The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1905. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7747, 24 February 1905, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1905. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Arrangements have been liinile for an address to be given in the Theatre Royal on Wednesday, March 15, by Mr P. J. O'Regnn, on the question of rating on the unimproved value of land. A baby bom at Litvdley, Yorks, 'has nine grandpa rents living;, namely jtwo grandmothers and two grandfathers, two great-grandfathers nn-1 .two great-grandmothers, and one the latter I being about ninety years of age. The balance-sheet of the Turanaki A. and P. Society shows receipts at '£632 12s 4d and expenditure (in--1 eluding debit balance of £4 Is 10d last year) as £652 Os KM, leaving. lis 6d to be carried forward, but [as against this there are outstanding accounts amounting to*£l2. The society, however, has assets valued at £1644 5s Id. Serpent worship still survives in India, ami, according to a writer in I the Nineteenth Century, a good snake shrine ia as much attraction in the case of a house on the Mala--1 bar Coast as a garden is in the case of a villa at Hampstead or Harrow. Serpents are, however, moft j unobtrusive, and unless you walk Inoiseless- and barefooted in the dark, ! as Hiifilhus do, snake-bite is a most I improbable contingency. A match which will cause considerable interest in athletic circles has been arranged for a purse of 120 sovs. t.etween the well known sprinters L. C. McLaiihlan and C. Morris. The distance will be 120 yards, and the contest is to take place at Stratford on the 28th iiutant. lloth men are said to be in the pink of condition, and; each has numerous asmircrs in sporting circles. 1 The Autocar tells a strange tale of a visitor who drove up to the IJar-ford-st. entrance of the recent StanIcy Show on a motor-car. He left it lin the street, and eventually he left .the show by another exit. Towards midnight the show watchman or carc- | takers moved the deserted car into ,thc yard at the slide of the Agriculture Hall. Two days elapsed and no claim was made for the machine. Then the secretary ol the show wrote to the makers, who graciously admitted that the car was theirs, and, what is more, fetched it away. An engagement ring does not become the absolute property of tho lady bo whom it is presented, according to the decision of a London magistrate. It is not a gift but increly the symbol of a pledge, and if the pledge be broken the rosurn of the ring, or at least its value, can be claimed by the giver Mic breaking of an engagement is usually followed by the return of the ring as a matter of course, ',>ut ladies of a covetous turn of mind sometimes omit this detail. It was a case of this kind which led to the Magistrate's decision in question. Mr P. LcCiuesne, of Hamilton East has made a successful experiment with the celebrated new variety of potato the Northern Star, which, on account of its wonderful prolific and disease-resisting qualities has been selling at Home at the rate of 20 shillings per lb avoirdupois. Mr Findlay, the originator of the Northern Star, claimed to have ra'jsed 1351b from lib planted;, but Mr LeQuesne has .beaten this by 501b. He planted on September 25th, 1904, two small potatoes of this variety, weighing 3 ! ozs., cut in seven sets., and on Thursday last he dug 371b. The row ' was 12ft long, and no manure was I used.

A sensation was caused the other evening by what appeared to be an attempt on the part of a young man to comuiitt suicide in the Avon Itiv-or, Ohristchurch-. A young man rushed across the street dud only in a singlet, and jumped into the river,- which was very shallow. He was rescued by two men as he wa.s putting his head under the water. It appears that the young man, who is 35 years of age, is subject t 0 epileptic Ms-, and is sometimes not quite responsible for his actions. Although his parents keep a careful [watch over him, he eluded their vigilance.

Regarding a remarkable crop. &£ self-growing ryegrass growing ' on one part of the Fluxbourne Estate, Mr KoOittJon, of Cheviot, giving evidence in the. Compensation Court,, explained that the land on which it flourished bad beon ploughed and sown in turnip, u good crop of the ■latter being gathered. Ryegrass then sprang up between the furrows', of which he had never seen the like. In fact he was so struck with it that to took u sample to Christchurch, where its quality and length were favourably commented upon bv experts.

The Liverpool J"osf tells of the :asu of an American tourist who was iccosted in one of the parks in u JprflUin city by u policeman, who »m)b hor hold up her so m\, inas--jiiiili rtK the trailing damaged the i gruu-1, and also,, ho added, did the gown no good. She demurred, pointImg out that, in her opinion, the : damage to the town was of little consequence. At once the policeman produced a formidable looking bookin which, in equally formidable German, it was stated that to let a dress drag on the. pathway was an onence a/gainst the law. With all our high wages and boastsn >' s » "' J ' it « ?r in tho lull Mall Magazine, thy focfc remains that you will see more wrotchertlv poor in any of our great cities in a day than you will fxu in Ju in a lifetime. In other words, you will see no destitution in Japan. Though BC-m (i are very poor, yet all seem to be well t ( ,d, clothed, and housed and are invariably cheerful „ m | , vmit is more surprising, invariably c |c;m I here are no paupers i„ Japan, and there-lore no workhounes 0 r poor houses, though there are many hospitals where the sick a,e healed nvatwW.y. Practically everyone u„, a t^^r cuuU Mr John Stevens, Ilullf*. writes •- borne months since I had a severe attack of rheumatism, and was advised to try the ellicucy of Itheu!r ~l d" : s "' " llh »»ost satisfactory results. After taking two bottles it has practically cured me, I have no hesitation ,n saying that your remedy is the best I have used." Sold by all chemists u nd storekeepers 2s (id i and 4s (id, WholßwUc Agents, Kemp- 1 , thorne, Grosser nnd Co.* j ■,