GENERAL NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 18, 15 February 1909, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS

The heat in Christchmx-h had the effect of setting oil' several of the automatic tire alarms in a large establishment. The Fire Brigade authorities were kept fairly busy at one stage of the afternoon telephoning to the establishment named inquiring whether all was well, while those at the businessend of the automatic tire alarm system had to make frequent excursions into various parts of the extensive building to assure that the ardent attentions of Old Sol alone were responsible for the peremptory signalling. The thermometer registered in the shadb 87 degrees.

Complaints sometimes reach New Zealand (says the Evening Post) of the way in which frozen meat cargoes are hai'uiling in discharging at London. According to an officer for many years engaged in Home boats, it is at this -end the trouble takes place. Loading under difficulties in open roadsteads from lighters is often attended with damage to the carcase. In a heavy swell the

slings may knock against, the side "f tlio ship and upset the equilibrium of the frozen mutton. The oue«s,.>s ' iimble nut (if the canvas into the hold, ami the result is bruised flcsli unci broken shanks. Hence the complaints. Tim handling at London, says the. Post's informant, is above reproach.

The Pennsylvania railroad to-day \states u New York message of December 21 to a London contemporary), tiled plans for building the largest bridge in (he world. It will connect the mainland of New York with Long Island, and, with its approaches, will be threw miles long. The greatest span, over Hell Gate Channel, will be 1000 ft. long. The bridge will be 140 ft. over the water, permitting the passage of the tallest vessels. The entire structure, except the piers for the arch, will be of steel, having an estimated weight of 80,000 tons. It will have four tracks, two for passenger tains and two for freight, and is. designed for live loads on each of the ■tracks of two ]!IO-ton locomotives, followed by a uniform joad of ijOOOlb. per 'lineal foot". The estimated cost is between C:t,O0O,000 and £4,000,000.

The American marines who were in Auckland last August, together with the whole of the marine corps, have been taken, by order of President Roosevelt, from the sea service. There is something like consternation among them. "Nearly 10.000 good fighting men," says the. New York Tribune, "sworn and Whined to Uncle Sam's service, are wondering what is to become of them. The marines have just been separated from the ships of the navy by order of the President, and will go to sea no more. It will lie land duty hereafter for the men who have helped to make the navy famous, and whether they are to be retained as a separate branch of the service, or are to be merged with the army and lose their time-honored name, is a problem that is giving the advisers of the admin- J istration much food for thought. . There has developed n decided <))nnion among some of the senior naval officers that the marines should be restored to ships of war, but the marine officers do not think that legislation, changing the effect of the executive order, much show of enactment this session." New Zealand has doubled her population in about twenty-three years. It has taken rather longer to do the same .thing in Australia, and between them—•with all Australia's vast rich spaciousness and New Zealand's wonderful concentration of human opportunities—they have less than six millions of people! The fact (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph) is anything but a comfortable one to think of, but it, is necessary to <-ite it as a. reminder of the work that has to be done—perhaps we should say begun—in peopling Ibis country, if only for its safety's sake. We have a too low birth rate, ami the immigration is exusperatingly slow by comparison with what ought to be its pace looking at the thousands of emigrants who leave (Ireat Britain and the Continent every week. The increase of the population, therefore , is anything but reassuring to those who lake heed of Australia's relation and New Zealand's to tin' Kant; and if will remain so, causing a real and great danger to hang like a cloud over our national future, unless ways can be rievisifl of bringing immigrants in at the rale of about a hundred for vi - ery one that comes in now.

ilr .Marconi, in the course; of an interview in Nova Scotia, gave all account of the progress which his system of wireless telegraphy is making in Transatlantic business. "On Oirtolier 17," lie stales, " we transmitted KI.UUO words and received 80(11) words in reply. 11 y system is 11 grand success, and in a short time we shall bo able to handle all messages offering. , To-day we -are progressing very slowly, only sending II) words 11 minute. We are accurate, regular, and continuous!. The scientific end is successful, but our connecting* and ] organisations will have to lie perfected j before we can hope to handle all the 1 business offering. We were absolutely Hooded on October 17 It

