The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1882. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1027, 7 November 1882, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1882. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Tejicica Road Board.—The monthly meeting of the Temuka Road Board will be held to-day.

Bank Holiday.—Thursday next being the anniversary of the Prince of Wales birth day, will be observed by the Bank of New Zealand as a holiday. The Resident Magistrate.—The Resident Magistrate heard only one ease yesterday before lie was off again. It is quite obvious that he cither will not or cannot give any attention to this district, and therefore we think it is time some action was taken in the matter.

Ekbatuji.—ln our last issue we stated tha fc we understood the sister of one of Mr Lee's employees, named Yallender, had died through having been burned in the fire by which Mr Rbodes's house was destroyed. We now learn that she had been removed from the house the day before the fire, and that she died from natural causes.

Improbable,—The Wanganui Herald is responsible for the statement that a syndicate, with a capital of £5,000,000, has been formed at Home for the purpose of under, taking the construction and working of certain railway lines in the colony. The Thames Valley line will be carried out by the Company, and probably the Main Trunk line (M. 1.) from Christchurch to the West Coast. Mr Browne, C. E., of Wellington, will shortly proceed to the Thames for the purpose of prosecuting the survey and laying off of the Thames Valley line.

A New Horse Shoe. —Writing from Wellington a correspondent of a Northern exchange says: —' I inspected to-day the new system of steel shoes for horses. The four shoes oniv weigh about 12 ounces, and are fastened into the hoof and secured by four nails, leaving the heels bare. The shoes last for three months on metalled roads, and avoid all danger from brushing. Of course* the blacksmiths do not approve of this new invention, but they have been adopted by the Government for their horses here, and have been found to answer urell.' The Blue Gum.—The destrudiveness. of the blue gum to vegetable life that attempts to flourish in proximity to it has often been proved, says an Oamaru paper, but the vagaries of their roots in quest of moisture has received an exemplification that rather astonished the owner (Mr Shrimski, M.II. A.) of a drain pipe the other day. Finding the water poured into the drain did not flow off with sufficient celerity, he had it opened, and found that (lie roots of adjacent blue gums had penetrated the pipes at the joinings, and completely tilled them with a tightly matted mas of roots that had more the appearance of being solid than anything else. The pipes for about sixty feet had to be lifted, and the roots sawn through at each joint before thev could be extracted, so finnlv had they grown in. A section of this curious grswth has been s?nt to the office. Life in Reefton. —A correspondent; writing some notes on Recfton for the Nelson Colonist, thus refers to social life in that out-of-the-way locality : '•' The spirit of equality and fraternity, common in all mining society, is realised to such an extent that the bellringer will have a social chat and a social glass I .vitli the chief aristocrat of the place. Lately, however, there has been an effort to institute a more old-fashioned class division. It took the shape of a select ball, to which none but gentlemen and real ladies were admitted. I believe the attendance was four couple, who revelled on the repast provided for 4-0 guests. The most arsitocratic feature of the evening was shown after supper, when one of the real ' gentlemen' drove ono of the waiters home in a wheelbarrow ' dead drunk ' —to use a technical phrase. Public feeling was violently outrageous against such ' snobs,' as they were called ; and one of the ' real ladies' received a salt herring -throush the poat."

Missplaced Zeal.—At a public meeting held in Auckland last Saturday night it was decided to form a New Zealand Association for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act.

Taxing Immigrants.—The American Government have put a 50 cents tax on all immigrants. Shipping Companies are paying under protest, declaring the tax to be unconstitutional.

The Maori King.—The Taranaki Herald says Tawhiaois getting thin and wasted to a shadow, suffering from asthma and impecuniosity. If he were gathered to his forefathers there would be no keen competition for the succession. An Unprofitable Profession. —The Australasian states that, including principals, regular supernumeraries, chorus people and ballet girls, there are probably 250 to 300 actors in Melbourne. Perhaps a third of them are out of employment. Map op Egypt.—The War Office must have earned an honest penny over Egypt already. The very excellent map of Egypt, published by the Intelligence has had a wonderful sale. Upwards of two thou-and have gone off, a,t prices varying from 12s to 255. The Electric Light. The Electric Light Company have decided to call for tendera in England, through the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, for the supply and delivery in Poverty Bay roadstead, of the necessary plant, and machinery to light the town of Grisbornc.

