LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 617, 18 March 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

There will be no publication of the Times on Friday next and the office will he closed from Thursday evening. March 24, to Tuesday morning, March 2d. The paper will be published as usual on Tuesday. Advertisers please uote. The New Zealand Meat Packing ami Bacon Co. have an important replace in this issue of interest to f;f mere The annual harvest thanksgiving services will be held throughout the Presbyterian charge on Sunday next. The preacher for the occasion will be Rev. W. -J. Youngson. M.A.. of I,den dale parish. Auckland. Mr Youngson is one of the younger ministers of the Church and during his university course had a brilliant career. His course of study through Knox Theolo-p-'.-ai College \.-a- eouailv successful.

The Farmers’ Union Trading Company have a special drapery announcement in to-day’s issue, which should interest all householdei's.

The ratepayers are to be given a further opportunity of acquiring Roose’s Bush on April 27, a decision of the Borough Council on Wednesday night. The Finance Committee are to draw up terms and conditions.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Pukekohe Football Club, Messrs F. H. Keating and A. L. Middlemiss wore appointed president and secretary irrespectively, in place of Messrs. R. Fulton andsF. H. Hewitt who resigned.

The town cleft'k (Mr. J. F. DeLane) reported at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Borough Council that the district electors’ list contained 916 names, of which 646 possessed rateable or freehold qualifications, and 270 residential qualifications .

It is reported (says a Wanganui paper) that the wholesale price of .tjpber is likely to recede early next month. This is no doubt due to a general slackening in the demand, as there is not the same difficulty experienced at present in getting orders filled as was the case a few months ago.

At the annual meeting of the Pukekohe Football Club on Tuesday night, Mr Robt. Fulton, on behalf of the club’s junior fifteen, presented Mr Jock Hogan, a prominent supporter of the club, with an enlarged photograph of the team, winners of the junior championship, as a mark of appreciation of the interest taken in the club by the recipient.

The chronic state of the Pukekohe telephone service is being remarked upon by numbers of subscribers. One gets, a number and in the middle of a conversation the voice fades away to indistinctness and after an annoying few moments suddenly becomes normal again. We understand that the trouble is caused by faulty material in the office. A signed requisition from the local business men to the head of the telegraph department should afford some relief.

Dissatisfaction with some of the conditions of their employment culminated in a strike of the employees of the Hukanui Co-operative Dairy Company (Pahiatua), when the chairman of directors was presented with, an ultimatum from the men, demanding a full day off in each week, or in lieu double pay for that day, and also demanding 2s 6d per hour overtime and half pay during illness. The board of directors met and decided to dismiss the entire staff, with the exception of the factory manager. The position now is that the suppliers are running the factory themselves until a new staff can be sesured. Apparently the strikers had no quanrel with the wages, which are slightly above the award rate, or with their accommodation, which was admitted to be equal to that provided in any part of the country.

“Good morning, madam! I’ve come to read the electric light meter,” said a well-mannered youth, in short trousers who presented himself at a house in Oxford Terrace, not far from Fitzgerald Avenue, Christchurch, on Wednesday (says the Sun). The lady of the house replied that the meter had been ; read quite recently, but the youth persisted that he had to read it again. Despite his seeming respectability, the lady was suspicious, and remained in attendance while he read the meter. For that suspicion she was thankful afterwards. At the next house the jmung fellow said he had called to inspect the electric lights. There he was admitted freely, and left by himself while he inspected the lights in a bedroom. His “job” completed, he departed unhurriedly, with a polite remark or two to the lady of the house. Subsequently it was found that a wristlet watch, a safety razor, and a dozen handkerchiefs had vanished from the bedroom in which he had been left alone. Householders would be wise not to admit to their homes any stray “inspectors” or. “meter readers” who cannot produce written credentials.