The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2284, 1 March 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1887.

4 Three tourists have been drowned while boating on Lake Tyers, Gippsland. Eight lives have been lost by an explosion at a gunpowder factory at Sandhurst. The Canterbury Frozen Meat Company are now engaged in freezing 8000 sheep and lambs to be shipped per s.s. Tainui. Sir William Fox has decided to reside permanently in Auckland,' the place he described in his " Six Colonies of New Zealand," as being settled with " runaway sailors and convicts." The R.MS. Kaikoura arrived at Wellington on Sunday. She left Plymouth on January 16th. The Auckland portion of her mails are expected to reach that place by Wednesday next. We regret to learn that Mr A, G. Hughes, chemist, of Cambridge, contemplates leaving that town at an early date. This will cause another vacancy in the borough council.

The Land Court did not open at Cambridge on Saturday in consequence _ of the judges h ivmg an attack of English cholera. They were, however, both on the bench yester jay. Not a single American vessel cleared from New York to Europe with grain in 1885. Of a total of 47,000,000 bushels exported, 20,374,434 bushels were, carried in British vessels, and 4,904,855 bushels in German. Mr Vaile has expressed his intention of asking the Auckland Chamber of Commerce to give him a special meeting to explain and discuss his railway scheme, and to consider if some definite project may not be elucidated from it. The clerk to the Piako County Council has received notice from the solicitor to the Thames Hospital Board that unless all moneys due from the Piako County Council are paid by March 6th, immediate proceedings will be taken for their recovery. For the Australian Cup, Nelson Is quoted favourite at 3 to 1, Trident 5 to 1, and Arsenal 8 to 1. The racts for the Cup takes place on Thursday next, when it i.hoped that; the gailan; Major will score another win with the sou of King Cole. The next batch of emigrants for New Zealand will leave England in the Arawa at the end of February. The facilities offered to small farmers are being (fairly appreciated, and the numbers who are availing themselves of the provisions is on the whole satisfactory. The tender of Mr Proctor at 6s sid per acre, has been accepted for clearing Jotu 8, 9 and 10 domain lands west, (about ■20 acres). The contract for clearing and grubbing the roadway between Mr Jolly's property and lots 9 and 10 was let at £2 2s 6d per acre. Someone in Cambridge must have suddenly developed a mania for saddlery on Friday night last. Mr Charles Lewis 'bad his saddle, bridle and whip stolen out ,'of/tfofi stable at the back of his brother's rhousej Mr James Turnbull, of Maungaifciwii, liMifc a saddle, and a Maori who was in Cambridge likewise lost one, all in the one night.

A cablegram received last night states that the Melbourne papers, especially the Age, consider the Newmarket Handicap, ought to have been awarded to Abner, and public opinion confirms this view.

It was announced, at a meeting of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons on November 15th, that by the death of Lady Wilson, widow of Sir Erasmus Wilson, the College becomes entitled to the legacy of about £230,000 loft by her husband.

A heavy thunderstorm passed over Te Aroha on Sunday, Mlowod by a downpour of rain, which lasted for a considerable time. We have boon informed by a party returning from Raglan that whilst crossing the ranges a very heavy thunderstorm was experienced, and hailstones of an unusual size fell.

The Napier Evening News is of opinion that it is the totalisator that maintains four-fifths of the racing clubs, and to that " infernal machine" is due the presence in this colony of some of the most hideous loafers on society to be found south of the line. The good intentions of the Legislature to purify the moral atmosphere ot the country have only tended to land us in a sink of pollution.

A correspondent who signs himself " Pro Bono Publico" writes, complaining that the poundkeeper at Alexandra is under age. It seems that a number of cattle were recently sold by the poundkeeper, some of which were purchased by his father, who is a member of the town board. This practice our correspondent considers an injustice, and should be put a stop to, but no reason is assigned.

A Press Association cablegram, dated London, Saturday, announces that Mount is in eruption. The Prince of Wales has returned to London from Cannes. The number of victims has now swelled to 2000 in Italy alone. At Bursana a third of the populace were buried under the ruins. It is also stated that at least 10,000 people have fled from Nice.

On Saturday afternoon the body of Francis Fisk Fletcher, who met his death by drowning in the Waikato River, near Coates' landing, on the 19th, was found about two miles this side of Ngaruawahia. The body was in a very decomposed state, and hardly recognisable. Mr Searancke, coroner, held an inquest, when a verdict of " Accidental drowning, by the capsizing of a boat," was returned. The only witness examined was Thomas Reid, who saw the accident. The remains of the unfortunate young man were buried in the Ngaruawahia Cemetery on Sunday afternoon.