APfiAiSEWOKTiiy Movement. —The Eev. Lord Archibald Douglas recently left England for Canada with a large number of poor boys, who are to be placed with farmers near Ottawa. This is the initial step in a system of boy emigration, for which Cardinal Manning has provided the requisite funds.

The Pax of tjie Dublin Police.—The Dublin police receive, taking clothes and everything into account, only £1 per week. They are a magnificent body of men, and are said to show a great degree of forbearance and propriety. The members of the police force in the United States receive as much as £5 per week. A Violent Gale.—A country paper states that during last week a gale of extraordinary violence was experienced on the Carrick Ranges. So great was the force of the wind that a dray and three horses were blown over, while an unfortunate miner who was caught in the blast was lifted clean off his feet and hurled into a neighboring gully.

An Unorthodox Result. —A rather astonishing feat was accomplished by a horse the other evening in New Plymouth. It had broken out of a paddock, and a boy was trying to drive it back again, but it got to the edge of an embankment, and at the sound of the crack of the whip took one bound over the embankment, and landed 24 feet below on an empty dray. The dray was broken, but the horse was uninjured, and galloped off. Gas ExrLOeioN AT Dunedin. —A rather serious gas explosion occurred about nine o'clock on Saturday night in the Robert. Burns Hotel, George street. The landlord had entered a room to discover the cause of a smell of gas, and on pushing the gasalier up the gas. which was lying near the csiling, exploded with great force, among other things blowmg a door off its hinges and into atoms. The landlady, Mrs Sinclair, was hurt by some of the fragments, and was thrown down some distance away. Mr Sinclair miraculosly escaped with a few bruises. Great damage was done to the bottles in the bar.

Votes of Thanks. —At the monthly meetlast Saturday evening of the Council of the Trades and Labour League, the Dunedin Secretary was directed to forward the following resolutions to the Dunedin and suburban members of the House of Representatives.—(l) "That this Council gratefully acknowledges the efforts of all those members of the Legislature during the past session of Parliament who manifested such an interest in the prosperity of the working classes as to vote for all liberal measures calculated, to improve their condition." (2) " That this Council specially acknowledges the services of Messrs Green, Bracken, Eish, Bathgate and. Barron in endeavoring to pass into law various measures set forth in the Council's political programme."

The Late Railway Accident at Waitati. —Messrs H'innay and Lowe, in. their report of the enquiry into the late railway accident near Waitati, state that in the evidence adduced, and among all the circumtances, nothing has transpired to point prominently to an immediate cause of the derailment of the train. To all appearances the line was in good running order. All-hough the leading wheels were somewhat worn, they were not suflVnently so to varrant that the accident should be attributed to them. There was no positive evidence to show what did cause the train to leave the rails. They do not find that any negligence or wrongful act of any person caused this accident, but the collateral circumstances brought under their notice during the enquiry, demand strict investigation, and will result in increased vigilance throughout the service." Terrible Accident. —A shocking disaster is reported from the city of Grodno in Russia In a cellar underneath an elementary school in that place a tradesman had, among other merchandise, left a barrel of gunpowder, and, having no authority to do this, lie had suppressed the fact. This concealment of the dangerous character of part of the commodities in the store led to the most disastcrous con sequences. An explosion accidentally took place at an hour when the children and teachers were all in school. The explosion was one of tremendous violence, reducing the building to aheap of ruins, and burying the inmates under the debris. The windows and doors of a church and other buildings in the neighborhood were completely shattered by the explosion. Nearly all. the school children, most of whom were Jews, were killed, and within an an hour of the catastrophe a heap of bodies had been extracted from the ruins. I

