The Southern Cross PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Invercargill, Saturday, March 31 General News

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 35, 31 March 1894, Page 8

The Southern Cross PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Invercargill, Saturday, March 31 General News

The Star Sailing Club’s regatta on Wednesday bids fair to be a groat success. Willie Steel, Invercargill's first lettercarrier, Is taking a great interest in the ]DOst office clock, and called yesterday to say that while young people may be able to sec the hands against the dial, it would be a great improvement if they were gibed, and so be made to contrast with the figures. Avery fine bell, cast by the firm of Messrs A. and T. Burt, of Dunedin, and neighing over llewt., has been presented to Trinity Church, Lawrence, by the ladies of the guild connected with the chnrch, and is now in its place in the church grounds. For the last nineteen years California has had a law recognising the principal of equal pay for women and men teachers doing the same work’ and holding the same grade Certificates. When all the vessels of (he Union Steamship Company are in commission the monthly wage bill amounts to about £15.000. Mr W. J. Willcocks, the New Zealand Shipping Co.’s Manager at Napier, and formerly holding'that position here, and also that of a member of the Bluff Harbour Board, is on a visit to Invercargill, and has been welcomed by a number of old filends. So many ladies have been writing “No” on the licensing question lately that it is not suiqjrising to read that when one of them stood before the altar to be married in a Wellington church on Ibursday, and was asked it she would take the man at her side for her wedded husband, she briefly but distinctly replied “No.” Thinking that there must be some misunderstanding, Mr Waters went over the previous few sentences of the service, but again came the negative short and sharp. The lady’s father nudged her and urged—“ but you must say 1 will,” but she was determined. “ No” was her reply. “ 1 wont ; 1 wont have him,” whereupon, at the suggestion of her father, (he whole party retired to the vestry, where a short consultation was held, the result being that Mr Waters had to advance to the altar rails and announce that owing to the indisposition of the brideeieet the marriage had been postponed.

It is expected flint, Sir George Grey have a special audience with the Queen. Twenty large icebergs are known to bo in the steamer track between JSew York and England. The Wellington Education Board has issued a regulation that corporal punishment shall not be indicted, except in oxireme cases, and only by a head teacher, who must keep a record of it. The instrument used is to'be a leather sirup, and girls are not to be beaten on any aeeount. The Waikouaiti local option is void, the returning uflleer, under legal advice, excluding the informal votes, which, if included, would make the poll effective, in which case prohibition would have been carried.

The following are the railway returns of this season’s grain trucked on the Southland section, principally at Invercargill and Bluff: Up to HUli March, 2,870 sacks; for w'eek ending 17th, 10,278; ending 2Uth, 19,8*27; this week tip to Thursday, 17,718 total 50,G93. Speaking as an anti-Pvohibitionist at Makarewa on 20th lust., MvJIG. Mackio said it was absurd to goon ‘‘finingconfirmed drunkards paltry sums, and that they should be sent to an asylum.” They had a different way of treating them in the old Puritan times in New England. A contemporary, writing on this subject, says: —“Though drinking was so general there was surprisingly little drunkenness in Puritan days. Cotton Mather thought every other house in Boston an alehouse ; but New England throughout the seventeenth century was sober and law-abiding. Tavern keepers — always men of social and political importance, as the * precedence lists ’ of Harvard and Yale reveal— were constrain,.-d to see to it that no man drank more than a quart of beer out of meal limes. that there was no singing or dancing or gaming on their premises, nor any smoking of tobacco, Toe ministers, the magistrates, the deacons and the eonslaoles had an unpin sent habit of publicly chiding the ovcr-huistcrous, or those who tarried too lona with the wine, and the tithing man would force himself upon the company of the stranger at the inn. and sternly countermand his order Ur drink if it seemed to him excessive. There were, too, tines and imprisonments, the stocks, the pillory, the drunkard’s cloak (a barrel, with holes for head and arms), or the bilboes for the intoxicated, and for the incorrigible disfranchisement and the wearing of a largebudge bearing on its face the letter D.

Remarks the Southern Standard :—ln the Awarua electorate, it will be remembered, there was no contest at last General Election, the Hon. J. G. Ward being returned unopposed ; consequently the roll had not been purged for the Licensing Election Had it purged, nil the names of the dead persons, been and otherwise disqualified votes, would have been struck off. It is claimed that, had this been done, Prohibition might have been carried. As it was, all the “dead men,” &e, on the roll counted in the list of those who were deemed not to have voted, and consequently swelled that total to more than half of those on the roll, thus making the poll noneffeetivc. It is said that a well-known elector has declared intention of contesting the Awarua seat with the present member at next Parliamentay election, simply in order to ensure the roll being purged. The largest gathering which has graced any land sale held in Gore since 1881 took place on Thursday, when Messrs Wright, Stephenson and Co. offered about 8,000 acres of the Greenvalc Estate. The Standard reports that the Gore Town Hall was crowded with fully 4- 0 farmers, and the bidding was spirited throughout. Mr John Stephenson wielded the hammer, and disposed of the whole of the sections in a little over an hour. The whole of the 38 farms (8,000 acres) submitted were disposed of, excepting sections 11, 12 and 13, block IX., Chatton. Negotiations are pending for those, and they will probably be sold in a day or two. The land averaged £3 12s per acre, and realised a total sum of £29,000. The balance of Ihe estate, some 14,000 acres, will, we understand, be sold in about a mouth’s time.