Untitled

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2625, 9 May 1889, Page 2

Mr Hester, the new postmaster, has arrived at Cambridge, and lias taken charge of the office. The old buildings on the hill ■idiiiiiiMi" S Peter's Church, Hamilton, and atoms t,iin« u».-.<i :is .-. Public Works office, vvcru sold by .Mr Julm Knox on Saturday .last, for t'li We made an error in the date of l',isU.;[j Luck's i-.[i|inii;clii:ii,' visitation to V,'aikat<i. J I is Lord-hip will b.: at Haniiltin on ilk! tT/Ui in-t.. and will give corilii'Miutiiin on t!»<i i-' :i - !l " l Jlainiltuu and (.'aiiibriduc We have heard on good authority that the Eight Hours 1 ."Mills in Auckland will very .shortly bo ii; iujtivu opßratiou afrain, uiiijtir new maiiiigoiiiiMit. A thoniuglily practical miller has arrived from the south to take charffn of the works, and buyers of wheat may bo expected in \\';iik:ltu KOi.ll. We have received a sampie of spiocfiid butter from Mr John Knox, which is supijlj/jii to him by a private Waikuto dairy at the vatn of OOlbs per week. This district is now famous for the quality of its dairy produce, and ceiwiplr thi-i before us h cf a <|i'ality that cannot beassaijed; bciiifT iinn, clean, bright aad witty.

Another typhoid fever patient was admitted to tho Waikato Hospital from I luntly yesterday. Tin's was a young man !Kini"d (ieorge Garlyon. The remains of the late Miss Flossie Hunt, daughter uf Mr John Hunt, of Uiehmond, were, interred in tins Can - bnd«i! cemetery yesterday afternoon. .Many friends of the family were present. The Acme skating rink will be opened on Monday ewiiinsr next in tie-' Hamilton Public "Hall. Tho terms for membership h.ive been fixed at a low figure., anil a successful season should iosuit. Full particulate ate advertised in this issue. There are many enquiries for sites for II ix mills in various parts .if the district. Mes-rs Coatcs and Ooloman are about to establish a mill in this King Country, and we hear that one is to be erected at Whnt.iwhata. The »rice realised by Mr Ormond for the bullocks he shipped Home was (says the. "Woodvillo Examiner 1 ') £2 a head more than could luive been got for the same beef in the colony. There has since been :i rise in frozen beef, so that cattle should soon go up in price. The new police regulations, shortly to be issued, provide that constables who arc desirous of receiving promotion must have a knowledge of tho Police Codo and the Law of Evidence, and those who wish to become non-commissioned oth'cers will require to know something of the Criminal Statute Law. As an illustration of the voracious habits of hawks, the "Tiinnni Mail" states that on Mr Rhodes' Hadlow Estate recently a couple of hawks' nests were found, and a further examination of the sp.it revealed the skulls of no less than 01! hares, the bones bearing the appearance of having been newly dissected. The following were the stakes paid over t■> winners at tho late meeting of the South Auckland Racing Club:— J. Miluu, £33 ss; J. liae, £33 ss; J. C. Li.uith, £27 "is; K. Kyvi-ett, £27 ~>s ; H. Windsor, L'I'.I;E. Cussen, £12 Us; 11. Poeklmiu, L , !) 10;; !L J'.urton, £5 ;T. lfalerow. £2; A. .). .Storey, LI ss. Total, £170 10s. At a meeting of the Farmers' Association, held on Tuesday last, the chairman, Mr Like, tendered his resignation, which was accepted. The secretary, Mr .Salmon, also handed in his resignation, which was accepted with regret. There were various offers of wheat to purchase for export submitted to the meeting. The meeting adjourned for a fortnight for the purpose of electing a chairman and secretary.

Professor Lio Medo, the phrenologist, gave a lecture in the Oddfellow's Hall, Cambridge, on Monday evening, and afterwards delineated the characters of some of the audience, from an examination of their heads. In doing this he made a decided hit, as ho described the idiosyncratic temperaments of several in a most truthful manner. One member of tho audience is himself a phrenologist of no mean order, and he declares the professor is a perfect wonder. He has also induced several of his friends to go and have "their bumps felt."

We call attention to the advertised programme of an entertainment to be held in Kihikihi to-morrow (Kriday) evening, in aid of the school. Tho entertainment is to take the form of a concert, farce and dance. The programme is a good one, and those who intend to attend may look forward to an evening's good amusement. Tho farce, " Anti-phat or how to got thin," is described as farcet and furious, and those who have an antip(li).ithy to such performance may take notice that it will not shock the most farci'tidious. A good dance programme has been drawn out, and everything calculated to increase the enjoyment of those attending has been seen to. [We apologise ti our readers for the above atrocity. The writer is far beyond our reach.—Kl>.]

