MAIL NEWS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1562, 28 September 1886, Page 3

MAIL NEWS.

Is the wife of a Colonial Governor entitled to the designation " Her Excellency?” Thi* knotty queation, according to an evening contemporary, was recently raised by Mr Blake, of Irish fame, but now Governor of the Bahamas. The point seem* to hav* been refered to the " Nassau King-at-Arms,” who, quoting Debrett and Burke, ba« held that a Governor’s wife shall, by courtesy, be “ Her Excellency ” when resident in th* Colony under her husband’s Governorship but nowhere else. The well-known estat* of Oxoombe, in Lincolnshire, was sold at Louth the other day for £15,000-a very remarkable price considering that this property changed hands two years ago for £2B 600, and in 1876 realised £45,000, An entire village in North Derbyshire was offered for sale tha other day at Buxton ; but the properly did not change hands, ns the highest bid wa? only £7,000, whereas the homos alone had coat £7,500 to build a few years ego, and there wore also a couple of large residences and an extensive mill» A Munich art-publisher has paid the Bavarian Government £3OOO for the exclusive right of taking and selling photographic views of the numerous castles of the late King Ludwig. There is already an immense mand from Pans for views of Herren Ohiemsee, which is in all respects a close imitation of Versailles.

It is proposed to place a marble medallion of large * f zi in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbay, as a memorial to_ Sir Walter Scots. The medallion, which is to be thairerk of Sir John Steell, is to cost £ 157 and it will scarcely be c edited that the fees to the Dean and Chapter for the site amount to the icmdsloutly large sum of £lOl. The German merchants at Batonm are said to be io the most depressed state, having been almost ruined through the abolition of the Lee rights of th&t port. One merchant there, who, before the change, had a store of tea worth up »ards of 400,000 roubles, has now to pay down in cash sum a of 250,000 roubles as duty on his stock. A stalk of winter wheat wss recently plucked from a field of fourteen acres, grown by Mr W. B. Stewart, of O onabee Township, Ontario, measuring 6?. 6n in length. Another stalk plucked from a fHd oi fifteen acres, grown by a Mr John Miller, o? the same township, measured the same length. The stalks are represented to be fair samples of the respective fields from which they were taksn.

Considerable amusement was earned in Downing street recently by the arrival of a number of va«s snd carets belonging to dealers who had received post cards addressed from 10-Downing street summoning them to bargain for and remove some of Mr Gladstone’s properly. One of the prst cards was in the following terms“ Come, without fail, to clear away several doz ms of old collars in good condition, old offije coats, dust coats, old boots and shoes, and old hats, all in good condition, for which there is no further uss.” As eady as six in the morning one van arrived, and asihe day wore on others followed, find the drivers soon discovered that th-cy had bsen hoaxed. One conveyance come from as far as Brixton, and a well-known repository proprietor was also drawn to Downing street by a spurious postcard Mr Gladstone was of course greatly annoyed by the hoax.