General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 28, 14 October 1893, Page 8

General News

The Kaiapoi woollen factory declares a dividend at the rate of nine per cent per annum. The new order of things. The first name on the roll for the. Invercargill electoral district will be that of a lady. The prison gang has been engaged for thelast few days in getting the post office grounds into order. The members of the Garrison Band have been granted free railway passes to attend the contest in Christchurch on the 9th of November. They give a concert here on the. 3rd of November, when an exceedingly attractive programme will be submitted. The Hon. J. G. Ward arrived from Dunedin yesterday afternoon. Mr 'Ward was met by His Worship and a largo number of citizens, and was greeted with three hearty cheers. Farmers should now have no difficulty in getting lime for their land, as in addition to the Milburn works at Winton, Messrs Jas. Anderson and Son announce, in this issue that they are prepared to supply lime in largequantities from the Gap Hoad kiln. Mr C. W. Brown is the local agent. Not to be. The Hon. Mr Scddon will not after all contest a Wellington seat with SirRobert Stout, but seek re-election in Westland. Meantime he has opened the electoral campaign right vigourously, and it is just possible he may visit Invercargill before the elections. In one of the Otago electoral rolls a woman has given her occupation as that of “ spiritual adviser to her husband.” We can better this nearer home. One of the newly-enfranchised in Southland has returned herself a a “home ruler.” And yet some people call woman the “ weaker vessel!” What will a woman not do to prove herdevotion? At a recent meeting of the Church of England Assembly in Melbourne one of the rev. speakers mentioned that among the marriages he had solemnised was that of a woman to a man immediately afterthe bridegroom had been sentenced to a term of four years’ imprisonment. The limelight entertainment given in St. Paul’s Presbyterian church on Thursday night attracted a big gathering of juveniles. The views shown were illustrative of Mr W. H. Mathieson’s recent visit to the Old World, and these, with his descriptive lecture, greatly delighted the young people. On Friday evening Mr Mathieson varied his programme, and treated the “children of a larggr growth” to an exceedingly enjoyable evening. A splendid opportunity of being able totest the value of the reefs at Wilson’s river. Mr J. J. Cuff has brought pnder our notice a stamp Battery, which is made expressly forconveyance over rough country. It is divided into parts, the heaviest of which does not exceed about two cwt. A similar machine working in Auckland was reported upon very favourably, and a copy of the report is obtainable from Mr Cuff, who, as agent, is empowered to dispose of the machine (which has never yet been unpacked since it arrived from Home) at a price that should ensure its speedy dispatch to the reefs. The students of Selwyn College scored well in the annual examination held by the Board of Theological Studies of the Church of the Province of New Zealand. From the Otago Daily Times we learn that in the second grade Mr Hugh Leach, of Selwyn College, is first in the first class, which position carries a scholarship of £25. In the same grade Messrs H. F. Wilson (son of Mr H. Wilson,, of Invercargill) and C. A. Fraer are placed in the first class, and in the first grade Messrs J. 0. Small and W. R. Fitchett obtained respectively first and second-class honours. Thus out of five candidates from Selwyn College at the end of its first year’s work four obtained first-class positions and one secondclass. In reply to questions at the close of his speech in Gore on Thursday night, Mr McNab said that he would not vote for any amendment in the Education Act to provide for the reading of the Bible in the schools with aa optional clause. He regretted that circumstances were such that to all appearance no change could be made in the direction indicated without endangering the system. If a plebiscite were taken and the vote of the majority was in favour of the. change he would not alter his principles. In Sydney on the 11th inst, chick wheat was selling at 3s fid ; milling, 3s 7d. Oats—■ Best Tasmanian feed, 2s 8-£d. Maize, 3s Bd, Barley (Cape), 2s lid. Potatoes—New Zealand, £5 15s;' local, £5 to £6. Onions, £6 15s to £7. Butter—Dairy, 7d to 8d; factory, 8d to 9d. Cheese, 3d to sd ; bacon, 5d to Prices in Melbourne were:— Wheat, 2s lid to 3d. Oats—Algerian, Is XOa-d; Tartarian, 2s Id to 2s 3d. Maize, 2s 9Jd. Barley (Cape), 2s Id; malting, 5s 3d. Potatoes, £5 15s to £6. During a performance by Fitzgerald’s circus at Aibury recently one of the lions inflicted terrible injuries on his tamer, Capt. Humphries, who fought against his assailant with splendid bravery. We vaunt our superiority to the old Romans who found delight in gladiatorial displays, but have surely little room to boast so long as colonists can obtain {pleasure in seeing a fellow creature risk his life to make an Australian holiday. It is about time the law was invoked to prohibit these exhibitions. People to whom life is not worth living without them are in a bad way.