Cremation.—The bodies of two ladies belonging to the family of Sir J. A. Hanham, Bart., of Dean's-eourt, near Wimborne, in Dorset, have been cremated at Blandford in that counti-y. White Eats. —Two pure white rats were found alive and killed at a grain stack at Wyndham the other day. Their skins are to be stuffed and placed in the Duuedin Museum. A pure white rat wa9 seen in Queenstreet, Auckland, the other day. Vegeteeianish.—A writer in Light advances two reasons why he thinks Vegetarianism will be the diet of the future. The first, is that 'the earth is yearly growing smaller in proportion to its population, and an acre will support more vegetable-eaters than flesh eaters.' The second, that the growth of the moral faculty of sympathy is so rapid that a time will come when no one will be found sufficiently unsympathetic or harsh of nature to be a butcher. Plain Speaking.— Said a member of Parliament, to his constituents the otlur day, 'I have such confidence in you and your returning me again to Parliament, that I have mortgaged my three hundred a year for the next three years.' The hon member (says 'iEgles' in the Australasian) put it to his constituents, so that if they have a spark of good feeling they will return him at the next election. Not for his own sake (unselfish man), but in the interest of his creditors.

Strange Accident.—The Post records a singular accident which occurred a few evenings ago- At a children's party given at the house of a gentleman residing at Newton, a lad whilst attempting to kiss one of the fair sex struck his head against the girl's teeth, with a result that he received a slight wound on the back of the head, from which the blood poured in such a manner as to create no little alarm. The wound was bandaged, and for a few hours the blood ceased to flow, but during the night it broke out again, and when the youth awoke in the morning he was astonished to find a portion of his pillow dyed with blood. It is supposed that a small artery in the head was severed by the girl's teeth. .Sore Siioixldees. — A writer to a Southern paper say 3 " very few horses would have sore shoulders if owners or their men would spend say ten minutes a week in scraping off the dirt from the collars, which has bsen accumulated by perspiration. After thoroughly scraping take some blunt iustni. ment and beat the collar for a minute or two, which will make it as soft as when new. I have seen it done and have done it to advantage. Saddles may also be treated in like manner." To this we would add that ,'the shoulders of horses when chafed should be thoroughly washed with soap and warm water, and after being dried should be dressed witli fresh lard. This treatment has always been found efficacious, and we can thoroughly recommend it.—Exchanged.

Saddling the Weong Hoese.—The information under which Mr "William Binlcy was brought up yesterday win iHfral, and on that ground it was dismissed. Air son said it was the fault of the Clerk of the Court that such an information had been issued. We should like to know the name of the Justice of the Peace who signed it, and also if he was anything to blamo for signing an illegal document ? Why did not Mr Mendelson say that the Justice of the Peace who signed the information was more to blame than the Clerk of the Court ? It is not the Clerk of the Court's duty to act as a lawyer for people. He is not supposad to be a lawyer, but a Justice of the Peace h supposed to know something about law, at any rate to the extent of being able to distinguish a criminal from a civil case.

A Horrible Situation.—A man named Harkness has been engaged for several weeks in peeling bark on Moosic Mountains and. removing the logs to a mountain skidway near Herrick Centre, Pa., where they are rolled into the river 250 feet below. While he was at the skidway attempting to remove a large log with his cant-hook, the hook slipped, throwing Hardness down the embankment, the log railing after. As Hardness shot down the mountainside he gathered himself together and made a fearful leap into the river. He happened to strike a clear place between the logs, and thus escaped a terrible death. He was rescued, by the workmen a few feet from the large log which rolled into the river behind him. Harkness held on to the cant-hook all the time, and was taken out of the river with it still in his grasp. Curious Charge.—A case of a painful and very unusual description recently occupied the attention of a Greneral Court Martial at Bolarum, India. One of the subadars of the 3rd Regiment of Infantry, Hyderabad Contingent, who has been in the Queen's service nearly thirty years, was charged with behaving in a manner unbecoming the position and character of an ollieor, in having offered a bribe to bis Colonel. It was alleged that the prisoner, with a view to odtain from Colonel Macquoid a favourable reply to some request he was about to make, dropped a massive gold ring into that officer's coat pocket.

