General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 40, 30 December 1893, Page 9

General News

The annual sports of the Hedgehope Athletic Society will be held on 2nd February. The Royal Tar has left Adelaide for Paraguay with 190 “ New Australians.” The Premiers of the Australian colonies have agreed to invite the Duke of York and his wife to visit Australia and New Zealand next year. The holiday train arrangements are advertised in this issue. They appear to have been designed to meet every want of the big crowd of excursionists who will flock into town on Monday and to the Bluff on Tuesday. The Farmers’ Alliance and Supply Co., of New Zealand, Ltd., and the Bluff and Foveaux Straits Fishing and Oystering Co., have gone into liquidation. It is stated that nineteen blocks of a total area of 270,565 acres are now under offer to the Government. In Otago six properties of an area of 14,090 acres have been offered ; in Southland two of 47,000 acres ; in Hawkes Bay 110,00. acres. A movement—emanating from the Foresters—is on foot among the local Friendly Societies to recognise the services of Dr Hanan, who lately left for the North, and who for a number of years acted as one of the Friendly Societies’ medical officers. Unhappy is the lot of a musical con ductor “The Messiah ” was given in Knox Church on Christmas Eve, and well given apparently, but someone attacked the conductor in next day’s paper for asking the audience to rise at the Hallelujah Chorus. Over-anxiety is a bad thing. If he had said nothing and the people had got up in twos and threes, at long intervals, they would have been lectured, and not the conductor. Another link with the past severed. The Right Rev. H. J. C. Harper, till recently, Bishop of Christchurch and Primate of New Zealand, died on Thursday in his ninetieth year 1 . He was consecrated Bishop in 1856, and on the resignation of Bishop Selwyn in 1868 was elected Primate. He resigned both positions in 1887. Our Mataura correspondent writes that a meeting was held on Wednesday to consider the question of getting a doctor to settle there. He adds: It is thought that Dr Hendry will cast in his lot with us. It says a great deal for the healthiness of the district when a population of 900 people cannot support a medical man, or rather cannot keep one in their midst. As showing the manner in which Mr Fish’s election committee worked, the Dunedin correspondent’ of the Tuapeka Times mentions that out of 2,600 persons on the roll, there were only eighty whom they did not succeed in interviewing. This is pretty well a record-breaking incident in electioneering; but it is yet an exceptional record, for committees, as a rule are little use beyond drinking whisky at the candidate’s expense and otherwise bleeding him at every financial pore—a fact on which Mr C. R. Chapman can speak with authority. Our contributor “ Yox” has something to say this week concerning the first exhibition, held on the 19th, 20th, and 21st, of the Southland Art Society. In connection with the collection of pictures lent for the occasion it should be mentioned that the Society is under obligations to, among others, several Dunedin artists.

Two young New Zealanders, and Southlanders at that, hare taken each other for “ better or worse.” We refer to Messrs E. McNab and J. L. Watson, barristers, and solicitors, who have entered into partnership, and will carry on business in Temple Chambers. The members of the new firm are energetic and painstaking, and there is little doubt that they will run well in “ double harness.” We wish them success.

,Is marriage a failure ? In a good many cases in N.S.W. it apparently is. In the Sydney Divorce Court the other day the judge made the decree absolute in a batch of twenty-four cases, so that there are now two dozen free to try their luck (?) in the matrimonial lottery again. The shareholders of the Southland Frozen Meat Company, at a very largely-attended meeting on the 23rd inst., confirmed the resolution passed at a previous meeting to increase the capital of the company to £IOO,OOO by the creation of 12,000 new shares of the value of £5 each, 4000 of which have been applied for by the New Zealand ShippingCompany. Messrs G. Nichol, J. Turnbull, G. M. Bell, and C. Cowan were elected directors. The millennium is a long way off yet. Bead this : It is announced that the Admiralty has decided to strengthen the British navy and make it stronger than it has been during any previous period of peace. Then read this: At a conference of Anarchists, held in London, it was resolved that desperate measures are necessary in order to convince capitalists that the. working classes must be treated with more consideration. Edison’s improved phonograph may bo heard during the next few days at St. Mary’s art union rooms, Dee street. Mr Leyden, the manager, who is leaving shortly for South Africa, has a splendid selection of pieces, showing the phonograph in all moods —laughing, whistling, singing, applauding, &c ; All who have not heard it have a revelation in store for them.

