Recent inquiries show that chlorodyne drinking is now a favorite and genteel form of female drunkenness in Liver pool. * The West Australian Government have decided to fall in line with the suggestion made by New South Wales, and refuse (■he return of any horses from South Africa, for fear of importing disease. The steamer Whangape is being fitted up to take 170 horses to India. It is ex pected that 70 will be shipped at Lyttel toa and the others in Australia. The steamer also takes 1000 tons of wheat from Lyttelton. a return of bicycles on which a Gov ernment license of 5s is charged has been published in Paris by the Minister of finance, and shows the enormous growth of cycling in France. The number of cycles has risen, says Wheeling, from 200,000 in 1894, when the tax was th-st imposed, to 838,000 m i.899. The railway surface hands at Grey mouth who si ruck for increased wages, says the West Coast Times, are not likely to get what they want. Mr Ward says their present rate of wages, 7s per day, is better for them than the casuals' rate of Is 6d an hour. In any case, the Government did not intend to put regu lar hands on a scale of payment by the hour. The question of the installation of electric traction for the Wellington tram nays is to be definitely considered by the City Council authorities so soon as Air W. Ferguson, Secretary of the Har bor Board, who has been deputed by the Council to inquire into the latest im provements and developments of electric plants, as applied to traction purposes, returns to Wellington. The Premier has presented to each member of the Legislature a. set of fifty photographs as a souvenir of his recent trip to the Pacific Islands. Each picture is placed upon a. specially-designed mount, and the whole set is enclosed in a. neat box bearing the words, "Beautiful isles of the- Sea, a souvenir of the Premier's trip to the Pacific Isles." The cost, some £500, was borne by the colony. It is stated (says the Lyttelton Times) that Messrs D. and A. Macfarlane have offered another block of the Lyndon .Estate for sale to the Government. 