UNKNOWN

Waikato Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 672, 12 June 1900, Page 4

UNKNOWN

# League, with objects 1 losie 11C Nav y beaguc, is fflg^Kovmeil. SHBriolislied pestilential buildings BBHHfiey still have their uses it it is reported, that the old bricks and , are being sold “ to be used in setW~*nss up the same old death-traps in other places.” A firm of Now York architects have just completed plans for the largest office building yet erected. It is to be twenty storeys in height, 336 feet by 106 feet, and will cost four millions. The Americans apparently intend not to Itt eveu JacobV ladder beat them. One provincial Sanitary Comsince he entered upon the duties jnis position (says the New Zealand Tunes), received three threatening letters, all of which are supposed to have been evoked in consequence of unfavourIftjutble reports on premises belonging to the iters. W The first day of the year 1900 f will always be remembered as a red-let ter day of our Empire, ll witnessed the first victory of a shoulder-to-shoulder body of “ sons of the Empire ’’—Australians. Canadians, and Home-born Britons—fighting in the common cause of the Queen. At Echucn (Victoria) recently a postmortem examination was conducted to enquire into the death of a man found floating in the Campaspe River. During post-mortem the doctor operating BHnade an extraordinary discovery. In the of the heart he found an ordinary . jHvax match embedded. ||H A politician says: “ When a man jjHleaves our side and goes to the other side is a triator, and we always feel that W. there is a subtle something wrong with W him. But when a man leaves the other ' side and comes over to us, he is a man of great moral courage, and we always feel that he had sterling stuff in him.” More than once of late those arouud the Queen have heard her regret that age should prevent her doing much that she would like. Last week, says the Westminster Gazette, she observed to one of her guests at Windsor Castle that if she were only twenty years younger she would visit Australia. A rather singular incident, says the Westport News, occurred on the Granity and Millerton track recently. Two bullocks were fighting on the track, and one was pushed over the bank and rolled down a steep cliff for about 50 feet until its progress was stayed by a tree. To the surprise of the onlookers, the bullock picked itself up and moved away as if unhurt. Country school teachers during the recant wet wither in the Wellington district had some trying experiences (says the New Zealand Times). It is stated that the lady assistants at the /Dalefield school had to negotiate a main aoad connecting Dalefield with their homes at Carterton, covered in places, not, ankle deep, but knee deep, with watei. ) An Otago cyclist was scorching in the country, and called at a farmhouse for a glass of water. The farmer’s daughter gave him milk instead. “ Won’t you have another glass?" she asked, as he drained the tumbler. “ You are very good,’’ he said, “ but I’m afraid I shall rob you.” “Oh no ! we have so much more than we can use ourselves that we always give it to the calves.” Our immortal bard wrote “What’s in a name ?” Thera is something pretty considerable in those give i to the infant children of two Gordon Highlanders. The wives of the Gordons have given . birth to a son in one case and a daughter in another. The sou has been christened John Frederick Roberts Hector Archibald Macdonald Thompson, and the girl Frances Antonia Ladysmith Hallamore. A well-known district firm of eoaohbuilders (says the Mataura Ensign) recently had occasion to advertise in the public prints for a body hand. One of the applications received in answer was from a young lady resident in Lawrence, who stateclthat she had been “ for some cOQsiderabl&itime at the dressmaking,” and forwarded references as to her ability in bodice making from a mistress of tlie needle of high repute. At the last meeting of the Wanganui Education Board (says the Manawatu Standard) a communication from a country committee conveyed the information that the purchase of a school site had cost more for the title than for the land itself. The land cost £4, on top of which there were solicitor’s costs £6 l()s, and cost of survey £5 10s. The members of the Board made sundry remarks concerning “ reasonable ” fees, etc. A contemporary notes that as one result of the dredging industry Dunedin merchants are all agreed as to the general prosperity that is prevalent in Dunedin. The annual turnover is increasing enormously, there is not quite the same amount of out throat competition, bills are promptly met on the fourth of each month, and things are going on swimmingly. One firm has done so well during the last year that the employees’ wages are being raised and bonuses granted. A firm that, in a time of prosperity, thinks of it cm--7? ployees in this manner deserves to be successful. The constitutional difference in temperature between ourselves ami our mercurial neighbours on the other side of the English Channel was once well described by Charles James Fox. It was in the later days of his life that conversation once turned in Fox’s presence on the comparative wisdom of French and English character. " The Frenchman,” it was observed, “delights himself with the present—the Englishman makes himself anxious about the future. Is not the Frenchman the wiser?” He may be the merrier,” retorted Fox; “ but did you ever hear of a savage who did not buy a mirror in preference to a telescope ?” That- there are still a few Amazons, left will be apparent from the evidence of a female witness at the Supreme Court. The lady evidently had a maxim of her own, “Every woman her own policeman,” and the efficiency with which she acted up to Ic probabLy saved the law a good deal of trouble in the arrest of a prisoner who was convicted of a serious offence recently. She stated, and her evidence was corroborated bywitnesses, that she interrogated accused in the street, and his answers not proving satisfactoiy, started to march him off to the police station. He attempted to escape on the way, but while she was struggling with him a man in blue came along, and she promptly handed him over. As the prisoner was by no means of weak physical appearance, the lady’s feat is one to be proud of, There is an age-worn axiom that “ no man is so ill-shod as a shoemaker,” but it would uot be correct to deduce from this that no dwellings are so insanitary as a pysioian’s. Yet in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court, while some sanitation cases were being heard, one medical gentleman volunteered tlie information (says the New Zealand Times), that the bouse in which he lived was, strictly speaking, in an insanitary condition. Later on Mr Young asked another doctor if it were true that his house had been condemned by sanitary inspectors. The doctor denied that his house had been condemned, but half admitted that there was a substratum of fact in the assertion. Mr Young was going on to cross-question him on the matter, but the doctor pointed out that the subject had no legal bearing on tlie case before the Court, aud promised the solicitor he would “ tell him the tale after dinner some night.”

