General News.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 112, 23 February 1901, Page 2

General News.

The British Government is issuing £3,000,000 worth of Treasury bills. A reward is offered to finder of a chestnut mare lost from Willowbridge. Over a quarter of a million people have been revaccinated at Glasgow owing to an outbreak of smallpox. A firm a*: Bristol has paid a cheque for a quarter of a million, duty on tobacco removed from bond. The Eev J. Ward will conduct service to-morrow' at St." Paul’s Wesleyan Church and at Nukuroa.

The Defence Department advertise for applications for enrolment in the Seventh-New Zealand Contingent.

Denmark has refused the American offer of. 12,000.000 krones (£650.000 for the Danish West Indian Islands.

The Railway Department advercise excursion faros to Dunedin for the races, commencing on February 25th. A meeting of the committee of the Waimate Racing Club will beheld this afternoon at 3.30 p.m. The continuation of the article, “From Capetown to New Zealand” is held over till next issue.

Three hundred thousand sovereigns have been shipped from Melbourne, bv the Damascus to South Africa.

King Edward starts on Saturday on a brief visit to the Dowager Empress Frederick at Kro nberg. Prom the beginning of the year to date the imports of Sydney showed a comparative decrease of £216.000, and the exports a decrease of £64,000. The Agent-General has been instructed to secure space for New South Wales exhibits at the International Wheat Exhibition. Khaki has had its day. In future Tommy Atkins is to he dressed in invisible tweeds, greyish fawn in colour.

No fewer than eleven truck loads of horses passed through yesterday on the express going south. The horses were racers going to the Dunedin meeting.

Colonel Sorarnerville is advised that his son, Lieutenant Soramarville, who was shoi in the left arm in South Africa, has recovered and rejoined his regiment. A burgher named Nademan declares that the Boers shot his brother dead in the presence of his aged mother for refusing to break the oath of neutrality. General Pole-Carew, who recently returned from South Africa, has married Lady Beatrice Francis Elizabeth Butler, daughter of the Marquis of Ormonde. Bostick and Company, of Liverpo: 1, against whom a verdict was recently obtained in connection with bo?r poisoning cases, are compulsorily liquidating. The conference of postal heads in Sydney in concluded. Arrangements were made for the Federal Government taking over the Post Office on March Ist. The Christchurch Meat Company has received from its head office in London, a cablegram stating that its representative, Mr J. A. Randall, died suddenly on February 19tb. The cause of death was heart disease. Mr D. Mahoney advertises a number of new properties for sale and lease, among them being a flourishing butchery business. Those having property to dispose of could not do better than put it in Mr Mahoney’s hands. The Council of tlio New South Wales Alliance has published a declaration signed by a number of the leading medical men condemning the indiscriminate use of alcoholic liquors. Other signatures are to be obtained. As a sequel to tbe rebellion among Ogadain Somalis, in Jubaland, East Africa, in November last, when Mr A. C. Jenner, British Sub Commissioner, was murdered, a British punitive expedition has captured Ogadain and the Sultan of Jubaland. Disunion exists between the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society, the former insisting on the comipand of the forthcoming Antarctic expedition staff being entrusted to its directors, the civilian staff of the latter holding that a naval officer ought" to be in command. The fiji Times in commenting on Mr Baripn's black labour proposal, says thafc under these proposals if would seengt almost hopeless for the inhabitants of Fiji to look towards Australia with an idea of federating with that dominion on anything like an equal footing. In the House of Commons Mr Chamberlain said that the proclamation of the Government’s intention regarding the administration of the new colonics in South Africa was withheld, in deference to Lord Kitchener's, and Sir A. Milner’s opinion, as they considered the present Tnoment inopportune. Sir A. Milner will say when it is advisable to proclaim. v

The N.M. and A. Co, advertise for Danish oats.

According to the London Times the War Losses Compensation Commission lias awarded .£103,128 for the damage •done ;o Mnfeking by shell fire. The sum c>f i£25,000 goes to the railways and Government. JG12.000 to farmers, £ 28,000 to natives, and to to th€' inhabitants generally. In the House of Commons, Mr Chamberlain, replying to attacks on the •conduct of the war, 'reiterated his .previous -statement -that Britain's policy had not varied from the outset. He challenged the Opposition Ho produce an alternative policy, and recalled the fate of the Boer peace -e'lvoja.

An Imperial Parliamentary return, jus' issued, states that at the end of November there were no fewer than 237,01)0 troops in South Africa under Lord Roberts’s orders, against an outside limit of 80,000 Boers. The total lias since been considerably reduced, but there are still 210,000 rank and file in South Africa. And now the cable tells us that, apart from recruits raised locally, reinforcements of at least 40,000 more are wanted.

A unique casket will bo presented to Lord Roberts with the honorary Freedom of "Winchester. It will be mads out of two pieces of wood dating from the time of Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror respectively. A Danish galley wrecked and burned by King Alfred in the Hamble River, Hampshire, provides ■the one relic, and u gift of oak from the roofing of the Norman Cathedral at Winchester furnishes the other. At a pooßy attended meeting of fanners in Christchurch, called by lh° Agricultural and Pastoral Associatio to 3 discuss federation the follow!-: resolutions were carried :—That th various Agricultural and Pastor:; Associations throughout Canterbury should be requested to convene meet ings of farmers with a view to discuss ing the question of federation, and appointing delegates to a central meeting to be held during March.

Including the Sixth Contingent the total number sent to South Africa by New Zealand was 89 officers and 2283 men. Of those four officers and 69 men have been killed; three officers aid 101 men discharged; one officer resigned ; two officers and one man 'transferred ; two mm dismissed ; and 11 officers and 223 men are on leave in New Zealand. The present strength in South Africa, including men going or returning, is 08 officers Tand 1887 men.