It is expected that considerably more than a fourth of the hotels in Dunedin will go by the board; and in some of the suburban districts a complete reign of prohibition is expected to be inaugurated. If so the city fathers will be sorely perplexed in the matter of ways and means. But it may be on the other hand (adds the “ own ” of the Tuapeka Times) that there will be less destitution to relieve, and, consequently, less to expend on charitable aid. There is pleasure in hoping so.

At the last meeting of the Loyal Shamrock, Bose and Thistle Lodge of Oddfellows, M.U., the N.G., Bro. A. Carnahan, passed to the G.M. chair. Bro. N. Mcßobie was elected N.G., Bro. A. Mitchell Y.G., and Bro. F. Weir Elective Secretary.—Bro. D. Anderson, owing to ill-health, forwarded his resignation of the ireasurership, which he has held uninterruptedly for twenty-one years. It was accepted with regret, and P.P.G.M. Bro. T. Findlay temporarily appointed to the office. The question of making a permanent appointment, and of recognising Bro. Anderson’s long and valuable services to the Lodge, will be considered at a future meeting. A cab proprietor named William Mudge, aged 45, was stabbed to death in Jones street, Dunedin, on Christmas night, while his nephew, Charles Ashton, was also seriously injured. A man named Richard Dobson, a moulder working for Messrs A. and T. Burt, and a German named Kdfner have been charged with the offence. It is alleged that Ashton went past his own house and round to the back door of the house of a woman named Greaves, where Dobson had stayed on Saturday night and where he had visited on the Sunday. The woman says that Ashton and Mudge tried to force their way in. At this stage Dobson appeared on the scene, with the result stated.

There was a bridal couple in the train the other day (writes an exchange) and the passengers in that particular carriage were on the grin most of the time over their antics. The bride had got the man she loved, and she didn’t care a copper who saw her pillow her head on his shoulder. The bi’idegroom had got a farm with his wife, and if he wanted to feed her on lollipops or squeeze her hands, whose business was it ? A little old man, dried up and bald-headed, sat directly in front of the couple; and he looked' at them so often, that finally the husband explained: “ We’re just married.” “ I knowed it all the time,” chuckled bald head. “ And we can’t help it, you know.” “No, you can’t, I’ll be hanged if you can.” “ I presume it seems silly to au old man like you?” continued the husband. “Does it?” ejaculated the old man as he hobbled about. “ Well, I can tell you it doesn’t, I’ve been married three times over, and I’m now on my way to marry a fourth. You orter to see me a week hence. Silly! why, I’ll hug and squeeze at the rate of forty miles an hour!” There was no service at St. Paul’s Wesleyan Church on Christmas Day, but on the preceding day (Sunday) Christmas hymns were sung at both services, as well as Gounod’s Nazareth” by Mr J. Hensley in the morning, and Novello’s setting of “ O come all ye faithful (Adestes Pideles) in the evening, when the Rev. R. Taylcr preached from the text “ Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth, peace, goodwill towards men.” The voluntaries for the day were “Pastoral Symphony,” “ O thou that tellest,” “He shall feed His flock,” and “ Glory to God” all from Handel’s “ Messiah.”

With regard to our Xmas number, we have received a very encouraging letter from a gentleman who has had considerable experience in journalism in England and Australia as well as in New Zealand. It doesn’t do nowadays to hide one’s light under a bushel, and on that ground we feel justified in quoting one portion of our correspondent’s letter, which is as follows : —“ New Zealanders certainly have reason for pride in their newspapers, for there is no part of the world, where population is so limited, that can show so much enterprise in the news reading line. It is commonly reported, however, that newspapers don’t pay, and if that is true, newspaper proprietors in this colony are a wonderfully patriotic lot of martyrs. Judging by the advertisement columns of the Southern Cross, I should say that eminently readable little journal must be a strong exception to the rule, and I wish you a long continuance of such luck. I know what running a paper is, and seeing what a struggle the first year’s existence means, I think you deserve a considerable increase in the right kind of support for your pluck in doing what none of the other proprietors have hitherto done in Invercargill—provided extra local literature for the Xmas holidays. May the New Year bring you your well-deserved reward.”