FOOTBALL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3208, 18 May 1889, Page 2

FOOTBALL.

The following team has been selected to represent the Masterton Juuiofs in the match against the Greytown Junior Fire Brigade on the 24th inst,, to be played on tile former's ground, near the Hospital;— Back: Warner; three-quarters: Langdon, Green, Hounslow; halves: Baillie, Fellinghara; forwards :(J, K. Gapper, Pickering, W. Spackraan, Vickerntaff, Ockenden, Evornden, U. Wellington, Gunther, T. Wrigley, Emergencies: Parker, T. Spaceman, Marsh, Play will start at 8 p.m. Bharp.

One Hundred Years Ago.

(truth.) What a little way we are, after all, *\ from the dark ages I How many of ■ my readers were aware on Monday last that it was only one hundred . years since the last criminal was ■ J burned at the stake in London—and - « that criminal a woman I Hera is the account of the event wkioha correspondent has sent me. I publish it with the more pleasure, because it will' enable my readers to realise without difficulty the feelings with which in a hundred years'time people will recall the way tho opponents of the' Government were treatod'in Irish gaols in 1880: "On the 18th Maroh, 1798, nine •wretches wore executed at Newgate, four for burglary, one for theft, and three men and one woman for coinAfter the men were " turned off," as the phrase went, the wretched woman was. brought out, tied to a stako, and burned to ashes, and after the form of strangling her had been gono through, by removing the stool whereon she stood, and so throwing her weight on the cord which bound her throat to the atako. Cliristain Murphy was (so far as I can discover) the last Mi woman burned alive in London, though possibly a. later victim may have been executed in some country town, but can the degradation and cruelty of the law and the times bo more strongly proved than by this simple fact, and yet these were the palmy days of Authority, ere Radioals . were a power in the State, or a A " sulphur league" was necessary to t-* denounce the risk which-society ran for the spread of freedom and knowledge among the people of the land. ■

The Peasantry of Central China.

A consular report on agrioulture in the district of Chinkiang, oil the 1 " Xangtse, which has. latterly beon ' issued, will be read with interest at tlio present moment, as the district includes the most southern of famine 'stricken regions, Tlio district ia mainly agricultural, wheat, rice, pea nuts, beans, peas, indigo, cotton, vegetables, melon seeds, buck wheat ■■■'; and silk being produced south of the rber, and millet, lily flowers, wal- * nutß, vegetable tallow, corni vege« table soap, rice, peas and beans, and • sesamum seeds coming from the north, During 1888, from May, a ' a severe drought prevailed, and over 50 square miles f of \ the river the'crop was not a tentli 'of " ordinary years, while to the north • floods have been dreaded rather than ■ drought, The agricultural year in the distrist is as follows: —"Wheat is ~ "" 80\yn in November, or as soon as th& '•••• rice is cleared off the ground. It is

sown by hand after a shower of rain, and the ground is then lightly harrowed and left. In three weeks r the young wheat appears above the ground, but does not grow to any .' ■ height until Maroli or April, and by the beginning oi May it is nearly . W ready to out. Two hundred pounds 1 to the sixth of an acre is considered a good crop. Near, the towns vegetables are grown in large quantities month after month, the ground being preserved from exhaustion by constant . sprinkling with liquid manure. Peas and beaus are sown iu October, and gathered in August, cotton is sown in . April, and the crop is ready in October. As soon as the wheat has I - been cut, the ground is ploughed up, water is let into the fields, and the young rice plants are planted out, : They have been raised from seed in small, well watered plots of ground, . where they are carefully tended till thoy aro ready for transplanting, The orop is reaped in October. In northern Kaingsu millet takes the place | of rice. Tlra* a succession of whoat I'/iX;' and rice crops are taken every year " " off the low-lying lands, while on tho higher ground, which is beyond the reach of artificial irrigation, a succession of crops of vegetables of various kinds, poas, beans, cotton, indigo, &c. is obtained, South of tho river, tho is owned in small properties of f° ur to eight aores in extent, but to the north some very largo properties exist, and are lot out at rent, Properties of 66,000 ana 50,000 acres belong to two families, aod those between 1000 and 10,000 are not uncommon. The rent 'on tho average is- about 28s an acre, but the mclayer system is almost universally in foroe, and the amount paid to the landlerd varies with the season and the amount of the crop. "The hard, rigid, unyielding systems prevalent in Enrope are not usual in China, nor are they in accordance with tho popular idea of equity and justice." The houses of the peasantry are rough, rude, and bare to a degree, among the few poor ornaments being occasionally an empty foreign beer bottle.' It is iu the fields, not m the house, •M that one sees the neatness, care, industry, and thrift ofthe Chinese peasant. The land tax is 12s per annum on good land, 6s. to Bs. on the inferior kind. In towns 18s an acre is paid. The people consume ■ the preduce of their farms, t|uib daily meal consisting of rice, vegetables, a littlo fish and soy. Owe a month, on festival days, they eat meat, generally pork, Tea is the usual drink, made as often as not from willow leaves. The amount of rice consumed of a meal, and tho quantity of hard work performed on ; Buoh a diet, aro both remarkable.