An interesting specimen of the mischief wrought by the teredo is at the harbour office at Timarn (reports the Herald). Borne six or eight months ago a ‘workman made a false blow with an Sib hammer, the handle snapped, and the head and part of the handle dropped into the sea, aud sank. This has been fished up by the dredge, and the hickory haudle easily snapped again owing io its being nearly all bored away at one point. The stick was sawn through in several places, and the borings were found to inn from end to end. The worms started in the eye of the hammer, and bored along the grain. The outside of the stick, except at the eye, is quite whole. Another story from South Africa, this time from Pretoria and one the presence of women in the enemy’s trenches may account for (says “ Woomera ” in the Australasian). At the beginning of the war it was the duty of a young Hollander to make up a list of the- killed and wounded on both aides. As near ns he could he did so truthfully. Tho truth, however, would not suit Mr Kruger at all, and he “conveyed” a very broad hint to the compiler that the enemy's list must bo added to ml lib., and the Boers’ list minimised as much as possible. The hint was taken, and the next battle was recorded thus British, killed, 25,000 ; Boers, 15 births.” In reference to the recent cablegram stating that the gigantic telescope at tho Paris Exhibition had revealed flame prominences on the sun's surface, bir Charles Todd, Government astronomer for South Australia, says that at total eclioses of the sun red flames, otherwise called prominences, are frequently seen issuing when the sun is entirely covered by the moon. Although these flames have hitherto been only observed at the time of a total eclipse, there has been no doubt that similar flames issue from the whole of the sun’s surface, and probably with special strength in the region of the solar spots. Their exact nature is still more or less a matter of conjecture, although their light has been analysed by means of the spectroscope. Tlie masses of flame are frequently seen to extend many thousands of miles beyond the sun’s surface, and it now appears that they have been observed not only on the edge of the snn, but also on other portions of the disc. The cigarette appears to be seriously threatened in both hemispheres. The Chief of the Washington Weather Bureau of the Department of Agriculture has issued an order forbidding the smoking of cigarettes by all employes under his direction, not only during working hours, but in their hours of leisure. The prohibition is based upon the conviction of the chief that cigarettesmoking impairs efficiency and discipline, and that by indulging in it the most competent become careless and unreliable. He does not, however, seek to interfere with the smoking of cigars and pipes. And the School Board of Beckenham (Eng.) have been considering the cigarette-smoking of small boys. Dr. Primrose Wells, their medical officer, has drawn up a document, which states that smoking by boys impairs the eyesight, upsets the nerves, disturbs the digestive organs, and stunts growth. It has also been decided to ask local doctors to go to the schools and address the boys on the evils of smoking. All sensible boys understand that to imitate che smoking habits of their elders is rather to play the ape than to be manly. ]t is related by a gentleman who was in the British fort at Potchefstroom during the siege of 1881 Fourteen Cape boys one night persuaded the colonel to allow them to leave in the hopes of being able to reach British territory in satety. As they were of no use to the colonel, and - the supply of foodstuffs being limited, he gave them the desired permission, and the boys, unarmed and half starved, left the fort one night under cover of darkness and proceeded in the direction of Klerksdorp. When they had travelled about six miles a Boer picket, under De Greet, observed them. Without parley, thirteen of the boys were shot dead by De Greef’a men, and when the fourteenth saw the Boer rifles pointed at him he fell down on his knees before De Greet crying : “ With God there is mercy, Is there none with you ?" To this DeGreef replied, “No !” and, addressing his men, he said : “ Send him into hell! ” Immediately after the poor victim was a corpse. After the siege was raised Britishers passed the spot where this outrage was perpetrated, and saw the bodies of the murdered Cape boys still lying on the veldt.