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Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2877, 6 May 1878, Page 2

Me Febgtjson, who has taken the contract for filling in the school site for the sew school on the Waio-Karaka flat, is making good progress with the work. It is estimated that about 3C33 loads of mullock will be required.

We notice that Mr G. Harcourt has taken Spencer's test battery opposite the Star office, where he is prepared to crush small trial parcels, specimens, etc. The battery is very complete, being fitted with stamper, berdans, furnace, etc., and is pronounced by those who have used it to be a good gold saver. Mr Harcourt's enterprise should be well patronised, especially by tributers and small claimholders, for whose especial benefit Mr Harcourt has opened the battery.

Ma John Ley. don sold by auction today the property of Mr John Daniels, Bail lie street. The furniture, etc., all realised satisfactory prices. The cottage, for which there is five years of a lease unexpired, realised £17 10s.

At the meeting of the Board of Education held on Friday last the following business regarding the Thames was transacted. We quote'from the Herald's report of the proceedings:—Kauaebanga. —An application for a new girls' school at Shortland, instead of the proposed enlarge? ment of the present school, was referred to the Executive Committee.—Waiotahi, — A letter was read from the committee intimating that the compulsory clauses of the Act had been brought into operation. A probationary teacher was appointed to Waiotahi Creek' School for the present, and a sum of £15 was authorised to reshingle the Pu'nga Fiat School. It was alao agreed to inform the committee that the Board had no power to grant occupation pf the old Shellback school site.

It would appear that the recommendations of the report submitted to a former meeting of the Education Board on the

subject of salaries, &c, are not to be carried out. The Herald, in its report of the proceedings at the last meeting of the Board, says : The report of the committee, regarding the office staff, as already published by us, was considered. It was agreed that the Inspector should have the recommendation of his clerk, the salary to depend on the person. The recommendation for the acceptance of Mr Allright's services as architect at £250 per annum and 2| per cent, on works done under his supervision, was also adopted. In regard to salaries, it was agreed that those of the inspector and secretary —the former £500 and the latter £400 a year— remain as at present. At the same time the Board expressed gratification at the manner in which the services of these gentlemen were rendered. The provisions for, the appointment of two clerks at £200 a year each, and a junior clerk at £50, were also agreed to.

The London Lancet says : — "Few people know the value of lemon-juice. A piece of lemon bound upon a corn will cure it in a few days ; it should be renewed night and morning. A free use of lemon-juice and sugar will always relieve a cough. Most people feel poorly in the spring, but if they would eat a lemon before breakfast every day for a week— with or without sugar, as they like—they would find it better than any medicine.

In a recent biography of Lord Melbourne, a story is told of a dinner at Mrs Norton's, where Disraeli, then your young author of " Vivian Grey," met the great Minister. The young man had just been defeated in an attempt to get into Parliament. Melbourne's frank and open manner led to a long conversation, in which Disraeli mentioned the circumstances of his late discomfiture, dwelling on each particular with the emphasis which every young man of ambition since Parliament was invented is sure to lay upon broken promises and scandalous behaviour of his victorious foes. The Minister was attracted more and more as he listened to the uncommonplace language and spirit of the youthful politician, and thought'to himself he would be well worth serving. Abruptly, but with a certain tone of kindness which took away any air of assumption, lie said, " Well, now, tell me—what do you want to be? " The quiet gravity of the reply took him aback. "I waut to be Prime Minister." Melbourne gave a long sigh, and then said very seriously : "No chance of that in our time. It is all arranged and settled. Nobody but Lord Grey could, perhaps, have carried the Eeform Bill; but he is an old man, and when he gives up he will certainly be succeeded by one who has every requisite for the poaition, in the prime of life and fame, of old blood, high rank, great fortune, and great ability. Once in power, there is nothing to prevent him holding office as long as Sir Boberfc Walpole. Nobody can compete with Stanley.' There is nothing like him. If you are going into politics and mean to stick to it, I dare say you will do very well, for you have ability and enterprise, and if you are careful how you steer, no doubt you will get into some post at last. But you must put all these foolish notions out of your head ; they won't do at all. Stanley will be the next Prime Minister, you will see." But thedd Minister did not see into the future.

The Glasgow Herald relates some serious circumstances connected with the accidental death by drowning of a man named Angus Robertson, a native of Inverary. It says :—Robertson's dog had apparently tried to rescue him from the water, and failing in this, it set up a loud howling until the attention of a policeman was directed to the spot, and the body 'found. It may be interesting to psychologists to learn that there was a singular circumstance in connection with Robertson's death. His wife at §tow felt uneasy that he did not return as expected, but went to bed before midnight, and fell asleep. A little past 12 she was startled by, as'she thought, an imploring cry, "Mary, Mary." She instantly rose and ran down stairs and out to,the street, but of course found no one. She felt in a state of great alarm, and took the first train to Galashiels (there had been no communication from there about the drowning), assured in her own mind that something dre.adful had happened, and only to discover that her worst fears were more than realised.

