LOCAL AND GENERAL

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2364, 21 January 1915, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Telegraph Offioe advises that until further advised messages written in code are not to he accepted for Fiji. The stewards of the Hutt Vallej Trotting Club have invited 600 of the Expeditionary Forces to attend their annual meeting at Petone. A night prowler visited the office of Victoria College on December 9 last, evidently with felonious intent,- but he found nothing of value. Tho lower sash of tho window was forced up, and the prowler, once inside the office, ransacked tho drawers. The most serious feature of the business was that in the morning it was found that the uninvited visitor had burned certain papers, fortunately of no importance, and had inado sufficient of a firo to char the office desk rather badly. The theory of the police is that tho miscreant was ono of the tramp class, who was probably sleeping _in on© of the reserves nearby, foraging at night by raiding household safes and larders. Although the Nelson hop-picking season does not begin until well on in February, quite a numbor of Wellington women and girls havo already enrolled at tho Wellington office of tho Labour Department in the hopo of securing employment among the crops whon the gathering period arrives. As a result of a disturbance in Vivian Street last night, five members of the Expeditionary Force will appear in Court this morning to answer charges of resistine, obstructing, and assaulting _ iKoabeiys o| tho JPolico I'oroe,

The Hon. D. R. Hall, a member of tho New South Wales Ministry, war given a oivio reception at Christohurchyesterday. In a speech, Mr. Hall said New South Wales had a good deal to learn from Now Zealand's forestry schemes. A Government that had had" tho foresight to turn bad land intoj gcod and at the same time _ bad men > into good by employing prisoners in! tree planting had done admirable work.' • Referring to the war, he said New Zea-' landers had done more in comparison! than Australians. \ In conversation with an "Otaeol Daily Times" reporter yesterday thai Hen. Jas. Allen, Minister of Finance,; remarked: "It has been said this Gov-' eminent is shutting down on Advances' to Settlers and Advanoes to Workers, but I have figures to prove it is not so. • The actual amount paid over to settlers for the month of December was close ; on £70,000, and the amount authorised' by the board for the month was nearly £28,000, while the amount paid over to workers for the same month was about £280,000, while the amount paid over tothe month was £21,800."—Press Association. The Labour Department reported yesterday that there is still a shortage-v of farm labour in the rural distriots at this end of the island. Farmers are' informing the Department that in ad- ; dition to wanting men they could, also, do with some boys. Both men., and boys could be placed in situations on tho land without difficulty at the present time. As a sequel to a neighbour's dfs-, pute a man named Chishohn was charge ed in the Magistrate's Court at Masterton on Tuesday with discharging a dangerous weapon at Frederick Mar-" tin. The acoused. stated that there had been ill-feeling between himself and Martin over a dividing fence, and the.'> weapon had been discharged merely tot give Martin a fright. The charge waß; reduced to one of common assault, and.' Chisholm was bound over to keep the peace for twelve months. Reports received yesterday by th(B Department of Labour show that tho position of employment is fairly satis-.' factory in tho chief centres of the Dominion. At New Plymouth, Masterton, • and Palmerston North the Labour Department's agencies are defiling very successfully with the applicants for work. In Auckland there are 124 applicants, and in the South Island the position is not quite so good as in tho North. As has been the case all along, the West Coast of tho Bouth Island' is comparatively free from unemploj" ment. x Throe very fine gold nuggets haveV been secured by the West Coasters' As-, sociation for exhibition in connection with their display on Anniversary Day (to-morrow). At a highly successful meeting of the association last evening arrangements for the procession and the: gold-sifting operations, which are to be reminiscent of the olden days, were completed. Gold-bearing dirt has been • secured from Charleston, - Moonlight,-: Maori Gully, and Greenstone, and thej public will be interested to observe dif--' ferences m these samples of dirt. The: early _ diggers are to bring up the rear of the big procession to NewtownPark. The trials of a schoolmaster in the' back-blocks are many and varied, and for examples of them there is no need to go out of South Canterbury (says the Timaru "Herald"). Last week a. schoolmaster at one of the wayback' schools in the South Canterbury' Edui oation Board's district ran out of coal. He could have survived this had he not | at the same time run out of firewood. I Ho was a bachelor, and the