News and Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 45, 3 February 1894, Page 7

News and Notes.

Mrs Ballance leaves on a visit to the Home Country short!}'. Mr J. Fleming has been appointed buyer for the Southland Frozen Meat Company. A Salvation Army Eescue Home is to be erected in Wellington at a cost of £1,500. The second wool sale of the season will he held at Invercargill on Wednesday next. Mr Murray, Victorian Government Geologist, visits Otago next month, accompanied by Mr Gordon, our Inspector of Mines. A writer in the Tuapeka Times has been informed that there are cattle at large in that district that are badly infected with cancer. Victorian school teachers denounce the stoppage of sick pay as degrading and humiliating. Last year it.totted up to L 10,700. The “ tote ” has fallen on evil days in Melbourne. The police lately raided the totalisator shops there, and arrested thirty-two persons. A dividend of five per cent, has been passed by the National M. and A. Conrpany of N.Z., and £2,300 carried forward. You can’t make people virtuous by Act of Parliament, but Spain means to try. She meditates legislation to wipe out brigandage. The Chairman of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce strongly favours the Vancouver as against the ’Frisco mail service. There has been a breach in the ranks of the Democrats in America, and the removal of the tariff on foreign wool is thereby endangered. A section of the Japanese people are petitioning for the banishment of missionaries on the plea that they hinder religion and good order. Among the sales at the Hawke’s Day ram fair last week were two of Mr F. Sutton’s Lincolns at 32 and 20 guineas respectively. Linton, the world s champion cyclist, has had to lower his colours to M. Dubois, of Paris, who covered 100 Julies in 4 hours 36 seconds. The programme of the- Irish Athletic Society’s forthcoming sports will include a Sheffield handicap, 135 yards, of £2O, to he run in heats, and open to all comers.

The Hon. W. M. Bolt, M L.C., after 30 years’ service as chief packer with Bing, Harris and Co., of Dunedin, has been retired on a pension. The Southland Rifle Club continues to do good work, and is sending out off-shoots -no pun intended. A branch has been established at the Bluff. The bowlers of Invercargill met those of Dunedin last week. Onr local men treated their visitors most hospitably, and at the same time gave them an unmerciful drubbing on the green. Iso end of a fuss has been casued in Gore because a newspaper made some plain statements about horse-racing the other day. The boycott has been applied, but public opinion is not to be suppressed in that Avay. W. H. Homer, discoverer of the pass between the Hollyford P alley and Milford Sound, passed from the Wakatipu Hospital the other day to that bourne whence no traveller returns. We have received from the Lands Department a plan and pamphlet in reference to the disposal of the Pomahaka Estate. It contains 7,266 acres, and will he offered for selection under the lease in perpetuity system on 20th Febuary. The steamer Yarrowonga, from London to Sydney, picked up three natives in the last stage of starvation, 150 miles south-east of Sierra Leone. They had been blown off the African coast Avith four others, Avho died of 1 starvation. The whirligig of time brings strange things to pass. The youthful Emperor of Germany and Bismarck, of “blood and iron” fame, have kissed and made friends. A concourse of 250,000 people AA'elcomed Bismarck hack to Berlin The Mataura Ensign hits out against the giving of Sunday evening concerts by professional companies. As it A'ery truly says, “ the ordinary trader in Gore must put up his shutters on a Sunday; the visiting concert company appear before the footlights and rake in the dollars.” Well done, members of the High Schools Board ! They have decided to grant annually free education to twenty pupils Avho pass the sixth standard in the primary schools with credit. The Unionists have formulated a Home Rule scheme. It provides for the formation of councils, two in England and one each in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, for abolishing Dublin Castle rule and founding a Cotholic University in Ireland. Ho Avork, no food, is the rule in Bathurst (N.S.W.). Since the residents required applicants for rations to work for three hours as a test of their genuineness, only 20 persons have applied for relief. Before this there Avere said to he 200 unemployed in the toAvn.

The petition against Sir Robert Stoat’s election has ended in a “fizzle,” so far as R. J. Lindsay, one of the petitioners, is concerned. He explains that he signed a document without knowing its object, and withdraws from the whole business. During a thunderstorm at Tarohiti (Wellington) on Sunday last, B. a farmer, and his son, were engaged thatching a stack, when the ligditning 1 struck the elder Carman, tearing his hat to ribbons and killing him instantly. His son was rendered unconscious, but has since recovered. The price of bread in Lawrence exercises a correspondent of the local paper. He states that just now the bakers there must be making a profit of 20s per bag of flour, and says that no more convincing argument in favour of establishing a co-operative bakery could be advanced

' Mr A Vecht, who, as the representative of the Inter-Marine Suppty Company is interested in the establishment of pork factories in the colony, is on a visit to Southland. He says he will buy pig’s in any quantity, taking them alive at any railway station and paying 3d per lb deadweight, cash on delivery.