A telegram stated that the Indian Government were about to take steps to suppress seditious writings in the vernacular Press of India. The Calcutta correspondent of the Scotsman writes on the subject as follows :—" The vernacular Press exhibits keen interest in England's present political position. The following are a few quotations culled from an infinite number, of papers. I purposely abstain from mentioning the papers by name :— • What Russia will do next will doubtless be to humiliate England. As with mdi viduals, so with nations; in the time of danger reason always fails them. English politicians are no exception. England will lose her prestige in Asia if she now refuses to fightfor Turkey. England has no efficient army. Like her, Carthage possessed immense wealth, but that could not save the great commercial city of ancient days from complete downfall.' Another paper writes :—'The fall of Turkey will seriously endanger the balance of power in the world. What may befall Asia 50 years after the event "would be really fearful to v contemplate. The very thought would send a thrill of terror through the heart.' Another circulates the saying attributed to Prince Bismarck—' England is a sick old woman." Another states that ' British soldiers grow fat in peace. Englishmen are now only well versed in the art of earning money, and will not be able to resist the progress of Russian arms in India.' Another states that there will be no great difficulty in driving out the usurper— ' that is, the English'—if all men make a bold effort. The natives should gird up their loins and devise measures for improving the prosperity of the country. Of course a great deal of writing is merely harmless braggadocio, but part of it indicates real convictions, and it is well that the English public should see specimens, and so be able to draw their own conclusions regarding native opinion and sentiment, even though it should be but factitious and partial." -. „/ The following story of a TurEish doctor's knowledge is told by a contemporary writer;—A person exceedingly ill of typhus fever called in one of these medical gentlemen, who although he considered the case quite hopeless, prescribed for the patient and took his leave. The next day, in passing by, he inquired of a servant at the door if his master was not dead. "Dead! No; he is much better/ Whereupon $he doctor proceeded

upstairs to obtain a solution of this miracle. "Why," said the convalescent, "I was consumed with thirst, and I drank a pailful of the juice of pickled cabbage." " Wonderful! " quoth the doctor. Arid out came the tablets, on which the physician made this inscription: " Cured of typhus fever, Mehemed" A gha, an upholsterer, by drinking a pailful of pickled cabbage juice." Soon after the doctor was called to see another patient, yaghlikgee, or dealer in embroidered handkerchiefs, suffering from the same malady. He forthwith prescribed "a pailful of pickled cabbage juice." On calling the next day to congratulate his patient on his recovery, he was astonished to be told that the man was dead. The Oriental iEsculapius, in his bewilderment at these phenomena, came to the conclusion, and duly noted it in his .memoranda, that, "although in cases of typhus fever pickled cabbage juice is an efficient remedy, it is not, however, to be used unless the patient be by profession an upholsterer."

The first of a series of lectures on the temperance question, which had been arranged by the National Temperance League, was recently delivered at Devonshire house, Bishopsgate, by Dr. B. W. Richardson. The chair was occupied by Mr W. Fowler, late member for Cambridge. The lecturer took for the special subject of the evening, "The Practice of Abstinence from Alcoholic Drinks, with Special Reference to the Difficulties of Learning to Absta'.n." He gave the preference to total abstainers over the most moderate drinkers. Turning to his immediate subject, he saw no difficulty in giving up drink; on the contrary, his experience taught him' that when once the use of alcohol had been resolutely given up, the abstainer found his abstention to be unattended with the slightest inconvenience. In the course of an eloquent description of, the horrors of drink, he said that no hand except that of the late George Ciuikshank had been able adequately to depict them. Dealing with the medical aspect of the question, he gave it as his opinion that if all doctors were to give up prescribing alcohol at once it would not have so great an influence in making people sober as many persons imagined, because the act would appear to be the result of a sudden caprice rather than a thorough belief in the soundness of the treatment. Medical men had now, however, the support of public opinion in favor of abstinence, and they were consequently exerting themselves much more than was commonly supposed in teaching people to do without intoxicants. He believed that, the majority of doctors now only administered alcohol as they would any other drug, and he never prescribed it himself, except in its pure form, and solely as a medicine, or more frequently as a solvent for other medicines. He deprecated public conferences of medical men on the alcoholic question, as they were sure to be* full of learned disquisition which the public could not understand and of differences of opinion among the doctors, hence the old saying, " Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? " After some further observation the lecturer repeated his conviction tha.t the difficulties of total abstinence were mainly imaginary, and that when they were real they were easily overcome. He believed that before long the whole of the medical profession would acknowledge that the total abstainers were right. After a few words from the chairman, who stated that there were a thousand parishes in England in which the liquor traffic had no existence, the proceedings terminated with a vote of thanks tojPr Richardson.