proßpeots,! with no fire in the home, were pretty I cheerless. Having no trap, he borrow-/ 1 ed one from a kindly Neighbour. Ha' had a horse, and this,he hitched to the trap and drove some miles to the' home of a.settler who had placed an almost; inexhaustible supply or firewood at his disposal. The wood was being loaded into the trap, and all was going well, , when suddenly the horse decided that' it was time for school to be out, so it-, mado a bolt, and in a very short time was rolling over a steep hillside in tho; paddock. By/the time it had finished,, this little bit of physical drill lliS schoolmaster had only the fragments of his borrowed trap to look at, and a: horse that was not quite as amenable) to discipline as his school children, j He had perforce to return hometo &• cheerless hearth, his one consolation, in; pondering over how he would square theti neighbour for his broken being) that a kindly Government hiyj just inV. 1 creased the salaries of schaol teachers; to such an extent as to easily enabhjj them to foot the bill for little experl* ences of this sort, or to keep a wife whd would 866 that the coal and wood stu> , ply never ran out. \ The Feilding Jookey Olub has tributed £10 towards the Salvation. Army's Belgian Refugees Relief Funds* and the Stratford Racing Club haß nated £10 10s. In connection with the call to prayer! at noon daily by the bells of tho varM ous City churches, a bell in the Post* Office tower will also'be rung at noon '. ■■ 'ovary day, except on Sundays, com-/ ' mencing on Monday next. There wilL . be a short pause after the striking of] . the clock, then the bell will be rung a« , a call to prayer. j > The number of carpenters who araU i unemployed in various parts of the Do».\ . minion is., deoreasing, according to the | reports of the Department of Labour.) . It is thought that "this may be taken;/ [ to indicate a stimulus of the buildintj! ' trade. ) The staff employed at the Town Hoffi in the compilation of the new raunici-'j ] pal roll-in view of the coming elections' ' is being kept fairly busy, but the Town] 1 Clerk states that there- h 1 a disposition • on the part of very!/ many people who are qualified to ba; '. electors to leave everything till the last; ; moment. Many reminders of the im-J, portance of taking every precaution toj , see that one is on the roll have been; • given, but, nevertheless, a rush at thej eleventh liour is expected: The mainj roll closes on February 15. A valuable addition states the Anok'« ( land "Star" was made to the literary ; treasures of tho City of Auckland by j the donation of several autograph lot~j tors of Robert Louis Stevenson. These' were presented about a month ago by,; Mr. A. M. Myers, M.P. Referring to, the letters, the Mayor (Mr. C. J: Parr) > remarked that four of them wore wntt, • ten to Captain Hart, of San Francisco}; : and possess all tho literary charm charv aoteristio of Stevenson's w>rrespondenoe< : , There is also another interesting letter! , from Stevenson's mother to Gantais . Hart. The Mayor has acknowledged. the gift on behalf of the citiaans. f . i

The traveller who may happen to Journey down from Tonus to Cromwell in the evening (says an exchange) may be puzzled for the same reason that caused the soientifio . gentleman mentioned in the "Pickwick .Papers" to write a treatise on a wonderful meteorio display which he thought he had witnessed—the display being actually caused by the reflections from a lantern which Mr. Pickwick accidentally, at intervals, allowed to, flash its light around the locality where Mr," Winkle and Sam iWeller were engaged in a little adventure. In the instance under no- ; tioe the flashing of lights may be seen on the surface of the Chitha River, and are the result of the same phenomenon—with tl'o difference that the glow comiM from, acetylene lamps, and not from* One gentleman ■whose buaiii,-a last week necessitated hrm traveti'iie down the Clutha River to Oromweu- «■ serfs that he saw altogether anytmujr up to 60 lights gleaming at intervals on the water—tho I reader oan-imagine the hefty spear : held in the other hand. Evidently the trout in this stream are having a bad ;time. One reason advanced for this • illicit onslaught on the finny tribe in Clutha River is that the high" cost of beef and mutton has forced the frugal householder into other ways of supplementing the dietary of • the family. Should the destruction be continued, however, the trout must 'soon be cleared out of this river at least. At a meeting of the Council of the , Canterbury Acclimatisation Society a ' letter was received from a resident of Wttakamatau, stating that while mustering sheep he came across a lumber of black shags' nests on a cliff. There wetre piles of young trout by the sides 'of the\ nests, which the young ones were eating. He added that the shags must an enormous lot of trout, because ho counted 72 around four : nests, i ' The executive of the Workers' Edurition Association met in the Mayor's Room, at the Tpwn Hall, last evening. The Mayor (Mr. J. P. Luke) presided. All details in; connection with Mr. Meredith' Atkinson's lecture on "The History of Trades Unionism," which is to be given in the Town Hall on Tuesday evening next were arranged. Mr. Atkinson will be given a Mayoral welcome after his arrival on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday afternoon he will lecture to .union officials and friends at the Trades Hall. At a sheep station not far out of Gisborne a Maori hand was persuaded to deposit his surplus money at the Savings Bank in the township. One day he galloped to the local post dffioe and demanded all of his money. It was* necessary to telegraph to Gisborne for tho authority to pay out, and when the warrant was issued the postmaster proceeded to pay the Native.' The Maori took the money to "a side desk, and in a few. minutes returned beaming all :over. "Look here, boss, he all right; you put him back." At the meeting of . the Council of the Central Chamber of Commerce on Monday, during a discussion on the relative merits of- British and foreignmade goods, Mr. George Winder, who wa hardware merchant of long experience, informed the meeting that British axes were not the best on the market: ; indeed he went as far as to say that ; they oould not make good axes in England—that the best axes proourable came from Amorioa. "How is that?" queried the ohairman (Mr. 0. M. Luke). : "It's something to do with the temper- ; ing of -the steel—they do not seem to be able to temper axe steel as well as they do in America," replied Mr. Winder. "Well," said Mr. Luke,' ."I thought thev were able to temper steel j in England better than anywhere else." "Well, that Is the case," said Mr. Winder with a 'sense of finality. ■ ', On .several ocoasions of late mariners ' have reported the presence of whales ;in the vicinity of Banks Peninsula. jOn Friday afternoon the Himitangi, i whilst en route to Lyttelton, passed a ; big school, and one monster came quite olose to the vessel, enabling the passengers on board to obtain a fine view. '"We are glad to note that, the Government recognises the immense possi-' bilities there are in the fruit industry, especially in the' export branch of the trade, and that they have already made provision for assisting growers' organisations financially, with the promise of more assistance as time shows to be necessary. Large traots of land are now m course of preparation for planting in commercial orchards, both in the North and South Islands."—Extract from the annual report of the New Zealand Association of Nurserymen. A.prominent business man in Westport was innocently responsible last Monday for passing on a counterfeit naif-sovereign. It was passed out as change and the receiver afterwards gave it in payment to the ticket clerk at the' railway station, and was on the point of leaving for the country when the clerk rushed out and intimated that the com was a bad one. Fortunately the man was able to show how the coin had come into his possession, and was allowed to proceed. The business man, seen later, admitted having handed over a half-sovereign in ohange without knowledge of its being a base coin, and is now wondering who paid it to him. ' At tho Lower Hutt Police Court yesterday, before Messrs. J. Oudby and Hogarth, J.P.'s, judgment was given for plaintiff by default in the follow- , ing undefended oivil cases:—Thos. Blmn v. Richard S. Cunliffe, £2 8s lOd costs ,55.; Jam»s Bell v. John Pilcher, sen., £2, costa 7s.> In the results of the University Entrance Scholarship Examination' Bays a Press Association telegram from Auckland, the name of H. J. Learning, Auckland Grammar School, who gained eleventh place, was omitted. :■ This does not affect the others' scholarships The custom of mooring boats to the Fetono foreshore has been extremely rare since six ohildren drifted out in a punt and were rescued with some difficulty by the Petone Naval cutter some eleven years ago. Yesterday, however, a yacht, moored to the beach, was boarded by some children, who lifted .the anchor and suddenly found themselves drifting, but a bather, seeing, their predicament, went 'to tho rescue, and after some difficulty brought them safely to the shore. Mr. J J. Kingston, of the South British Insurance Company, has been elected chairman of the Auckland Fire Underwriters' Association, and Mr H S. Malcolm, of the Royal Exchange \ a l surance Company, vice-chairman. Mr. H. D. Bedford, solicitor, and lecturer on Economics at the Otago University, has received notification of his electionto a Fellowship of the Royal Economic Society of Great Britain, be-' ing one of nine Fellows admitted at the meeting of the society held in November. Mr. Bedford has devoted a great deal of time to the study of political economy, and the distinction conferred upon him is well deserved Mr. and Mrs. James Pringle, of Edinburgh, are visiting Wellington on holiday. They intend travelling all through New Zealand, doing the principal/places of interest, and the residential centres from Bluff to Auckland.