The life-saving appliances of the Capetown fire department—the largest and best-equipped in South Africa— have recently received a very valuable addition in the form of a new fixe escspe of the Merrywearer telescopic paterc. This is fitted on a four-wheel ed carnage, consists of four ladders (one main and tlireo sliding), capable of being raised to a height of eighty feet, and is provided with a water tower and special fittings. Consider ing the largo number of important buildings in Capetown, this latest acquisition should prove a most valuable one.
The new railway cars which the Government are obtaining from America are of the double corridor system—that is divided in the middle by a cross passage closable by gates. Iv one half the corridor is on tho right, in the other half on the left, of the car. The corridors instead of having a wire fence on the outside, are closed and windowed like tho ordinary side of a carriage, so that the passenger does not have to.en counter dust, smoke, or rain wheti iv the corridor. There are five com partments, larger than those on tho okl cars and comfortably upholstered. The seating accommodation of the carg is limited to thirty passengers each.
A Dunedin man sold up his belong-; ing 3 with a view to proceeding to South Africa. He lost his purse con taining drafts, etc., amounting to £3000. Those have since been re stored to him, and now he is happy-

The announcement maae a year ago that a German rosergrower had suc ceeded in raising blue roses, is now corrected by an eminent horticulturist, who declares that the variety in ques tion is not blue but dark violet. Blue roses, he thinks, are as impos sible as black tulips.
