News and Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 21, 18 August 1894, Page 7

News and Notes.

The Rev. John Ferguson began his ministerial duties in St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church, Sydney, on July 29. The debate on the Financial Statement is over. Fifty-five speeches made. What about Sir R. Stout’s ‘ Dumb driven dogs ’ now ? Mr Walter Bentley’s lecture re ‘ Church and Stage ’ is causing some adverse criticism in Dunedin. ‘ Opposition is the life of trade.’ Nearly twenty-five millions sterling were deposited in the post office savings banks in Britain last } r ear, or about three millions more than the amounts withdrawn. “ We find employers working girls and young men at a rate of wages not fit to keep body and soul together. I met one tailoress in Christchurch whose wages did not average 9s per week for six months.”—The Hon. Mr Jenkinson on the Arbitration Bill. According to Admiral Hornby, out of every eight seamen in the British mercantile marine three are foreigners. And yet thousands of Britain’s own subjects are among the “ out of works.” The Treadwell mine in Alaska has just paid a bonus dividend of 3s per share, or equal to £30,000. It originally cost the man after whom it is named £3O. The trifle of £3,200,000 has been refused for the mine. It is thought there are nearly £5,000,000 in sight. If it were only in New Zealand ! “ There is one thing we may be sure of : the church will never be able to extinguish the stage.” Thus Mr W. H. Pearson, Southland’s ex-Commis-sioner of Crown Lands, in a letter on Mr Bentley’s lecture in Dunedin. W. H. P. always bad a hankering after the dramatic —his official reports on the habits of the oyster and other subjects were more entertaining than many plays. The Hon. J. McKenzie says that claims made by old soldiers amount to about £65,000, and if they were all good, and had to be provided for, he is afraid Government would have to go in for a “ little loan.’'

Dr. Talmage delivered his first lecture, ‘ The Bright Side of Things,’ 1 to a vast audience in the Centennial Hall, Sydney, on July 26. He also preached in St. Stephen’s'on Sunday afternoon, July 29; 4000 unable to gain admission, and the eloquent divine delivered a short address to those outside.

“ A great many employers have been only to willing to beat down the employes to the lowest limit, and, in fact there is no limit, for they have in many cases kept young people at work for nothing. They call them apprentices, and, as soon as they have worked with them for six months, they shunt them off to make room for others.” So said the Hon. Mr Jenkinson the other day, and he might have added that some of the meanest things in this way have been done by people whose professions of Libralism were of the loudest.

Of some thirty European sovereigns, Queen Victoria alone has a great-grandson in the direct line of succession. Never before in the history of Great Britain has the reigning sovereign seen three male descendants in the direct line of inheritance. “ Ironsand ” Smith, of Taranaki, told the House of Representatives lately that he could make all the plant required by the railways 25 per cent better and cheaper than what is imported and sold by the merchants.

A nurse named Ella Gillespie has been sentenced at the Essex Assizes to five years’ penal servitude for cruelty to 24 children placed under her charge by a board of guardians. She used to employ the elder children to gather nettles, with which she flogged the infants. Mr Louis Longuet, who arrived at Port Chalmers in the ship Ajax in 1849, died on Monday last, aged 80 years, succumbing to an attack of influenza. He had lived in Southland for the last 34 years, and held a seat in the old Provincial Council.

For ways that are dark some colonial bankrupts would be hard to excel. One who went through some time ago had a lot of cattle. Creditors indulged in visions of substantial dividends. When their agent arrived on the scene he found the stock bore the brand of insolvent’s son-in-law. Time passed. Then son-in-law “went through.” This time the process was reversed, and dear father-in-law, who had meanwhile received his discharge, quietly annexed the cattle, which had been again re-branded.

“ Poverty is no crime,” we proudly proclaim, and yet a man eighty years old was taken from .an hospital in Junee (N.8.W.) the other day, placed in a police court dock, and charged with having no visible means of support. The poor old fellow died in the dock, and the jury found that his death had been accelerated by harsh treatment, and censured the authorities for removing him from the hospital.

The advocates of the establishment of public swimming baths in Invercargill are evidently in earnest. At a largely attended meeting on Monday night a motion affirming the desirableness of baths being constructed by the Corporation was passed, and a strong committee elected to further the object of the meeting. The sum of £45 towards the cost was promised in the room. So far all goes swimmingly —but what will the Council do ? Something practical, we hope. An extraordinary affair recently happened at Hull—that of a would-be suicide dying from fear of his own action. The deceased, Edward Dent, a draper, became insolvent, and this affected his mind somewhat. In the absence of his wife and family he borrowed a clothes line, went into his own house and drew down the blinds. A neighbour raised the alarm, and Dent was found kneeling on the ground, with the rope around bis neck, dead. The post mortem examination show'ed that death was due to syncope. Pear or excitement had acted on a weak heart, and he died before he could put his intention into execution. The doctor said he had been unable to find a record of a similar case.

The Temperance cause must be at a low ebb in Gore. A meeting- was called to consider the advisability of winding up the Blue Ribbon Society and merging into a Good Templar Lodge. Less than a dozen adults were present, and these were in a doleful mood. One gentleman declared that the Society had ‘ shot its bolt.’ And this after closing several hotels in the district! Verily, victory seems to have had a demoralising effect. However, it was eventually decided to let well enough alone, and go on as usual. The Mataura Ensign attributes the decay of Conservatism in Invercargill to the fact that the Atkinson Government neglected its local supporters. The Invercargill correspondent of the Waimea Plains Review harps on the same strifig. He says Invercargill was once a perfect hot-bed of Conservatism, while now he questions if a dozen votes could be procured in the Conservative interest, and in effect attributes the change to the ignoring of the claims of local advocates of Conservative principles. Most people will conclude that these principles were worth very little 'if their existence depended on the distribution of patronage. A man named Ley dan; working near Westport, put twelve plugs of dynamite on a sheet of metal and warmed it over a fire. The dynamite exploded, cutting his face and injuring his chest and eyes. His hat and shirt were torn to shreds. Richard Mostyn Hoops, brought back from Melbourne on a charge of wife desertion, appeared a few hours later in the Police Court, when the information was dismissed, a settlement having been come to by husband and wife, they agreeing to pay the expenses incurred, which included the cost of the passage of Constable Burrows, who was despatched to bring back the defendant.