The Southern Cross PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Invercargill, Saturday, Feb. 17. General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 47, 17 February 1894, Page 8

The Southern Cross PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Invercargill, Saturday, Feb. 17. General News

Two of the Railway Commissioners, Messrs Scotland Ronayne, visited Invercargill this week, leaving again for the North yesterday. Capt. Edwin advises that the northern part of the North Island is within the limits of a cyclone of unusual extent, now rapidly approaching. All the country northward of Lyttelton and Westport will be brought within the “ disturbed ” area. The s.s. Elderslie sailed from the Bluff for London direct on Wednesday evening, taking a full cargo of mutton, wool, &c. The wool ships Lutterworth and Andes are making the most of the fine weather and putting the wool away very fast. The Hon. J. G. Ward has returned to Invercargill, and will probably remain here till the arrival at the Bluff of the Australian delegates to the Postal Convention to be opened in Wellington shortly. On Wednesday last, Sergeant Macdonell and Detective Maddcrn arrested Michael Neylon, in a house in Nith street, on a charge of criminally assaulting a girl aged 13 years and three months. The case will be heard on Monday. —William Macara, late Mayor of Gore, has been committed for trial on a charge of having attempted to criminally assault a girl aged seven years. The defendant, who denied the charge, was admitted to bail. Finding Sovereigns. Several of Mr R. Meredith s customers have hud rather pleasant surprises lately, upon opening packets of the Sovereign Brand Ceylon Tea. One sovereign (or rather an order upon Mr Meredith for one) is enclosed in every 1001 b packets, and all purchasers should look for the order when opening tie packet.

“ Unemployed ” agitators speaking at public meetings in London urge their hearers to hang the Duke of Westminster and other aristocrats to lamp posts, as was done -by the Paris population to the Drench aristocrats during the Revolution, The Irish Athletic Society announce that their annual gathering will be held in the Park Reserve on Wednesday, 14th March. The programme includes a Sheffield handicap of £2O. Nominations for the sports close on the 28th inst. The notes sent by our Mataura correspondent last week in reference to the new paper mills erected by Coulls, Culling, and Co., contained several serious inaccuracies. These we will take an early opportunity to rectify. A grand Scottish concert in aid of the band contest fund will be given in the Theatre Royal on Wednesday night. The programme is in good hands, and a very attractive bill of fare is to be presented. With this, added to the object in view, and the fact that popular prices will rule, there should be a crowded house. There is reason to believe that to the use of charcoal as an insulating agent on board frozen meat steamers may be attributed some at least of the fires that so frequently occur on these vessels. It is stated that the pumice deposits of the North Island form a perfect insula ing material. The Ocean Beach works are to be supplied with the pumice insulator. “ Onehunga’s Lady Mayor,” Mrs Yates, rebuked one of her Councillors the other night for smiling, with the result that the others also “offended” in the same way Sir Robert Stout would soon get into trouble in that council hall. As court habitues know, he is master of a smile, or rather a laugh, that scarcely ever fails to “ draw ” a legal opponent. “A hell on earth” is the proper term to apply to one part of the Czar of Russia’s possessions. Listen to this : —“ Official barbarity is reported in the convict prison in Saghalin, a small island off the east coast of Asia belonging to Russia. Convicts have been mutilated and beaten to death. Cannibalism is common owing to lack of food. Business men, note this—and act upon it, remembering that the Southeen Ceoss is at your service : —Advertising (says Mr F. J. Barett, of Pears’ SoapVisthe most economical method of pushing an article, and that article is cheaper in the very process. I know it from my own experience. The consumer gets my goods much cheaper to-day than he did thirty years ago, as a result of the larger trade which has resulted from advertising, and which could not have been secured by any other means. The tendency of the age is to make everything cheap, and advertising and unfettered commercial enterprise secure that end. “To my mind,” said the great advertiser in conclusion, where there is no advertising there is no enterprise.” A social meeting to welcome the delegates attending the Convention arranged by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to be opened here on the 28th instant, will be held in the Temperance Hall on Monday, 26th February. On Friday, March 2nd, a meeting will be held in the Theatre Royal, at which addresses will be given by ladies attending the Convention and other friends. The Prohibitionist hopes that the gathering will be well attended, and adds:—With its broad streets and substantial buildings, the town of Invercargill bids fair in time to rival some of the older Colonial cities. The meeting of the Convention should give an impetus to Temperance work there, and help the women of Invercargill to lay broad and deep the moral foundations of their city.

