GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 30 August 1907, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

James Rudolph Garfield, Secretary of the Interior (says the Argonaut), was standing by the side of his father in the Pennsylvania railroad station in

Washington on that fateful day in July, 1881, when the assassin's bullet for the second time dealt death to a President of the United States. The Secretary was then only seventeen years old—just the age when the average mind is most susceptible to impressions. Close friends say that the horror of that hideous tragedy has never fully left Mr. Garfield's mind, and some of them believe that its effects account for the half-sad expression that always lingers in his face, even when he smiles or laughs.

Bricklayers in New York sometimes earn Ss fld per hour. In the busy season bricklayers work long hours and expect to make an average of £l2 per week.

Fourteen years ago a small syndicate was formed In Adelaide, and £l5O was subscribed to equip a few prospectors for the West. Little was it thought at the time that the result would be the opening up of mines worth millions of money. live years after the £l5O (ten £l3 shares) was spent on prospecting, the market price of the claims that had been secured amounted to £13,646,750, and the original £ls share had jumped to the tremendous value of £300,000. This was the experience of th? Coolgardie Gold Mining and Prospecting Company, which, at a meeting of shareholders held in Adelaide on 14th October, 1898, adopted the report of its liquidator (Mr. Arthur Bristowe). The capitalisation of the company at that time was; Great Boulder, £1,662,500; Lake View Consols, £2,812,500; Associated Mines, £2,475,000; Ivanhoe, £1,875,000; Kalgoorlie Mint, £100,000; Lake View South, £220,000; Lake View Extended, £85,750; Great Boulder No. 1, £05,000; total, £9,275,750. The approximate amount of gold produced by the above companies was 560,0000z, worth 2% millions sterling, and Adelaide shareholders «rere paid £050,000 cash in dividends.

A well-known Christchurch gentleman i now in London writes to a friend:— "There are many matters here, political and otherwise, that strike a colonial as very odd and old-fashioned. The necessity for old-age pensions, protections, and the exclusion of aliens is particularly noticeable. It seems to me that England is driving from her shores her very life's Mood. Thousands of her best men 'are constantly leaving for Canada and other places, and the gap 3 are being filled up with Russian and Polish Jews. London simply teems with foreigners. I mentioned this fact to a friend with whom I was lunching the other day, and he informed me that he could take me to a part of the town, within half a mile of where we were sitting, where I would find quite a colony of aliens who could not even speak the English language. A great number of the leading business housses here have foreign signs on their premises, and the amount of foreign capital that is invested in various enterprises in London Is enormous; in fact, one begins to wonder if London really belongs to the British nation at aD. Wfe have had very bad weather ever since I have been here. I often wish you people in New Zealand would lend us the sun for a week or two. It is constantly raining, and the atmosphere is as thick as pea soup; in fact, it is with the greatest difficulty that one can breathe in this place."

The following essay is a small Maori boy's effort in English; the little fellow, aged nine, is a pupil in a native school on the East Coast:—"When you are playing football do not lull a man. The refri might put you out; or else don't answer hi 3 word back, he put you strate out Don't play rough, you might get stif In the morning. When the refri touch the ball that would be fre kick. When you .get the ball try to run through and touch the ball by the goal,"

By way of giving the lie to the impression prevalent in certain quarters that touring football teams cannot conduct themselves in an exemplary manner, the manager of the Canterbury team which recently visited the West Coast stated at the meeting of the Canterbury Rugby Union the other evening that fully half of the members of tho team were teetotalers, and several of them attended Divine service the two Sundays that they were on the Coast.— Press.

The last Bulletin to hand has more references fo the professional movement in New South Wales. The journal remarks that the team selected to play the New Zealand "pros.," although ill had a powerful back combination, was not so strong as was expected. It then says:—"The League repudiates the term 'professional' It says it isn't organised for profit, but merely to give the players better treatment—more liberal compensation for the loss of time and the neglect of business which are inseparable from success in athletics. In fact, the League claims that it is going to organise Rugbv on the same basis as cricket, nothing more or less, excepting that an insurance scheme is to be evolved by which players who are injured will receive compensation and medical expenses. It aU sounds very fair and almost altruistic. But someone has put money into this, and the Bulletin as it approaches middle age grows cynical enough to suspect that those gentry will expect a return on the money. That the Rugby Union lags behind the times is undoubtedly true: it is bound hand and foot to the gilded English Body, and until it breaks away from that it can make no progress. The conditions of the game are totally different in the two countries, and Australian players canmot afford to play nnder conditions which suit the English clubs. But this movement has not originated among the players; it arose among capitalists who have money to invest, and think they can invest it to advantage in football. If they keep the promises they have made to tEe players it is a good scheme, but there 1» a large, vague uncertainty about it all that does not appear too hopeful