MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 278, 23 April 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

There is a mayor over in Australia who feels deeply mortified. The town was en fete to welcome the Governor, and His Worship advanced to receive His Excellency, who had just alighted from his hired carriage. Isut the Governor is a bit near sighted, and when lie slipped half -a - crown into the astonished hand of the mayor lie made sure he had paid the cabby. The bicycle has a lot to answer for (says the North Otago Tim s). At a meeting of the County Council one of the members drew a picturo of the straits that many people submitted to in order to own a bicycle. A boy witli a widowed mother gave two-thirds of his weekly wage away in order to have a bicycle. Young men abstained from smoking cigarette l !, girls from extravagance in dress, old men from whisky—all so that they .might he able to bestraddle a " bike." Trade suffered, and business men became depressed and melancholy, and were probably driven to patent medicines and walking in their sleep. Therefore the bicycle should be taxed. The Council thereupon decided that an appeal should be mnde to the legislature to pass a measure empowering local bodies to levy a tax, and possibly the legislature may do so. Several Maori women who had benefited over the victory of Faugh-a-ballagh and Kahoi at the Patea Easter races celebrated the victory in their usual style-—by getting what a nautical man would call " half seas over," and, after arriving at the railway station in a " pendulum " manner and rollicking mood, created co end of fun for the large gathering of people awaiting transit. Three of the Maori damsels would persist in getting on the railway line and defied the guard who had to resort to physical force by ent.vinniug his arms around a fat wahiue and carry her back to the platform. No sooner did he carry one back to the platform than another would stagger across, and at one time two wahines and a railway official were in a melee on the line and in the struggle faint glimpses of a railway official's coat could be seen visibly struggling in the dust from under a pack of wahines. After clearing the line the guard resumed the tenor of his way, when one of the Maori women made a charge across the line to the Wcngaoui train and had just got her foot on the step when the official spotted her and caught hold or her legs whilst the Maoris on the train caught hold of her arms and then came a tupr of war, the railway guard held on tenaciously, but there was boo much beef at the other end of the line as the Native woman was gradually hauled aboard the train amidst the shouts of the spectators. The official stated he " would see all about it,'' and as the train moved off the tatooed lass shouted words of defiance, turned her nose up to heaven and her mouth to sunset and glared at the official. Messrs Seddon and M'Kenzie stumping the country at the public expense in the interests of Messrs Seddon and M'Kenzie deserve pity rather than reprobation (writes " Civis " in the Otago Daily Times). Forlorner spectacle have I seldom beheld. As a humane man and subscriber to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals I protest against its continuance. It is a painful thing to read, as in to-day'a Times, that at Wyndham the Hon. John M'Kenzie, acknowledging a motion of thanks for winch a majority of the audience does not seem to have voted, " was received derisively," and that the meeting broke up with *' cheers for ' G.F, 5 " the member for the district, and politically, the Hon. John's mortal foe. This is a nice reault, truly, for a Seddon and M'Ktnzie missionary meeting ! Nor does the Right Hon. Richard fare any better. Witness his painful experience at the Agricultural Hall in Dunedin ; even the non-political Governor had to intercede for him. Considered as orators Richard and John arc at the best a clodhopping pair, with little to choose between them except that Richard lias the greater gift of prolixity, taking two hours and a half, as a rule, to pass a given point. When the two of them go to the country to whip up the poor old dead horse of Scddonism, attempting it in speeches as long as a Jubilee procession—Poniahaka, Bushy Park, Jubilee expenses, Old Age Pensions, Jubilee expenses, Bushy Park and Poniahaka—is it any wonder if their audiences, when they get any, turn again and rend them ! Too surely the game is up ; this stumping procession of two serves only to make the fact more painfully evident. What Dick says to Jock on the subject and what Jock replies to Dick is not reported, and that is just as well. No editor would be likely to find it fit for publication. It is not generally known that New Zealand is in the unique position of possessing a spring which is a natural cure for drunkenness. Yet Dr. Ginders, the medical officer in charge at Rotorua, declares that this is the case. This is the Waikirihou, or the " Vuux Spring," supplying the new sulphur baths. In his last annual report Dr. Ginders says : " The latest discos r ery with regard to the tberapuetic power of this water is that it abolishes the craving for alcohol. If I had heard this from one or two individuals only I might have disregarded it, but hearing it commented on almost daily, I have taken the trouble to look up the cases. Two of these were very aggravated examples of inebriety, whose acquaintance I first made in the Court-house, where I found myself under tV e painful necessity of fining each of them the usual 5s and costs. They assure me that they find themselves new men since bathing in these sulphur baths, aud have lost all taste and desire for liquor of every kind. Three other patients of mine, to whom I found it necessary to advise total abstinence, corroborate this testimony, stating that they have feit no craving for stimulants sines using the baths. They are very enthusiastic in the matter, and thiuk that an asylum for inebriates should be established here at once. No doubt the craving for alcohol is kept up by a congested state of the mucous membrane of the stomach, so that the modus operandi of these waters is not far to seek ; the congestion is relieved by the powerful determination of blood to the skin. In like manner, haemorrhoids are cured by our acid waters, from the relief afforded to a congested liver. This should be good news for the Prohibitionists, and, in the event of their floating an inebriate asylum company, I shall expect to be remembered in the distribution of promoters' shares."