A petition is in course of circulation in the Geraldine district and being largely signed, under the auspices of the Canterbury Fruitgrowers' Association, requesting that His Excellency the Governor of this colony will be pleased to take such steps as may be necessary, and as provided for in "The Codlin Moth Act, 1884," to prevent the importation into the colony of New Zealand of the fruits of the apples and the pear from all those countries where the said codlin moth is known to exist.

At the V.R.C Meeting, Flemington, on Saturday, two of the principal events were won by New Zealand racehorses, Nelson and Lochiel. The former won the Essendon Stakes, and the latter the Newmarket Handicap. Lochiel was ridden by W. Clifford, so that, taking all things into consideration, the racing on Saturday was a big event for New Zealand. The son of Prince Charlie was owned, trained and ridden by those hailing from Maorilaud.

The attention of agriculturists here has been drawn to the successful experiments with the African barbwheat at the Agricultural College in South Australia. If, as it is stated, the yield is as high as twenty bushels to the acre, its introduction will be a godsend to that colony. This calls to my remembrance the days of auld lang syne in New Zealand, where on the up country sheep stations scarcely anything was used but Adelaide wheat.

Dr. Oroke, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, advises the Irish not to pay taxes, which are applied to the feeing and feeding of a gang of ieedy, voracious lawyers, and for the purchase of policemen's bludgeons with which ■o smash people's skulls, and to support a !.reign garrison. This advice from so prominent a figure has caused a tremendous msation. It is stated in political circles ,i London that if the advice is accepted tin: Government will be sure to proclaim nartial law in Ireland. Parnell deprecates he advice, he well knowing that it would, f accepted, lead to civil war.

To the ' Editor.—Sir,-To avoid change of'carriage I always drive to Frankton when any of my family are going down to Auckland. On Friday, the annual excursion, I did so, to see my wife on the right carriage, but judge of my surprise when on application for an extended ticket from Friday to Monday (being quite willing to pay the Hamilton fare) I was told I could n*t get it there ; I would have to get it from Hamilton. Many others were there also, and were refused tickets. Amongst them Mr Jolly, who lives within a stone's throw of the station, and Mrs Devitt, who was taking her son to the hospital, he having met with an accident whereby he had destroyed one of his eyes. She had to send back to Hamilton for tickets, and if the party had been a few minutes later with the tickets the poor invalid would have had to remain behind. We are clearly drifting from bad to worse. —I am, yours faithfully, P. LeQuesne, Hamilton, February 28th, 1887.

An Irish lady has petitioned the Queen under somewhat peculiar circumstances. The petitioner had an uncle named Alexander Ferdinand Petre, who entered the army in 1780, serving in the 7!) th Regiment,. He sold out in 1811 and died in 1544, at the age of eighty-eight years. He "willed" all his property, amounting in cash to about £20,000, to the Queen. His niece, who was left a widow in 1855 with eight daughters and one son, has ever since his death been eking out an existence by the precarious profession of keeping a private school, but this occupation, by reason of her great age and of her growing blindness, she has had to relinquish. Consequently, the prayer of her petition seeks that her case and that of her daughters may be equitably entertained by her Majesty, who, more than thirty years ago, received the whole of their ancestors's estate as a bequest. Here is, indeed, a chance for the Queen to celebrate her Jubliee.

Tamagno, the first tenor in Italy, is the son of a small restaurauter in Turin, and was discovered by Victor Emanuel, who was toncl of strolling about the city, incog., attended only by a confidential aide-de-camp. Entering the house of Tamagno's father, and calling for a bottle of wine in a private room, the late king heard the lad singing a popular air as he came up the stairs from the cellar. The voice was so striking that Victor Emanuel insisted upon placing the youth under one of the best teachers in Piedmont, and in due time the pupil proved his sovereign's discernment. Tamagno, who is still a young man, is worth two million lire. With his first earnings he purchased the large house in which his father rented a suite of rooms, and presented it to him ; and every year he buys a mansion in Turin, and remits the first year's rent to the whole of the tenants, from the shopkeeper on the ground floor to the poor people who occupy the attics.