takes us two hours to send and get n reply from Loudon, but we can send a message and get ii reply from Clifden, on tlie English coast, in. three minutes. We do not pretend at this time, to lie able to compote with tlie cable companies. W'e have made a start, and we will work up slowly but surely. It is only a matter of organisation when we shall be able to handle everything offered to us. We have made contracts with some of the papers to furnish them with news every day, and shortly we shall be prepared to give the news' to aM the papers, but not now. At present we do not want any private business. Two brake-loads comprising five deer, thirty billy goats, ten boars, and one ram's head were conveyed to Fealherston on Wednesday from the well-known taxidermist, Mr J. M. Ross, states the Martinborough Star. Die heads. are splendid specimens, all of which were obtained in the district by .Mr Fred. IS. Steffan, and have been executed to the order of the Tourist Department, by whom they will be distributed to the several branches of the Department all over Australasia. The majority of the Heads were obtained on the Waituma Block, and at Messrs Sinclair and Te Whaiti's Whatarangi .Station. One of those touches of humour which makes the whole world grin occurred daring tlie sitting of the District Court, says the .Uanawatu Times. A diminutive law clerk with a huge pue 01 legal hooks staggered into the Court room, and with his straw hat on tiie back of his head deposited 'ins burden on the table, lie then jauntily strolled outa-min with his hat still at a neat angle. His Honor naturally made some comment about people .who wore hats in Court which caused somewhat of a flutter amongst Court officials. o:ie officer of the law who evidently thought something must be done to .preserve the djgnity of the Court, dashed to the hack of the room and sternly ordered an innomlit and highly respectable old lady to remove her headgear, a command with which she meekly complied. Even the judge laughed. The illegality of a rather common practice that prevails amongst' sheepfanners—removing the cars off dead sheep—was referred to by Mr Justice Cooper at the Supreme, uuurt yesterday. His Honor pointed out that under the Slaughtering Act the offence was punishable by a penalty of £SO, and that it was an olfence even to be in. possession of a skin from which the ears had been removed. There seemed. to be a misapprehension amongst, totally honest farmers tliat they could remove the ears from the skins of their own sheep. The Court had had it in evidence that 50 polecat, of farmers cut the ears off their own sheep. The Crown Prosecutor jocularly remarked that that was but the unguarded statement of an expert. The year 11)0!) will witness the hundredth anniversary of the birth of nine of the world's greatest men. The year 190!) must have been in its way an " annus mirobilio " —a wonderful year. It would lie interesting, it has been said, to know lvhat special influences or combinations—whether astrological, spiritual, political, artistic, or merely accidental and physical—produced these men of genius who left their enduring mark upon the nineteenth century. Four of the nine arc , r Englishmen—Tennyson, Gladstone, Darwin, Fitzgerald, ; three are Americans Lincoln. Wendell Holmes, and Edgar Allan Foe. Chopin, the greatest composer, who was also •born in this year, was naif Pole and half French ; while the kindred and coeval spirit, Mendelssohn, was a German Jew. Thanks to the friendly attitude, of the Waziri tribesmen, two notorious outlaws on whose heads a heavy price had been set, have been captured after committing a long series of desperate crimes on the Indian frontier. Some time ago the outlaws raided a village near iCohat, killed the men, and carried away two women. The llorder Military Police went in pursuit, and after a brisk lusillade recaptured the women, but the outlaws succeeded ill making their escape in the direction of the Wazirista-n border, and line of them was subsequently arrested by a Waziri headman and delivered up to the British authorities. The other man, perceiving that he was unsafe among the Waziris, rccrossed into British territory, but he too was eventually hunted down by the Military Police.

Arthur James Balfour, stat'fls'.man, philosopher, sheep-farmer ! There was a certain incongruity in the charge read to an accused person in the. sheep-steal-ing cases now before the Court :—•• that he did steal 200 sheep, the property of

Arthur dames Balfour." We. in ivo.v . ca--1 and are in danger uf forgetting Uiat our country lias amongst ils landlords t'ryit amiable Knglish aristocrat who is at present engaged in ruling (Jreat Hritain per medium of the House of Lords, and chief delimit at present seems to he to order his willing Peers to pounce upon ami destroy any n..n»iirc mat the I'euple's House, thinks lit to pass hy an overwhelming majority. The incongruity of the position as far as Xew Zcaland is concerned seems to lie in the fact that in spite of our much-advertis-ed democratic land policy a gentleman who has never seen our country, and who probably only knows it tlirough the medium of his manager and his acquaintance with sundry New Zealand politicians, has for twenty years or more been drawing a, generous income from the hacks of ten thousand odd sheep, which are reared on tlie rich pastures of the Wairarapa.—Exchange.

i Commenting upon the success of the pickpockets at Hawera races, the Wanganui Herald says :—j l has been known for some time that a particularly clever lot of thieves have been "doing" the various meetings recently, and therefore racegoers should be very careful ami not give tlie parasites a chance to make a haul. Some maintain that it is due to the legalising of the bookmaker that we owe the advent into the Dominion of the thieving gangs which are now operating, and with such success, but whether this is so or not there is no getting away from the fact that there are at present far too many "undesirables" —guessers and "crooks" of all kinds—following the meetings round—men who neither toil nor spin year in and year out, and are able to live by some means (their wits, probably). Some drastic steps are necessary to rid the Dominion of these blackguards, and the sooner the better. If the remedy lies in the cutting down of the large number of race meetings now held in New Zealand—and many contend that this would be the only means of bringing about the desired result—then a curtailment should be made. Of course, these reniiuns are nol to be taken in any way inferring that file Kgniont Club should be subjected to the pruning knife, as the meetings held by that club sre a credit to all coiu-erncd. being amongst the, best conducted and most enjoyable of any on the coast. But there " ai'e others " —many of them —and if some of these were cut out there would be less chance of what is termed the " Sport of Kings " degenerating further into the "Sport of liogucs."