General News.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7816, 8 May 1905, Page 3

General News.

An employee of Mr T. A. Smith, of Mulgunia, near Trunkey. New South Wale*, rcceiflly found under a stijmp which a bullock dray ho was driving h*id dislodged, somo silver coins, bearing the dales of 1816 and 1817. The money is supposed to hav» been hidden by Billy, the last of the tipper Lachlan tribe of blacks, who lived alone for over twenty yearsin the mountains, near Coppcrhannia. His remains were found some 10 or 12 years ago at his Camp between llocky Bridge and Uic Abcrcronibie.

-IMirimj-the- fishing' season just closed, writes the Kotorua correspondent of the New Zealand Herald, 2jJ tons of trout are kno»n..to;!unc been caught in the takes anil-streams around Jtolorua. In addition to this quantity ...it isuknom that hundreds -*yjr, jtrout, have been secured durfcig-.tfie Jeaaoa ol which no rccpril has beeUvfepttPersonally, I know ot 60 Becured on Sunday last jvhicft'have not been recorded. Mr McLeod, a candidate- for the Mayoralty of Auckland, said that the profits of the Auckland Gas Company for 1904 amounted to £57,611, or £4OOO more than the whole of i£» rates collected in the city in 1903. this would mean that if the city haid the gas service municipalised it would be able to do without a. penny of the rates. The profits of toe Tramways Company amounted to over £30,000 last year. Both of these services were monopolies, and should be run by the city. By the arrest of a jeweller's traveller named Montote at Lyons, the police have (says" the. l'aris correspondent of a. London paper) put an end to a clever deception upon diamond merchants and' jewellers. throughout the country- originally a chemist's assistant, and in the course ot his studies invented a means of making artificial diamonds and rubies which deceived the expert. The imitation stones cost him less than £1 per carat to produce, and be sold them as genuine for a nythimr between £8 and £32 per carat. Some of the best known houses in Paris are stated to have been taken in with Ki% wares. The sale of these artilicial diamonds and rubies has alruudy brought him in some £6OOO profit, notwithstanding that he has only been eagaged in the work a little under six months. He endeavoured at the outset of his 1 discovery to sell his secret to a syndicate and promote a company to establish a trade on a legitimate footing, but failed to obtain sufficient support. Mr Stephen Thomas, a resident of Echuca East ([Victoria) has left on a trip to England for the purpose of proving bis claim as the nearest of kin to an estate valued at about £500,000, Wrich has l a i n iu Chan . eery for nearly half a century. A paper on the public house trust ' system jn Croat Itritain by M fdmond Kelly, recently communicated to the Institute General Psychologitjue in Paris, has resulted *in a movement to establish the system in France, and an organising committee has been formed in Paris ti carry it into effect. M. Leon Bourgeois, the late Prime Minister, is taking an active interest in the scheme. The sensation in the London theatrical and artistic world is the refusal of the Lyceum Woman's- Club ,' to ilect Miss Ellen Terry to ordini ory membership. The refusal is os- \ lensibly grounded on tire rule that 1 original work in letters is the essential qualification, but Miss Ellen *Terry has done more original work l>ven in letters than 90 per cent, of the.!members. The real objection is to tiie admission of actresses, whose incursion- might alter the character of the club. Mrs Humphrey Ward and Mrs Crulgic were on the committee responsible for Miss Ellen Terry's exclusion.

Mr La\tn \Volf, after an analysis of « Russia's finances, points out in the Times that it muy be assumed with i tolerable safely that the Kussion B Empire, us a trading concern, is ST carrying on lis great business at an Mi annual lost of at least 250,000,000 Sf roubles As she is situated to-day, Russia is marching direct to insol--5v vency. Her national balance-sheet fo*vi~ leaves her every year deeper in jfc debt. Her liabilities to the toreijmcr E are more than the people «n bear, and she has practically nothing to Sjfci,. .show for them. Her gold rewtrve is jß|fv * colossal Humbert safe, the vaunted ''millions of which arc unconsciously B^& K te>t by ber dupes for their own im-