GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 17 September 1907, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

In Mdlioiirne last week Madame Clara ilutt told the story of Etelka tierster, ill) was her instructor in Berlin, She a n-vor heard of now, and people sorne- , iiii< h wonder why such a bright partiiilar star was eclipsed. She was singng one night, Madame Butt states, aud was in magnificent voice. She had got through one or two acts in brilliant style, and the hous; literally rose at her. Daring th* interval her husband came to her ana started to berate her for something she had done or left undone. Words rose high, and he quickly reduced h-r to tears. When the curtain rose she went on to sing, but something had snapped. The performance which had begun so gloriously ended in disaster, or rather, it did not end it *11; and from that day to this Etelka tierster has never sung on the stage. "But she has never real'./ lost her voice; and her art is a part of herself, which she will keep after her voice has really gone. What she suffers from is some kind of paralysis brought about by that brutal husband's abuse. I have heard her sing as divinely as ever she did—in the morning. Asked to 'try her voice' in the evening, there was literally not a trace of it left to try. Whether the injury is mental or physical, or both, I know not; but the world lost a great singer the night that Etelka Gerster was so untimely stricken down." The total cost to the colony of taking | the last census was £25,807. Included in this was £1377 for taking the Maori census, and £75 for taking the census of our island possessions. Enumerators were paid fixed sums varying from £ls for supervising small districts up to £<H for the largest, and an allowance of £1 as per 1000 household schedules. Work on the Main Trunk railway is progressing at a highly satisfactory rate, three shifts being employed on occasions at the more Important operations. The work of laying the plates from Raurimu to Mak&tote viaduct, a distance of some 14 miles, will be commenced next week. Good headway is being made with the viaduct itself, and it is not expected that the plate-laying southwards will be delayed on this account

Mr. P. C. Freeth, of Palmerstun Nqrth, who is on a trip to Europe, mentions an incident in connection with the suffragettes' meeting in Hyde Park. Mr Freeth was present with Mr Whitelaw, a. well known New Zealand journalist. Three women were mounted 011 a spring dray, all being splendid speakers, one, a Dr. Jones, especially so. ilr Freeth says they made telling speeches, quoting history freely and showing a wonderful knowledge of current politics. At question time he went round to the cart and shook hands with the doctor and congratulated her oil the good figut they were making. In replying to a question, she stated that she had just been congratulated by a New Zealander. What took place then is described by Mr Freeth as follows:—"Sceptical cries an once went up from an audience which showed its dissent right through by constant interruptions. (The ladies score off the interrupters every time.) So I mounted the dray, took off my hat, laid down my umbrella, and hid my say. I was received with a perfect storm of hooting (there were abuui eight or nine hundred people present), but it was not long before I got going and received a splendid hearing. Then I was kept busy answering questions, and scored very well. Whitelaw was delighted. To-morrow I am going to a suffragette reception." A pamphlet issued by the Salvation Army shows that the cost of maintaining last year the U3 army institutions throughout the Commonwealth and Ne-.v Zealand aggregated over £I3OO per week, or nearly £70,000 for the ve.ir. Of this sum the homes raised, by means of industries, no less than £53,373, or an average of slightly over £IOOO per week. From Government grants and capitation fees the army received £lO,352, or an average per week of £2OO. This left only the comparatively small sum of £6300, or £l2O per week, to be contributed directly by the public. Five hundred and ten children were born in the homes last year.

A Sydney paper of the 30th ult. says: —By a Japanese steamer on Wednesday came two camels as a gift from the Mikado of Japan to the Sydney Zoological Society. Very nice!—At the Newcastle Police Court on Wednesday a

skipper was fined £IOO for allowing a prohibited immigrant, a Japanese, to enter the Commonwealth. It is rumored that more than one New Zealand business will shortly consider tne advisability of introducing ptunt-sliarmg.

Dairymen in the Christchurch district report a decided improvement iu the yield and quality ot milks iuee the rcent rains.

ihe latest of the many discoveries by arcuaeologists in Lgypi occurred some months ago at fculu, in Upper Egypt, near the site of "aa old Coptic monastery. A native clearing his ground of atones laid, bare a small tomb-like receptacle. in this he found a number of parenjnent manuscripts bound in thick papyrus covers. lie sold them to all Arab dealer for a few pounds, ami the Arab in turn re-soUl them to a Copt -or £SOO. The news had gone abroad by this time, and representatives of i lie foreign museums made energetic efforts to acquire the treasure. The manuscripts have been, identified as Coptic and Greek ecclesiastical manuscripts of the ninth to eleventh centuries, of great archaeological importance, and about a dozen rolls of sixth century Grsek papyri. Among them are twenty-live leaves of the apocryphal sayings of (jurist in a Coptic translation of a lost Greet original, of which only thirteen leaves were known to be in existence previously—twelve in the National Gallery in Paris and one in Berlin.

There is a theatre in America erected out of oil In this way, In Shawnee I township, just west of Lima, Ohio, in a sparsely settled locality, a new playhouse recently erected was dedicated the other day. This building is the result of municipal wealth strangely acquired. The Government of Shawnee has a large revenue derived from taxes regularly levied upon Standard Oil property located within its borders. The inllow of money from this taxation has been used to pave the country roads, and other public improvements—just as if Shawnee were lloute Carlo, and the Standard Oil gambling profits, funds for which there was no immediate use began to accumulate, and finally the farmers of Shawnee decided that they wanted a theatre. And so the theatre has been built. And Standard Oil has paid for it.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tells iu OasscU's Magazine of an illiterate millionaire who gave a wholesale dealer an rr ider for a copy of all the books in any language treating of any aspect of Napoleon's career. He thought that it would fill a case in his library. He was somewhat taken aback, however, when in a few weeks he received a message from the dealer that he hud got 40,000 volumes, and awaited instructions as to whether he should send them on as an instalment, or wait for a compljte set.