New Zealand’s lady bird has, it appears, done good service in South Africa. A recent visitor to ’Frisco, (Mr Hertzog), gave a newspaper interviewer the following information : —“ I might tell you that the lady bird which you imported a few years ago from Kew Zealand to kill the Australian bug in your orange trees, and which we also imported from California, has worked such benefits for us that we are now compelled to cultivate the Australian bug to give the lady bird something to feed upon. If we didn’t do this the latter would become extinct, and we want to keep it. We sent a Mr Lowe here to get the lady bird, and it cost £SOO, and some of our politieans said afterwards that they had got a little box which they could just as well have sent for and got at a cost of £5. But they agreed afterwards that it didn’t make any difference what the cost had been, as the results had been so wonderful.”

This year in the annals of the lord mayoralty of London will be memorable from the adoption by the new chief magistrate, Tyler, of the electric light in his official coach—not the gorgeous old tumbril that belongs to civic history, and makes its appearance every 9th of November in the barbaric procession for the benefit of the masses, but a new and splendid example of modern coachbuilding and decorative art, in black, gold, and red. This sumptuous vehicle is now charged with electric batteries and lamps, and so illuminated will flash through murky London with the fitful brilliance of a firefly. Mr W. H. Mathieson, of the American Carriage Factory, while in London procured some new patent lamps, which shine with great brilliancy. He is now using them on his patent extension-seat buggy, as they are almost indispensable in a dark night.—Advt.

A crusade against the House of Lords i® the latest development or Liberal activity at Home.

Widespread destruction has been wroughtby a terrible snowstorm in America. On®hundred persons perished in one State. la Oklahama a father killed his family, numbering six, to end their sufferings. “ Why do you agitate?” was the question put to an advocate of women’s rights in an Australian city not long ago, and she answered thus :—“ It is, because our hearts are pained through seeing the streets of our city teeming with idle hapless men, our asylums filled to overflowing with wretched people in the last stages of poverty and misery; because we know of the destitution playing havoc with respectable citizens because we see the children of the poor forced into idleness, and watch them growing into larrikins and loafers, denied a place in society except as denizens of the vile slums, congregated with criminals; because the avenues of honest employment are closedthrough the reign of monopoly and the fierce competition of hand and brain workers, who are not allowed to earn a decent living; because the returns to wealth in the hands of the minority would be lessened were therenot often a fringe to society composed of workers reduced to the lowest point of subsistence, who are ever ready to answer the demand for cheap labour when called upon.’* The 12-mile bicycle road-race, the last of the series for Mr Northcote’s trophy, took place on Wednesday afternoon. The course was from town out the East road, as far as Mr Taylor’s store at Woodlands. In this race a new feature was introduced by the handicappers. Wishing to become better acquainted with the capabilities of the various riders they sealed the handicaps. All the competitors—four—started together and rode in company as far as Mill Eoad, when Sutherland and Lithgow dropped behind. Bone and Double ran each other very closely for the remainder of the distance, the former arriving at the winning mark about two lengths ahead of the latter. The handicaps, which were then opened, were Bone (scr.), Double (2 min.), Sutherland (B£ min.), and Lithgow (4 min.), therefore Double was the winner of the race, which was ridden in 36 minutes, notwithstanding the soft, muddy nature of the road. Bone winsMr Northcote’s trophy, a pretty set of silver mounted carvers in oak case and silver mug, with S points, Wren (7 points), being second, and Double (6 points), third. Bone also wins a pair of racing pedals as second in Wednesday’s race, Double taking the first prize, Adams, Curties & Go’s, gold medal. The programme of the cycling sports which take place on Wednesday, 7th March, are advertised in another column. There will be eight bic/cle events, and two foot races, and as it is expeted several riders will be present from Dunedin, a good afternoon’s sport may be looked for. The date is one week before that on which the Irish Athletic sports will be held, but as each of the meetings have a special interest in themselves there is no fear of them clashing. The trophies for the Cycling Club’s sports will be on view in a a few days.