There are more volunteers in New Zealand than in Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, the New Zealand volunteers aiid permanent force outnumbering those of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia by 200 men, while the cost to the latter is £178,000, as compared with £82,000 in New Zealand. Again, the cost of the defences in New Zealand is scarcely 10 per cent, of what it has been in Victoria, where no less than £3,200,000 has been expended on defence works, which, however, include the men-of-war Oerb-rrus and Nelson and several torpedo boats. In New Zealand the amount expended is £812,000, and as it is not generally known what there is to show for this, we may state the four principal ports of the colony are very fairly defended, there being no less than 52 first-class jruns in position, besides 20 mpid-firingNordenfeldt guns of the newest type, four torpedo boats and several Whitehead torpedoes.

In a Lancashire town, which shall be nameless, I recently saw the advertisement of a celery show, and a unique advertisement it was. Projecting from the upper window of a publichouse, called the "Shoulder of Mutton," was a flagstaff, upon which were hung a dozen copper kettles, and at the extreme end a big bunch of celery. Nothing could be more suggestive, and it combined two eminent necessities in successful advertising—prominence and effectiveness. I learned that the show was to take place that evening; it was .Saturday, and in due course I paid my twopence—which, by-the-way, was good for a pint of " drink v as Z carae put—to find the show in the long room of the "h,0,U«.3. Hew w,i, gathered together a remarkably good

collection, not only of celery, but of pota- 1 toes andpansios, of cabbages and cucumbers, of fuchsias and fruit, vegetables, and flowers. But the celery was decidedly in the ascendant. Behind the winning lots of this latter edible were the copper kettles, or the britatmia-metal teapots, the latter given as second prizes. The winning lot of untrimmed celery weighed 141b 4foz, and the corresponding victor in the trimmed class !)lb B.|ozs. These weights will give some indication of the size, and from what I could see of the bunches, they were tender and beautifully white.—S. 8., in Country Gentleman.

An order, received by cable message from Europe, for a million pounds of beef in 61b tins, has been placed in Roekhampton. The assumption is naturally made that the meat is wanted for one of the nations now arming on the Continent. An order for a million piunds sounds like a large order, but (says the Melbourne Argus) a million pounds is not much for the host of to-day. The soldier's rations are a pound of meat per diem in the barracks, and a pound and a-ha)f when on the inarch or in the field. In 1870 Germany had more than a million of men under arms, so that she required a million and a-half pounds of meat per diem, and a million and a-half pounds of bread or biscuit also. The great art of war is to get this enormous mass of provisions regularly to the men. Fighting the enemy is often easy enough. The task is to feed your troops. The million pounds of beef ordered from Rockhampton would have given the German hosts of 1870 a dinner, but would have left them with only a snack for tea, and with nothing lor breakfast; and indeed, when the civilians employed about an army are taken into account, it may bo said that the million pounds would barely have given the German hordes a dinner. The German commissariat must have had to see Us way to provide more than two millions of pounds per day. This would mean an average slaughter of 2500 head of cattle daily ; in a month, therefore, such an army would consume 75,000 head of cattle. The Franco-German war lasted seven months, and for that period 325,000 head of cattle would be required, and the French hosts would require nearly as many more. When these figures are taken into account, the cost of modern wars begins to dawn on one.—Argus.

The " Vagabond," in one of the latest of the series of delightful papers on his travels, which he is now contributing to the Australasian, gives a very satisfactory explanation of the strange catastrophes which have lately been reported. Writing of the very section on which the burning of the Montreal and Boston express train took place, he says : —The great drawback is that the heat in the carriages is excessive. I have travelled many thousands of miles, although always against my will, in the North American continent during winter, and from Norfolk to Quebec never found a railway car which was not overheated to an extent prejudicial to health. Half the citizens of the United States have their constitutions ruined by this, and the changes of temperature from the cars to the outside air. I give it as an impartial opinion that after September no one should travel in America on any railway north of the Roanoke River. It is not only a question of health, but of life. The genius of the groafc American people has not yet evolved an efficient system of warming the cars by steampipes from the locomotive. Each car is now heated by a stove in the corner, from whence the hot air is carried in pipes round the seats. On some railways there are special appliances for regulating the degree of heat, but as far as my experience goes the nigger porter always takes care to consult his own tastes, and keeps the car at a minimum of 80ieg. without ventilation. Then when there is a collision, or a carr runs off the rails, the stove gets knocked to pieces, the live coals set fire to the varnished wood of the carriages, and one stands a chance of being burnt alive. This to me always seemed unfair to a railway passenger. It is an added discount on his ordinary chances, and another argument against he delights of living in a cold country. It is one of the few things in which Canadian railway travel is behind Australian.