During his visit to the Newmarket Railway Workshops, Mr Me Morrow inspected two cattle waggons, which have been completed for the Waikato cattle trailic. They are much more roomy than the existing waggon:;, being eight feet in width, so as to enable cattle to be brought down with plenty of standing room, an-1 without being bruised. B.irs are placed overheard in order prevent the c.ittle rearing up or trampling each other down. The timbers are all nicely rounded so as to prsvent the cattle being bruised. Before any more waggons are made these will be tested by bringing down cattle from tho Waikato in them, and tho experiments will be conducted under the supervision of the trailic manager and a deputation of farmers. Mr Mclverrow regards the Newmaiket R.iilway Workshops as being well equipped, and tha various departments a.j being excellently arranged.—Herald.

The Cxpe Argus and other South \friccin papers are unstinted in their praise of the ability of Mr Luscombe Searelle, a Now Zealand composer. Since his advent in South Africa, Air Searelle has had remarkable success, due chiefly to his own ability anJ energy. He happened to be in Johannesburg when evorybody was decrying the goldfields, but with commendable acumen he grasped the .situation, and invested in land and property. The ro-mlt is that to-day he is a rich man. Mr Searollo has now under his immediate control all tho principal theatres of South Africa, having made arrangements with the different leßsees to givn his companies the preference river all others. It may be interesting to know that Mr Searelle is a native of Christchurch and was taught to play the piano by his lnuther.

There has been theriskof some confmion in tho annual [load Board elections, owing to thu ipao disit of the Property-tax Commissioner that the elections must be mado on Hie ratepayers' roll marie up from the present yearV valuation. This roll, however, has not yet, in any ci'.so, been completed and sanctioned by tho Department, and there has also been delay in auditing the annual accounts which is necessary for the purposes of the statutory annual meetings. The Commissioner has since declared he is not reqniied to git p. a legal opinion as the. validity of the elections, thus contradicting himself. It does not seem clear what tho Property-tax Commissioner has io do with the elections of local bodiewat all, but as the law distinctly appoints a certain time for the elections, there can be no other course but to carry them out i>n the rolls tint have been in Circe and are in the poesesion of the Boards at the date appointed, If new rolls were intended to be used they should have replaced the old ones in time to comply with the requirements of the Aut,

Sir Julius Vogel's novel reminds us of the utter failure ot all New Zealand writers ot fiction. Up to the present the fiction supplied by writers of this colony has been very sorry stutf. Mr Pyke, as everyone knows, has been a conspicuous fiiiluie as a novelist, To speak of the other tribe —men who are reckoned absolute nonentities here, but who, nevertheless, have the presumption to write novels and take them to London —to speak of these is a more wasto of time. Farejon, as a New Zealander, has written a good deal of fiction of a certain order, and sheds but a very dim light in the London firmament. The most creditable representative of the solid order of writing is Mr (iisborne ; and yet attractive, as hm stylo is and interesting in matter, tlio circle of his renders is a limited one. l>n broader and more generally interesting subject", Mr (lishornc might become distinguished us a writer ; bnl it serin- as n* a lung colonial residence and a protracted meddling with the crochets of colonial public affairs narrows a man's range of observation and more or less cramps his faoulities. There an; a few other noted examples besides Mr (Jisborne in this respect even nuaroi , ' home, —London Correspondent.

The unemployed agitation lias again most unexpectedly broken out in Diinediu. Tlie distress is represented by the men themselves as being very severe. Three hundred men are stated to be out of employment and unable to provide for themselves and their families. If this be triu., relief of some kind should certainly be provider!, ft is perfectly well known that a considerable pereent;ige of the men who malic these appeals ur'u uuniiimsd idlers, and in reality do not want v.'Oil;. This is the great danger to be encountered in dealing with the unemployed. Indiscriminate charity is likely to increase instead of din.iiiishing their number, and further do-mni-.ili;:e men already deficient in spirit and self-reliance. On the other hand, it is not a pleasant reflection to know tl|at women and oiiildronai-R exposed to want and unable to help themselves. |u any case, there is a risk of doing much harm, whijoa too rigid abstention on the part of the tiovornment may bo the means of allowing much undeserved suffering to go unrelieved. It is an ugly social problem and there is a big substratum of vieiousness underlying it.-—.Southern Exchange.