An extraordinary story is told in a letter ■received from one of the rank and file of a Liverpool regiment engaged in the recent operations at Aldershot. It shows the sufferings which the men underwent through ihe excessive heat. The letter, which is •dated the 10th August, says—“ Yesterday we had to march eight miles at 4 in the morning, and took up a position as an attacking force at a village called Normandy. There ■were 20,000 volunteers engaged and as many regulars. The day was fearfully hot—over 3.00 degrees—and the men were falling all round from exhaustion and sunstroke. "When we had finished we had to march six miles home, and the dust was awful; you ■would not have known the regiments if you had seen them. The men were fallen out at one place to get water. They got a bucket of dirty water out of a shallow well, and they fought for it like wild beasts. Before we got home 23 men had gone down, fallen by the roadside, and we had to leave them, as we could hardly walk ourselves. One little chap and a sergeant fell on their faces within a hundred yards of camp. We have only two men on the sick-list to-day ; one is in Aidershot Hospital with sunstroke, and the other is blind. The first Liverpool fell down by ranks coming home, and out of 410 men only 116 and two officers came home together. They picked up five dead men in the Fox Hills this morning—three regulars and two voulnteers—-and I hear one colonel of a regular regiment is raving mad with sunstroke. This (Thursday) morning I have just hesn through the lines of the Ist, and they are in a sullen, discontented state, almost mutiny, cursing their officers, and saying they had a forced march all the way home yesterday, and that that accounts for their state when they came in.” The butchers in Britain, and the Loudon butchers in particular, have been greatly fluttered by the report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the sale of imported meat. Everybody has known for years (says “a contemporary) that a gigantic system of fraud was going on, but very few people had any idea with how much brazenfaced dishonesty it was pursued. One might almost suppose, after reading the report, that there was no such thing as English or Scotch beef, or English or Welsh mutton, sold in this country ; or, otherwise, that the butchers from mere love of deceiving their customers, dispose of it at establishments ostensibly kept up for the sale of imported meat at half the liome-brcd prices. At all events, the committee’s investigations make it clear that the beef labelled even at West End shops as “prime Scotch,” or as a product of the best meat-growing English countries, turns out upon investigation to be either American or colonial produce. In one town of 40,000 inhabitants —Southport—where there are 51 butchers, all of course ostensibly providing English or Scotch meat, it has been ascertained that only three home-bred animals are on an average slaughtered in a week. The prejudice against imported meat has largely died away, and fathers with small means and large families are only too glad to avail themselves of the advantages offered by establishments which honestly label their meat what it is and charge for it accordingly. Hut to be charged 14d a pound for meat, the retail price of which is not more than 7d or Bd, is in these hard days exasperoting to the mind of the middle-class householder, and even of the upper-class hquseholder, who, as a rule, fares not one whit better. Even when the butcher admits that the meat comes from abroad, he will sell River Plate mutton lor Hew Zealand, and American beef for Norway. Of course the colonial or the foreign vendor gains nothing by these artifices, while the consumer is heavily mulcted, and only the butchers’ ring profits. During the late disastrous drought the farmers in may parrs of the Country were almost glad to give their meat away, and yet the London consumers did not benefit a farthing. The average profit in the trade is said to be something like from 30 to 50 per cent., so it is not surprising that in the metropolis the butchers run the publicans bard in the matter of making fortunes. The committee propose a system of compulsory resignation and inspection, but they evidently look forward to a time when it will be possible io mark foreign meat in such a way that the consumer will know what he is getting for his money. Messrs MeQ.uarrie and Co. have secured the services of Mr William Waters (late of Croydeu, England), carriage builder, and are now prepared to undertake the highest class of work, and guarantee satisfaction at reasonable prices.