LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1107, 21 April 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

For those persons who are experiencing difficulty in choosing the fifteen the.v will select for their support from the thirty-six candidates l'or scats oil the C'ity Council, it may bo helpful to know that a selection of 15 may be made in 5,567,902,500 different ways. A committee consisting .largely of ladies has lr.on set up_ at Hamilton, with the object of raising the moral standard of the territorial force. Sometimes in the City Council Councillor llindmarsh is a stickler for consistency. Last evening he was jocularly consistent over the matter of resolutions expressing appreciation of councillors who are leaving public life. He thought it was scarcely a good precedent to piss such resolutions, it might involve embarrassments; for instance, they might all be defeated at the polls, and who then would move the resolutions about them? "I myself might be "In that case," interrupted the Mayor, "I will undertake to move the resolution." (Laughter.) "All right," returned the beaming councillor. "Thou I would die lmppy.''' The City Council last evening accepted the tender of Messrs. Richardson, Blair, and M'Cabe for the supply of armature coils, and that of Messrs. Wallace and Co. for the supply of ironbark pdles. No tenders in reference to tho removal of the Queen's Statue were accepted, as all tho tenders handed in were informal. In conversation yesterday, Mr. A. Le Soeuf stated that recently sfo opossum skins, from New Zealand, were sold in Sydney. The skins had been roughly torn oif and dried in the sun. Being, on this account, in poor condition, they brought only balf-a-crown apiece. In good condition, and properly cured, they would have sold for 7s. 6d. apiece. There is a big and growing demand in Sydney for opos°sum skins, according to Mr. Le Soeuf. It is related of a City Council candidate that on a recent evening he went out to n suburban district to address the electors. Next day lie met a friend, who asked how lie hail fared. "Well," replied the candidate, "1 arrived at the schoolhouse, where my meeting was io have been held, at. five minutes to eight, and found no one to meet me. At eight o'clock I started to ring tho bell. I continued to ring for ten minntcs. As 110 one had appeared at tho end of that lime, I came home." The sight of a number of healthy monkey "babies" evidently favourably impressed Mr. A. I/O Soeuf during his visit to the Newtown Zoo yesterday. "Over in Sydney," lie declared, "we would advertise a monkey 'baby,' and people would come in crowds to sec it." Mr. 1.0 Soeuf added tliat no young monkeys had been reared in the Sydney Zoo for several years. Monkeys will not rear a family when the.v are disturbed by continual noises, anil I qnietudc is unknown in the Sydney Zoological Gardens. The rumblo of tramcars and tho clangour of their bells effectively disturb the tranquillity of the animals that tenant the institution. The sum of 2?. 6d. has been forwarded to the Collector of Customs at Auckland aa "conscience-money."

There is reported to be a Browing demand for houses in the suburbs at the present time. A member of the City Council told a reporter yesterday that recently there were iifteen empty houses in Brooklyn. Last week no lower than nine of them were let. All of the tenants, the informant, stated, came from a distance. It was not merely a matter of their shifting from one house to another in tho same suburb. A remarkable case of deliberate suicide b}' an animal was witnessed by a resident of Hamilton on Sunday afternoon, says the Auckland "Star." A sorry-look-ing grey horse was seen standing with its fore feet in Die water, on the Hamilton East side of (he Waikato River, at ,a spot near Mr. 11. J. Greenlade's residence, gazing despondently into the stream. It occupied this position for about half an hour, when it suddeuly jumped into the river, and repeatedly immersed its bead, slowly drifting down stream the while, until"when about fifty yards distant from the spot where the pinnae was taken the pooi' beast was as dead as the proverbial doornail. During the period extending from April 4 to April 18 twenty-four applications for permission to alter, erect, or extend buildings were received by the City Engineering Department. In twenty instances plans were examined and approved, and permits issued. The value of tho work authorised is as follows:— City, ,£I7,GOD; Melrose, <£3121. The City Electrical Engineer reported to the City Council last evening that the lighting system of Slorrtington will be quite ready for this winter. A notice appears in this week's Gazette altering tho boundaries of the Khandallah and Kaiwarra wards of the borough of Onslow. A second and final dividend of 7s. Cd. in the £, with interest rat 0 per cent., has been declared by the Official Assignee in the estate of Elizabeth Ritson. Tho total dividend declared is therefore 20s. in the £. A boy and a bicycle collided with a tramcar in Willis Street yesterday afternoon. The bicycle skidded on the rails, and the rider was precipitated in front of the car. Fortunately the car had not gathered way after a stop, and the motorman, by a prompt application of the brakes, was able to brintt it immediately to a standstill. Otherwise, of course, the result .of the mix-up would have been a great deal more sirious. Th? chairman of the Wellington Harbour Board is to deliver an address on Harbour Board affairs at the Concert Chamber on Monday next. At its last meeting, the Wellington Tailors' Union passed a resolution congratulating an ex-secretarv, Mr. W. Murdoch, on coming out as a Labour candidate for the Otaki seat. On Monday next at Dunedin representatives ot the Merchant Service Guild meet tho Union Company in conference regarding a demand that has been made for increased wages and amended working conditions for masters and officers. Captain D. J. Watson, secretary of the Merchant Service Guild, leaves Wellington to-day, and Captain Evans, of R.M.S. Aorangi, Captain. Todd, of s.s. Wanaka, and Mr. A. H. Davey, chief officer of the Monowai, left for Dunedin Inst night. It is stated that the Union Company have already intimated that they cannot accede' to all the demands made, but that they are willing to discuss the proposed alterations. The death-rate per 1000 of population 'for the four centres during March was as follows:—Auckland, 0.99; Wellington, 0.S0; Christcliurch, 0.72; Dunedin, 1.01. The proclamation giving authority for the holding of the Coronation New" Zealand Industrial Exhibition in Wellington (between May 21 and July 29) appears i;> this week's Gazette. The Governor .has appointed Messr-'. T. Ballinger, L. R. Partridge, and E. Bull commissioners. An additional area of GO acres of land at Silvers!ream has been reserved under the Scenery Preservation Act, 190 S. Tho block , is part of Section 20!), Hutt district, Block 4, Belmont Survey District. From a sanitary point of view, said Mr. L. M'Kenzie, City Council candidate, at Kilbirnie last night, it is wrong to have straw left about a place; it should bo taken away and destroyed with other rubbish. If dry, straw ignites quickly; it wet, it becomes a nuisance, and it is unhealthy, and it harbours rats and other vermin, Mr. M'Kenzie went on to say that there wcro a lot of such things which needed remedying, and it was only to the young blood of the place that the electors had lo look to do what was necessary.