An excellent programme, comprising twelve events, has been arranged for the sports tit Claudelands on tho iJiicenV Birthday. The prizes olfered are substantial, and should attract a large number of entries. The full programme appears elsewhere. The Australian Trading World, a London paper, of 25th .lanuiiry Last, contains the following :—" Some one has sent us by parcel post .i tin of butter labelled 'Taianaki Butter Packing Company.' We thymic the unknown sender. It opens well, and is irouil eating. The butter is perfectly fresh, and only sufficiently salted to make it palatable ; but the main characteristic is its evident purity and freedom from adventitious aids. We can buy fresh butter in London or from country dairies, but the best of it is wanting in the pure grass-feed-ing flavour that this New Zealand commodity possesses ; and \v<s believe that considerably more milk goes to make a pound in Zealand than in the best of ordinary English dairies. The New Zealand butter has more of the old-fashioned, firm, satisfying taste, and we feel sure that if well distribute;-! in this country it will soon take a first place, and oust much of our poor, milky stuff. We are inclined to think that if a noun can be adjectived, thete is butter, butterer, and butterest. The New Zealand article is last." A letter appeared in Tuesday's "Evening Herald" from a workingman in Melbourne who at one time resided in this colony. He draws a fearful picture of the misery of his surroundings, and seeina to regard his lot as anything but a pleasant one. Every job that offers, he asserts, is rushed by crowds of unemployed men. In addition, the cost of living is dear, particularly house rent, which has risen to an exorbitant figure. A large number of men who came over from New Zealand to better themselves, are starving and sleeping in the public gardens at night; and ho think* a jump into the Y<irra would be a happy release for many of these. Speaking of himself, he says he has had to travel nearly 300 miles for a job at his trade, which is apparently that of a carpenter, and it only lasted a few weeks. Cart grease, which is playfully railed "butter" in Melbourne, is 2s per lb; but he has not tasted any since leaving Dmiedin, and he is now very naturally beginning to wonder what butter actually tastes like. And to crown all, he states Victorians have a down on people coming from the adjacent colonies. There are evidently worse spots than New Zealand after all.

We notice from our contemporary, the Herald, that Mr J. Aitken Conuell has eli'ected, on behalf of Mr William Aitken, land agent Auckland, tho owner, a lease of the Waitoa estate formerly the property of Mr Gould, area 7,490 acres, to u Mr John 1). Adam's of Victoria, at a rental of £000 per annum. The lease is for two years, with a right of purchase at the end iif the term, and wo understand it is MiAdam's intention then to complete the purchase. Wn have made some enquiries with regard to the new owner of the Waitoa estate, and find that he is a practical sheep farmer and gra/.ier, a native of the colony of Victoria who has been .attracted to New Zealand by thosuperiority of thoclimate and tho advantages which the colony atfoids in a special degree for the grazier's business. Mr Adam's will not personally bo able to come to New Zealand with his family till the close of the year as ho has to wind up his business! affairs in Victoria prior to having that colony, but he takes over the property at once which will be under tho charge of Mr James Gordon, and until his arrival in New Zealand Mr Adams will be represented by his attorney, Mr J. Aitken Connell of Auckland. Mr Adams brought letters of introduction to Mr Connell fro.n Victoria, and is so favourably impressed with the colony that ho informed Mr Counell before he left that he intended to send him over several of his friends whom he expected to be influenced to this colony by the report he intended on his return to make to them. We can have no better sign of the times than the influx of settlers <;f this class, alike with colonial experience and capital at their back, and we must compliment Mr Connell on securing a customer of this class.

There appeared some time in the columns of an Auckland contemporary (says "Konuita" in the New Zealand Karmer), a statement by a. fruit-dealer endeavouring to vindicate the extortionate prices charged by Auckland retail dealers. The writer states that the retailer purchases plums at, ;,M and 3d per pound, and retails them at 2-Ad to 5d per pound ; and he goes on to assure tho public that the plums bought at : j'd are not those sold at 5d (a fact which 1 very much doubt in many ca*es), but, on the contrary, the j.d ones are disposed of at 2.jd, which being only a profit of a clear .£l4 on Jt'li worth of plums, is very moderate, and the 3d plums being sold at 5d makes a profit of £2 on each £3 worth of plums sold. These moderate profits, he states, are justified by the cost of the paper b:igs and tiie " turn of the scale each weighing ;" the other excuse of fruit going rotten between buying and selling is inadmissible to a great extent, because it is due to the exorbitant profits demanded by the retail dealer preventing the public from buying the fruit more readily, and, besides, it is too well known that the rotten fruit is slipped into the bags and palmed off on the purchaser, and what is not so dealt with is sold as over-ripe fruit at a lower price (generally only 100 per cent, profit on its original cost). Such excuses as these would have hian more wisely left alone, as they only draw attention more to tho subject. With the Editor's uerinissioii I will recur to this subject next month ; it is time that associations should seriously think what steps they intend to take for next season, if they propose to go on growing fruit. The dealers have hiitl rope enough now, and it next remains to consider what are tho best steps to take in the matter.