NEWS & NOTES

Waikato Argus, Volume XV, Issue 6035, 4 August 1903, Page 4

NEWS & NOTES

Steps are being taken in Gisborne to have the cove in which Captain Cook first landed in Poverty Bay declared a public reserve. Two London mercers were heavily fined recently for offering for sale shirts and collars as made of linen, but which centained none of that fibre. A Napier poultry raiser, who averaged twenty fowls for the year, made a profit of £ll 16s 6d on last year's operations. His hens laid an average of 157 eggs for the year. On a farm near Winchester (says the Christcburch Press), where there was a thick coating of snow, nearly 50 hares were killed with sticks. The unfortunate animals were quite helpless in the snow. It is announced at the University of Chicago that Dr Samuel Mathews has discovered a salt solution which cures lockjaw. Other intractable ailments for which it is declared to be either a complete or partial remedy are uremia, locomotor|ataxja, and morphine poisoning. In the course of a speech given recently at Manchester, lowa, President Roosevelb made the following characteristic remark :—' Ido not fight unless I have to; but if I have to, I let the other man know that there has been a fight. That is the whole of my doctrine in regard to our foreign policy. The Premier does not intend to take any action regarding the return of Boer Bibles and other loot in the possession of New Zealand troopers, preferring to leave the matter to the consciences of the holders. Mr Harding is seeking information on the matter, and stated that he had seen several Bibles so looted. In order to throw their pursuers off the scent W. P. Randall and Miss Minnie Browne, an eloping couple from Lousiana,Virginia,went to different towns. At Buffalo trie swain obtained a minister and rang up his betrothed, who was a 100 miles away, on the telephone. Then, with a witness at each end, the couple were married. The late Baron Bramwell, after a prisoner had been found guilty, wa 8 proceeding to address him in th e orthodox fashion, ' Prisoner at the bar, you have been convicted of —,' when the man, who was an old offender, interrupted with the pertinent query ''Ow much?' 'Nine months,' was the Judge's prompt reply. Senator Washington has introduced an amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the holding of a fortune exceeding £2,000,000 by any one individual in the United States. In case of such holding the amendment provides that ' the excess shall be condemned, whether or not a public nuisance, a public folly or a public peril, and be accordingly forfeited into the United States Treasury.' Not long ago certain Blenheim football players wondered why the local ladies failed to patronise their antics. In explanation, • Full Back.' the compiler of the football notes for the Marlborough Express, has received a note from a girl who modestly writes : ' If you desire our patronage at these weekly events it would be just as well to have a few seats provided, and have all combatants decently dressed.' The Dannovirks Advocate says that considerable amusement, was created at the presentatfon to a telegraph operator the other day, when, after the various speakers had borne testimony to that gentleman's good qualities, one of the messenger boys, in speaking for himself and others, said •he was well pleased with the way Mr had done his duty.' After such an endorsement it was felt that no more need be said. An ingenious swindle is being perpetrated in Sydney by a gang of men why hawk brummagenjewellery from door to door. The usual practice is to approach by the back way, and in a mysterious manner exhibit nice-looking brooch or bangle, and say: ' Here, give me 5s for this, and don't ask me where I gob it. I want the money badly.' As a matter of fact, however, the articles are made of inferior metal, and are generally worth about 9d or Is. Mr W. Davidson, InspectorGeneral of Public Works in Victoria, has reported on the question of contact versus day labour. He says in conclusion ;' Ido not think it possible to' eliminate ' Government stroke ' on Government day works. When, as occurred some time back, bricklayers insist on the setting of 400 bricks being an eight-hour day's work, I certainly think they require sterner treatment than would be meted out to them by Government foremen who might fear being charged with driving or tyranny. And lam sure a a tendency to laxity or taking it easy would, under a general Government! day-labour system, become the rule,' Three boys while raking amongst the debris of a house which had been demolished at Redfern, near Sydney, came across the jawbone of a human being, with one tooth left in the jaw. It was lying at the spot which had been occupied by the hearthstone in the kitchen. The police searched the debris, with the result that they dug up a portion of a skull, several rib bones and some smaller bones. An aged resident of Redfern, who was born near the site of the discovery, informed the police that when he was a boy in the fifties it was stated that a murder had been committed in this particular house, which for many years afterwards was regarded as haunted by superstitious persons.