MISCELLANEOUS.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 88, 7 February 1885, Page 6

MISCELLANEOUS.

Has every fisherman a " oast " in his eye ? Gold is reported to have been discovered a short distance trom New Plymouth. There are over fourteen millions of Freemasons in the world. Bishop Redwood has gone on a visit to Lyttelton. Rev. H. W. Beecher is suggested as the next American Minister to England. Wellington City Council decline to proclaim a holiday for the races. There is a Chinese clock extant said to have been made in 800 b.o. There was snow on the hills at Westport this month. All the cargo recoverable from the wreck of the Lastingham has now been secured. Mr Bracken has become part proprietor of the Dunedin " Herald." There are 300 subscribers to the Auckland Telephone Exchange. The Premier may visit Auckland next month. Cheap excursion trains are a great success at Chrirtchurch. London wheat market has declined Is again. Wellington District Court is to be abolished. There are 122 Primitive Methodist Churches in Queensland. A pest is destroying the turnip crop in Wellington province. £100 worth of whisky was recently seized on the premises of an unlicensed storekeeper at Kaikoura, Hawke's Bay. Contemplated changes in the Department ot Justice will lead to a great saving of public money. The King of Honolulu has £10,000 a year, the Queen £5,300, and the heir presumptive a similar allowance. W. C. Harris's dwelling house and woolshed at Lower VaUey, Wairarapa, have been destroyed by fire. Mr Froude, after visiting Tasmania and New Zealand, will return to England via America. The cultivation of lavender and peppermint is suggested as a piofitable fanning industry in JNoith New Zealand. The dead body of a child, preserved in a jar, has been found in a backyard at Wanganui. The Government Insurance Board have resolved to exclude the press from their meetings. The strike of collicis at Westport has been settled on a satisfactory basis to employers and employed. By the recent floods at Grey mouth, the river bed near the bridge has been deepened from 20 to O'l feet. It is proposed to attach shoithand writers to the Supreme Courts of Now Zealand. in the Swiss dairy factory near Cambridge, the whey is mado to yield three different products before going to the pigs. M. de Harven thinks the country between Canterbury and Nelson most suitable tor Belgian immigrants. Callow youth (before looking-gla^s, stroking chin) : " Sis, I think I must get me a razor." Sister: "Do, Bob; a beardraiser." A patriotic Frenchman lately bequeathed £1,000 to be expended for the relief of soldieis wounded "in the next war with Germany." The Auckland girl's beau ideal of a bow window is one where she can sit with her beau and not bo overlooked all the time by her mother. Don't eat anything but well-cooked and nutritious food. If hajsh is put on for breakfast, go out and whistle to see if your neighbour's dog 1 is safe "Lands are measured in rods, leagues, and so forth," said the teacher. "Now, what is a surveyor?" "A land-leaguer," shouted one of the boys. According to corroppon dents of the London "Times," the condition of the Fijian race is one of "absolute, complete, and hopeless slavery.' 1 Lord Elphinstone and Lord McDonald who lately arrived at Melbourne by the R.M.s. Indus, intend to visit New Zealand on a pleasure tour. Mr Fairfax, one of the proprietors of the "Sydney Morning Herald," and Mr Bennett, proprietor of the "Sydney Evening News," have left on a vi&it to England. Why don't our Government tax tho totalisator? From ISGi to 18S3 the lottery players turned into the Royal Italian Treasury £55,000 000. Not a bad harvest for the " tax on fools." Provisions are lower now in England than ever they were, and the " Daily Tele graph " says this i 3 due as much as anything to the large importations of New Zealand mutton. Scene in Parnell. — Young man (to chemist) : Can you give me anything to remove superfluous hair ? Chemist (thoughtfully scratching his bald head) : Hem, why don't you get married ? J ittle Pedlington for ever ! Hear a country paper on colonial affairs :—" Now that the loan has been floated, tenders for the construction of the Woodville-Tahor-aite section of railway will be called for at once." Dr. W. B. Richardson estimates that the universal practice of total abstinence over a population of 35,000,000 would be equal to a saving of the lives of upwards of 200,000 persons annually. Herr Reischek, the Austrian naturalist, remained in a wild region of the West Coast lately for three weeks for the purpose of observing the habits of certain bird&, his principal sustenance during the time consisting of a load of oatmeal which he carried upon his back. New Zealand should bestir herself, or she will show to a disadvantage before Home friends. The Government of Canada has, it is said, decided to spend a large sum of money in securing the proper representation of Canada at the Colonial Exhibition in London in ISBG. Rough on Auckland 'cyclists —The N.Z. 'Cyclists' Alliance ten-mile championship race should, according to rule, be run in this city j but on the ground that "none of the best riders " reside here, the Dunedin folks propose to have the match run there at the amateur athletic meeting in March next. The " Bay of Plenty Times " states that ample means are now placed at the disposal of the Road Overseer with a view to putting the Oropi Bush and To Puke Roads to the Lakes in thorough repair. 9he Bush Road is to be widened and a squad of over 30 men are now employed. The Taupoßoad is also to be made good, and another squad of men employed thereon. The births registered in the Auckland district for January weie 210, of which 119 were in the city. The deaths were 103, of which 59 were in the city. There were 59 marriage certificates issued and 16 married in the Registrar's office The total figures for this district for 1884 as against 1883 stand thus : — 1884 1883 Births .. .. 2,265 — 2,012 Deaths .. .. 933 — 822 Marriages . . . . 677 — 589 These figures show the progress of Auckland District, which is limited to that part of the province between a line from Motutara Caves on the west to the mouth of the Okura River on the east,and a line from the Papakura post-office on the west to the Wairoa parish boundary on the Wairoa river,