The Court came to the conclusion that the prisoner was not guilty of the charge, an 1 the Commander-in-Chief confirmed the finding. Scientific G-unnery.—During the Egyptian war a shot from the Orion smashed a carriage in the train bringing up reinforcements, for the enemy near Nitchc. The train was upset and the Egyptains lied. It is remarkable that this shot was fired without the gunners seeing the enemy. Foreseeing thi likelihood *f the enemy bringing up troops by the train, Lieut. Carysfort, of the Orim, laid a 25-ton gun upon a point of the railway out of the determiticd sight, clie elevation and direction being determined by calculation and the use of azimuth compasses. The line of aim was accurately laid down in one of the ship's tops, and when Lieut. Carysfort saw the train was pissing the point indicated he gave the word, the gun was fired and the train was struck and disabled. This was a triumph of scientific gunnery.

A Peesistent Editor —SkiLrille is a place somewhere on the Texas and Pacific railroad. Evidently it is not a very populous town, but it has a newspaper with an editor who dares to assert the rights of his fellowcitizens. He writes: —'This is the last time we shall allude to the persistent omission to stop at this town of the trains on the Texas and Pacific. The old excuse of the conductors that they wouldn't know Skilville if they were to see it appears singularly thin in the face of the fact that this morning we planted a large painted stake beside the track, which could be readily seen by the engineer for the distance of half a mile. This evening a nail will be driven into the said stake, and McClue's stable lantern hung thereon. If the night express also ignores this signal, ib will be time for the American people to fully understand the malice cf this infamous blow levelled at the prosperity of this growing metropolis by a bloated and cowardly ruonopolt." ' Servant G-alism.' —The wearing of their mistresses' or masters' clothing by servants when the former are absent is a matter of everyday occurrence. The wife of a prosperous gentleman who has lately settled in the neighbourhood of Melbourne (says the Australasian) sent to Paris for a costume by Worth for the forthcoming Melbourne Cup. The costume, whieh.was en suite, and complete to boots, gloves, pai-asol, &c, arrived the other day j was unpicked, admired, and laid out in the owner's dressingroom. Before having it placed in her wardrobe Mrs Grrosgrain went into town for the day, but having forgotten her purse, returned home sooner than she had intended. Proceeding at once to her apartment she discovered the housemaid anayed in her new costume to the minutest particular, and poising in undisguised admiration of herself in front of the eheval glass. Naturally incensed, she remonstrated rather sharply with Miss O'Brien for Lcr impertinence, but she was rendered speechless by r the audacious retort, ' Well ! you'll admit I look better in it than ever you will!' Presentation. —Mr A. Mahan was on lattt Saturday evening, at the Spur Hotel, presented with a handsome watch and chain by the reiideuts of Waitohi in recognition of his services as teacher of the school there. Mr Mahan has efficiently filled the position i of teacher there for a good many years, but recently left there. There W'S a large attendance, and Mr John Talbot occupied the chair, who read the following address : ''To Mr A. Mahan.—We are desirous that you may bear away with you, on the occasion of your leaving the district, some little token of our regard and esteem. During your residence amongst us of nearly eight years, us master of the Publio School, you have displayed in the highest degree, the couiteoue and kindly sttributea of a gentleman. The frequent occasions on which the schoolroom has been required for public meetings 1-as occasioned you much trouble and perhaps some inconvenience, and we beg to thank you for the use of that building during your term of office. We also beg to tendor an expression of our appresiation of your gratuitom services as Librarian and Treasurer of the local library. We beg your acceptance of the accompanying watch and chain, and hope they may prove of service, We trust you may wear them for the remainder of a long and happy life, and regard them as a memento of the regard and esteem in which you are he'd. 'Signed on bohalf of the residents of the District —J. Talbot, J. Anderson, A. O. Gilmour, L. Scott, M. Wightman, S. Carrie.' "!Tr Mahan thanked tbero very sincerely for their kindness, he regretted very much having loft, and hoped he wo >ld meet them frequently again. Several songs were afterwards sung, and a most enjoyable evening spent.

Mr Alex Frew has a quarter-acre section with, building thereon for sale.

Messrs Maclean and Stewart notifies that they will sell next Friday, at Timaru, the contents of the Blue Stone Stables. Tenders for works for the Teruuka Road Board close to-day at 10 a.m.