GENERAL ITEMS.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1517, 25 March 1882, Page 4

GENERAL ITEMS.

Since May last the New Sovith Wales Government liavc paid the bounty for 30,000 kangaroo scalps. A dhkamy writer says it would be curious to follow a pound of silk from its spinning until it becomes a lady's dress. No doubt, but most men would prefer to follow it after it became a dress, and while the lady a\ as in it. In the south-western portions of Queensland large numbers of stock aie perishing for want of water. Josh Billings disposes of Colonel Bob Ingersoll in the following quaint manner : —"I wouldn't give five cents to hear Bob Ingersoll on ' The Mistakes of Moses, " but would give five hundred dollars to hear Moses on the Mistakes of Bob lngcisoll." A (jentlemax recently about to pay his doctor's bill said, "Well, doctor, as my little boy gave the measles to all my neighbors children, and as they were attended by you, I think you can afford at the very least to deduct 10 per cent, from the account of my bill for the increase of business we gave you." Thk Essex Chamber of Agriculture has by a large majority disapproved of the pioposals of the Farmers' Alliance Bill, while approving the principle of security of tenure and compensation for unexhatisted improvements. A friend of ours has now a cook. On being asked whether she was a good one, he replied petulantly—"Good! good ! why if she had to prepare nails for an ostrich she'd boil them hard."

Vaiuj'/ty in Food fob, Pigs.—lt is beneficial to pigs while being fed on com or other heavy food to fatten them to give them a change every day from stimulating food. They will be found to relish raw pumpkins, apples, or roots. If their appetites begin to Hag, it is best to ineiease the quantity of these lighter foods and to 1 educe the amount of grain. Fruit and vegetables are cooling to the blood, and help digestion. Pigs will f.ittcn faster with less grain and a feeding of these than on all grain, or, at least, they will make more healthful meat. HhHE is a sample of the perspicacity of inteiior local news: "Yesteiday a gentleman who owns a chicken ranch about five miles ca&t of town laid an cgi? on our table, i\hiuh weighs all of four ounces." It i& quite wonderful enough to think of the man laying the egg, without further recording the excessive lightness of the table upon which the curious exhibition took place. —Ameiican paper. The principal points of Gainbetta's new bill for the revision of the French Constitution are the election of life Senators by both the Chambers voting separately, instead of by the Senate alone, and the adoption of the principles of the Senitoi dc Lhtc; but the final clause of the bill, though less important, is the most singular and significant. This clause provides for the discontinuance ot public piayers at the opening of the Le^islatui c, and, should it be adopted, will undoubtedly work a great change in this paiticular, not in France only, but thioughout Christendom. And a very debit able change it would be, says the Knc Lrlter if the mummery of mixing prayers with politics were dispensed with in our all over the world. The famous ' Chinese' Gordon, with all his strange moral power, is not a man of commanding presence. He is small, and modest, and fair, and bushy-headed ; has quiet grey eyes, and a stammering uncertainty of speech as of one tonguetied, lie is a devout man, and deeply religious. It is said of Colonel Gordon that there are not two men in a dozen of generations so strangely gifted as he is to compel into obedience or inspire to action hosts of savage or half-reclaimed people.