large quantities of this ointment have been sold in Canterbury and elsewhere. To be bad from J. S. Baxter. Invercargill.—Advt.