Captain Bedford Pyra, R.N., -who is now in the United States, speaks enthusiastically of the Nicaragua route, ('condemns the Panama scheme as impracticable, and I cays that it cannot be completed for anything like De Leeseps's estimate. CapI tain Pym estimates the cost of the Nicaragua Canal at 200,000,000 doK, and offers to raise that amount in London on a joint guarantee by the United States and British Governments of 3 per cent., 1J per cent. each, of that capital sum. This offer is not likely to be accepted, as the United States has a treaty with Nicaragua by which the latter cedes a strip of country three miles wide across the isthmus to the former, upon the guarantee that the canal will be constructed, and that the United States Government will defend it against foreign interference. This treaty makes the strip of land together with a port on each ooean absolutely U. S. territory, and gives that country the absolute control of this great highway, although the provisions of the Olayton-Bulwer tieaty may be made to apply to it. Congress (says an American correspondent) will undoubtedly ratify this treaty, and appropriate the funds necessary to build the canal, which will be a great advantage to California, and also to the Australian colonies, as they will thus be put in short and direct communication with the mother country. Nicaragua furnished an estimate to the U.S. Government that the canal couU be built for $40,000,000, which is probably lower than the actual cost ; but it will not be much greater. Thus the Sydney correspondent of the Melbourne " Age " :— " Our new American consul, Mr Gilderoy W. Griffin, is a man of some note among consuls, and will, I think, prove an acquisition to our colony. He takes a great interest in whatever country he happens to be stationed in. He is very facile with his pen, observes everything worth noting as to the capabilities and resources of the country, and embodies his information in a well eonsideied report addressed to his Government. He did this very admirably in New Zealand, where he was last stationed, and some of thobept and most accurate accounts of the products and capabilities of that country are from his pen. Hemadean exhaustive report on the various coals of New Zealand, and another on the Tanekaha bark export. This bark is much prized in ceitain European markets, and yet the source from which it reached those markets was kept such a profound trade secret thai the very manufacturers Mho used it most largely were unable to find out from w hence it came. The report of Con&ul Griffin has exploded the secret, and so keen was the inteiest in the subject that the report in question has been translated into nearly every language in Europe. No subject relating tothetiadeof New Zealand cr its pioductions seems to have escaped Mr Griffin's observations, and it is a positive fact that the little collection of twenty-eight reports, which was last year published in a complete form, has made New Zealand, its resources and productions better known throughout the United States than they are known even in the n>ighbouring Australian colonies. I think it highly probable that he w r ill tell us some things about ourselves that have hitherto been unknown to us. Mr Griffin is 'a chief amang us talun' notes, and faith he'll prent them. " More Hospital scandals. The Christchuich Hospital Board has resolved to take into consideration, at its next meeting 1 , the evident laxity in holding consultations and other matters affecting patients. Mr O'Connor, M.H.H., thinks the present Ministry represents brains, as opposed to money. lie points out that Mr iStout was a schoolmaster and Sir Julius Vogel a stationer He himself (a supporter of the talented Ministry) was a Jjunedin cabman ! Michael Bowner, brewer, Hawera, has been arrested for being in possession of a quantity of spirits on which duty had not been paid. Two drownings are reported from Timaru — one of a man in the Te Kapo River, and the other of a boy in a water-hole near Mount Horrible. An eminent teetotaller would only consent to sit for his portrait on condition that it should be taken in water colours. Dr. Hector says there is on the West Coast Sounds a comparatively flat, open, gia^sed tableland of 100 square miles in extent-.