ODDS AND ENDS. (From Oun Exchanges)

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 31, 5 January 1884, Page 7

ODDS AND ENDS. (From Oun Exchanges)

Dont you think tlm bride is foolish thut ! she never marries the bc4 in n ? New York city has 25,000 persons engaged'in the newspaper work. A parrel of land in London recently solil Torn prine whim would have made an acre cost £060,000. j The population of the British empire »it j home and alu-oad 18 315,000,000, and is increasing- at the rate of 2,500,000 a year. Parnell has paid off the mortgage on his estate, amounting to £13,000, from the proceeds of the Parnell testimonial fund. A conceited young* country parso'u walking home from church with one of the ladies of the congregation, said, in allusion to his rustic audience. " I preached this morning to a congregation of asses." " I thought of that," observed the lady, " when you called them boloved brethren." Mr Parnell has done vpry well indeed in the profession lie has chosen for his walk through life. It is not every man who nets £38,000 in t,ome half a dozen years of trade or professional career. It really is worth while to be an agitator on such terms. And yet, Mr P., I do not envy thee. Circular Saws. — The German industrial papers have been discussing the question of the disadvantages of circular saws as compared with band saws — 1, circular saws are very dangerous to the workmen ; 2, they require much greater power to dtive them than any other kind ; 3, they make a much wider cut, producing more waste, and thus fewer products from a given amount of material. The only adVantngu is that the cost of procuring a circular saw is less than that of a band saw ; but, notwithstanding, the Mechanics' Association of Muehlhau*en have already published in their yearly report the advice to abolish their use wherever it is pratically possible to do bo, and this is, of course, the case in the great majority of circumstances. The daughter of a fisherman on the Maine coast had a tiff with her lover because she would not allow him to niuno his new boat after her. " Why do you stand out agin it ?" asked her father. " Why," queried the girl, "Do you think it such a great compliment to hear every few weeks that M itildy Slocum's up for repairs, MatildySlocuin's in the dock, to be <tcri\pod or th.it ?riatildySh)oum's lost all her fixin's generally ? Well, now, if you do, I don't ; and that's got to settle it ! " The fanners in some pa"ts of the Waikato district have this season adopted a course winch will without doubt pay them handsomely for the expense incurred, " A number of farmers (says the ' Auckland News') have clubbed together and are importing a thatch-making' machine which is expected to arrive immediately, and will be at once passed round for the immediate manufacture of thatch in readiness for un.j. The machine turns out the thatch, any thickness required, bound or sewed with either wire or twine in long rolls, which, with the greatest ease, arm by the merest novice, can be pegged, weather-board-fashion, on the roofs of the stacks." There aiv net a few who regard the li»\ivy debts incurred by the Australian colonies with feelings akin to dismay In New Zealand especially, there cannot be .my doubt but that our liabilities are a heavy tax upon the industry of the people, .md the resources of the country. It shuuld, however, be somewhat reassuring to lememb r that revenue in the colonies increase* more rapidly than debt, and so long as this is the case tiere is not much g'-ound for alarm. R.-ferring to the public debts and resources of the colonies, k Money ' says :—": — " A re\ iew of the progress of the Australian colonies collectively in the last ten years is, perhaps more confirmatory than anything else of the security they arc able to offer. We find by the latest statistical abstract that in 1871 tho debt of the colonies amounted to £39,000,000, the annual charge on which was probably not tess than £2,250,000. In 1881 the debt had, it is true, increased to £96,000,000 ; but at a reduced rate of interest, the annual charge being approximately not more than £4,000,000. In the merntime the aggregate revenue had increased from £9, 000, 000 to £20, GOOO, 000. Thus in 10 years we have an annual increase iv debt charge of some £2, 000, 000 sterling met by an increase in the revenue of £11.000, 000." Sterling.