GENERAL NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 2, 27 January 1909, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS

One young mail who was included' in tho Hainan's list of immigrants will evidently have to readjust his ideas somewhat. He expected to find a number of managers or owners of big sheep estates ready and anxious to secure his services.. Be has had no previous experience iu the sheep line, but he had learned to ride, and thought he would like an engagement on an estate "looking round the sheep." When informed that on the big sheep mils the rides very often led over rough, mountainous country, and that "mustering" very often had to be conducted where.no horse could ever get, he was pained and shoeketl. He had no ambition to get 'into rough country, and was looking for a nice soft job as an "estate assistant at from £4; to £5 a week." He also enquired if bush work was "very hard."

There have been during twenty years in the United States nearly a million marital failures. That seems a startling number, the proportion being one divorce for every twelve marriages. Tills fact may well suggest further inquiry as to whether flic large number of divorces is not due to the laxity of the laws of various States. Those who want to investigate the subject further should obtain the Census liulletin 00, the advance sheets of which reached me today, and which contains much information. The 'exact number 'of divorces granted in the period covered—lßß7 to 1000—is 045,023, while in the preceding period of twenty years there were 328,710 divorces. Allowing for the difference in population, the rate of increase in divorce is greater in the later than in the earlier period. ft appears that wives obtain twice as many divorces as husbands. Other information in this bulletin is of special interest to students of social conditions.—Times correspondent. Apropos the. prodigiously long orations of the 'Maoris (writes a 1 correspondent to the London Daily Chronicle), .'t may amuse your readers to know that only a little over twenty years ago my uncle, a Judge in New Zealand, was obliged to issue an order to the effect that "in fill 1110 singing would not be taken as. evidence'' in his court. It was tine, constant habit of the Maoris when pleading a cause to sing long and quite poetic sagas. As these generally began with legends of their remote ancestors, sometimes many hours, even days, would be spent before the point (possibly a trivial one) was reached. There is something Gilbertinn in this idea, but any old New Zcalander could vouch for the fads.

A story is told of a female swindler, ill the position of a domestic in a Ros•lyu home, who managed to raise £3O on a hill of sale on her employer's furniture during the absence of the family on a holiday. The woman who is supposed to be identical with a notorious criminal, was left hi charge of the house, and the occupants- had not been absent many days when, by means of a plausible story and a forged receipt for tire furniture, she induced a business man living in the neighbourhood to visit the house and lend her £3O on it. Her next move, was to make herself scarce the day the family returned from their holiday, and now that the swindle is out the money-lender is looking for the supposed lady of the house, and so are the police.