NEWS AND NOTES

Waikato Argus, Volume VII, Issue 482, 2 September 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES

Ax Irishman at the seaside was watching a steam dredger at work in the harbour. " Are you coming home, Pat?" shouted a friend who was passing. " No, shure, until I have seen tho last of these buckets. I have counted 1-1,000 of them, and they be still coming up. Begorra, I don't tro away till I see the last one.''

An Italian physician has invented a new euro for consumption, which is based on inhalation of the gas produced by a powerful antiseptic called forraalim, He claims to have cured several consumptives. Pormalina has for some time boon regarded as fatal to the bacillus oi consumption, but hitherto no means have been found of administering it without killing the patient.

A terrible story has been received in New York from Seattle, Washington, of a tragedy in the Klondike Country. The dead body of a inau named Michael Daly has been found lying half cooked upon a stove in a hut on the Klondike trail- He died and was partly eaten by his companions, who were discovered frozen to death close by. It appeared they had been forced to cannibalism by starvation and the impossibility, owing to the winter, of going or returning for further supplies. They were not without money, for Daly's pocket contained 400do!s.

At an agricultural show in Dublin a pompous member of Parliament, who arrived late, found himself on the outskirts of the huge crowd. Being auxious to obtain a pood view for himself and some lady friends who accompanied him, and presuming that he was well known to the spectators, he tapped a burly coal-porter on the shoulder and peremptorily demanded, "Make way there !" " Guam, who are you pushin' ?" was the unexpected response. "Do you know who 1 am sir?' cried the indignant M.P. "I'm a representative of the people." " Yah," growled the porter ; " but we're the bloomin' people themselyes."

Mr Poynton, S.M., during tbe course of his lecture on " Microbes " the other evening (says the " Western Star") narrated an incident which occurred at Wellington illustrative of the oft-quoted ivords "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Two women had a disagreement and one struck the other on the head with a bottle, inflicting an ugly wound, Greatly alarmed, the aggressor sought to apply first aid by taking from the corner of the room a very old cobweb. This she placed on the cut, and in staunching the flow of blood she thought she had done much towards healing the wound. The injured woman, however, subsequently died, and the cause was disease germs getting in from the cobweb, which had been a lodging place for them. The great thing in wounds and cuts is to

keep them clean, which can be done by an antiseptic, such as carbolic acid, a bottle of which should be in every home, as outc are of daily occurrence. Some persons fancied thero was a greater liability to lockjaw if the tendon between the forefinger and the thumb were cut, but this was not so. The drumstick microbe, generally found among horse manure, would get into the system at any cut, even one the size of a pin's head, and the explanation of how greater liability attached to a cut near Iho thumb was because the action of tho fingers tended to keep it always open, and therefore easy of access to the germ of lockjaw.