GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 94, 16 September 1914, Page 8

GENERAL NEWS.

A woman speaker at the Oteult Hall, saya the Glolio, referred to the strange behaviour of the ship's cat of the Empress of Ireland. When the vessel was about to leave Quebec, the cat earns hurrying down the gangway, bearing two of her kittens in her mouth. Efforts were made to get her to return, but though she had to that time made th'i : vessel her regular home, even when in port, nothing would persuade her to I go back, and she was allowed to take up har abode in a shed, and consequent- j ly escaped destruction on the founder- I 1 ing of the vessel. Furthermore, ae- | cording to the speaker, the cat was heard to emit a long sustained "meow" ] at the very moment the ship sa»k. | A beautiful nwnuscriptbook, bound in red African goatskin, containing the roll of those who died for their.-country in the war in South Africa, 1899-1902, which is to be enshrined at the Cathedral Church of St. George, Capetown, was recently on view to the public at the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall. The list of names includes a number of Australians who fell i» the war. It was compiled from records supplied by the War' Office and Colonial Governments, and was submitted to various regiments for correction. The illuminated tail piece, showing the flora of the countries representing the British Empire, has a splash of golden wattle, and the boßses of the cover of the vol- , nme are of the famous New Zealand greenstone.

The demand for news of the war in the cities of New Zealand is keen enough, but, to judge from a letter just received by a Christchurch resident, the state of things in the backbloeks iB calculated to make a morning paper runner's mouth water. The writer of the lettor, dating from an inland station in the Waipiro Bay district, says:—"Great excitement reigns here, and we're all dying for news of the war, We hear rumors of great battles one day, and they're contradicted the next, i sent my name in as a volunteer —I told them I was 21 and that I'd served four years in cadets 'and Territorials. If the first statement is a lie the second isn't. A chap passed through hers on his way out to the ( 'bush, anil he had a Saturday's paper, and he wouldn't part with it. There are seven of us here at present, and we offered him 7s (a bob api9ce) for the paper, but he wouldn't part. So we called him anything but a gentleman."