News and Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 28, 6 October 1894, Page 7

News and Notes

The cocoanut tree is the most valuable of plants. Its wood furnishes beams, rafters, and plans, its leaves umbrellas and clothing, its fruit food, oil, intoxicants, and sugar, its shells domestic utensils, its fibres ropes, sails, and matting.

Scarcely a week is passing now which does not bring some historic or notable Scotch landed property into the market. There is at present for sale the Baid of Crawford’s estate of Dunecht, in Aberdeenshire. It has a residence of palatial dimensions, and has a freer rental of £5,000 a year. Then there is Penicuih in Midlothian, with its ten or eleven thousand acres of agricultural and sporting land, and a rent roll of £7,500. Lord Tweedmouth’s sporting property of Guisachan in Inverness-shire, is also on sale, and in Argyleshire, Dumfriesshire, and Kircudbrightshire there are estates whose owners would willingly part with them.

The names of delinquent taxpayers in Saxony are conspicuously displayed in restaurants and saloons, and any persons who serve them with food or drink are liable to have their licenses revoked.

The cheque cannot be proved to have existed in commercial transactions of Europe, outside of Italy, until late in the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century; in England not till about 1760.

Roughly speaking, the British Empire extends over one continent, 100 peninsulas, 500 promontories, 1,000 lakes, 2,000 rivers, and 10,500 islands. The Assyrian Empire was not so wealthy as this is. The Roman Empire was not so populous. The Persian Empire was not so extensive. The Spanish Empire was not so powerful.

A keeper on the Wadhurst Park Estate, Kent, recently shot a fine female specimen of the white-tailed eagle, the first of the kind ever known to have been captured in the south of England. The bird measured seven feet six inches across the wings, and three feet from beak to tail.

A novelty has been introduced by a London society lady that birds fair to become the fashion in cultured society. She has a complete breakfast service of cups, saucers, and plates for her large family, on which are given, from photographs,the likenesses of the members, so that the servants can properly place the china to be used.

At the recent sitting of the Supreme Court in Invercargill the Grand Jury found no true bill in the charge of perjury preferred by J. J. Meikle against W. Lambert. The prosecutor is now circulating subscription lists with the view of obtaining means to renew the charge, and of having it heard in Dunedin.

The annual stud parade takes place in the Park Reserve to-day. Wednesday next, 10th October, is Labour Day. A wealthy Scotch laird, it is related, once sent the Queen an offering of his best grapes. He received a handsome letter of thanks, which he read to his gardener, thinking the old man would be gtatified. He listened gravely, but his only comment was — “ She disna say onything aboot sending back the basket! ”