TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7969, 21 February 1906, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

A proposal has emanated from North Canterbury tmeep owners that meat and wool competitions should be held, to determine the most profitable class of sheep to breed. The idea is for eaoh exhibitor to enter five wether hoggets of any oross or breed, the whole of the sheep entered to be run together on some suitable farm from April until November and then to be exhibited at the Metropolitan Show, that after the show the sheep should be killed, and the value of eaoh ascertained for the frozen meat export trade, with 7?ool and other values taken into account. The proposal will be submitted to the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Assooiation. It is ten years since' Parliamentary powers were obtained for the reconstruction of Vauxhall Bridge, London, which at length is complete, it is built on the segmental arch principle and suggests at once strength and simplicity. The constructive metal work is carried through continuously from end to end, the, elevations being finished by a high balustrade in metal, broke by the introduction of panels at each pier. has been spent on the structure, in addition to £70,000 paid for property needed to widen the approaches, and £30,000 expended on the ereotion of tbe tem,porary bridge, making a total of half a million. The old bridge, which it was feared might tumble down, proved extremely difficult to remove, and a "good deal of the expenditure went over this troublesome work. The unemployed, however urgent their necessities, are independent gentlemen (says a London writer). Relief work was provided for a number of the out-o'-works on land adjoining Epplng Forest, but difficulties arose as to payment owing to the rainy weather. They were encaged at sixpence an hour, and all went well on these terms until heavy rains caused a stoppage of work. The men demanded payment for the time they were weather bound, add made a claim for 3s 9d a day without regard to interruptions by rain. As the manager in charge of the work could not take this view, the whole of them struck work in a body. The incident is interesting as disclosing, some of the inwardness of the unem-' ployed nroblem, which -is not. tn besolved apparently by merely finding work for the workless.

Qnite a romance of industry lies a the life history of Sir Bichard 'angye, the famous eugineer. The ' iroducfcofhis engineering shops is outid all over the world, yet when ib first ventured out as a manufac-ui-er he had to be content with a Purion of a packing room, at the modest eutal of four shillings a week. The nvention of hydtaulic lifting jack jylhis little firm, which was sucoessully used in launching the Great Eastern, was the first big stride tovard3 success. "We launched the 3reat Eastern, and she launched is," is the way Bir Richard puts it. Even then there were many diffloul;ies to overcome, not the least being ibat of poverty, for at the end of Mr Langye's first visit lo London to ob;ain orders he found himself so "short" that he had to walk back borne as far as Leighton Buzzard, before taking a railway ticket to Birmingham. His only expenditure an tbe two day' tramp was eightpeuce—sixpence for a bed and twopence for bread and cheese. The traditions and myths associated with the castle and grounds of Belmont, the Premier's Scotiah seat in the heart of the fertile valley of Strathmore, are exceedingly numerous, writes a oouespondent ol the Glasgow Weekly Herald. Not far from the house, to the south, there is a large mound, [whioh is said to be the spot on whioh Macduff slew Macbeth, and it is alleged that Isabella,' the daughter of Macduff, was kept in oaptivity and starved to death in Kirkhill Castle the unfortunate lady being so far tortured and reduced to extremity by the panes of hunger before she died that she gnawed the flesh from her fingers. It is affirmed that a large boulder stone, also located in the grounds of Belmont, marks the spot where young Osbert, son of Siward, who was associated with Macbeth in the sustained oonflict with Macduff, fell and was buried in support of whioh it is stated that a stone coffin was at one time found under the boulder. ——«————^g