LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 682, 8 November 1921, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A week’s mission, which 1 commenced on Sunday, October sth, is being held at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Pukekohe.

The Buckland Flower Show will take place in the Buckland School and not in the hall, .as previously stated in these columns.

According to Captain Mackintosh Ellis, who spokd at Hamilton, over £IOOO,OOO worth of forests were destroyed by fire last year in New Zealand.

“Do you know anything about, gorse ?” was a question put to a witness in the Assessment Courtt at Wanganui. “To my sorrow, I. do, was the reply. ,

Owing to a printer’s error the date of Mr Gearon’s clearing sale auveritised by Brassey and Co. in Fridays paper, was omitted. The date is November 23rd. Will readers kindly note.

Fridfay nex,t is Armistice Day, and a period of two minutes’ silence win be observed in Pukekohe at 11 a.ra., the signal being given by the Dairy Factorv whittle. An advertisement signed "by the Mayor appears in this issue.

The ladies of *the Pukekohe Croquet Club, for the past few weeks have been busy getting their lawns in order, and are now practising for the matches of the forthcoming season, which they are anticipating, with greajt interest.

An enthusiastic New Plymouth gardener runs a line from his kßchen window with electric light \hyclr ) attached, and finds it possible to carry on all the ordinary gardening operations by the aid of ardficia light.

We have been asked to correct the report circulated that Shirley, the new Nursing Home, is solely mn in the interests of one medical man. This Home is managed by Sisters Corbett, and any pajtient may have their own medical man to attend them.®

The bowling Club tournament will take place on the local greens next Friday and Saturday. On Friday night a grand concert will be rendered to jthe visiting bowlers by Pukekohe bowlers and friends, m the Strand Theatre. A magnificent programme has been prepared.

A preacher wi,thin a hundred miles of Taihape announced that in his next Sunday sermon he would run the devil out of the town, and when the day arrived all fthe men were absent on. a fishing trip. The women of the congregation assert that tne pastor made good his threat.

At the production of “Once to Every Woman” on Saturday evenimg, at the Strand Theatre, the audience was charmed with the rendering ot “Home, Sweet Home” and ‘Ben Bolt bv Miss Thelma Fitness; a young local singer. The management scored a distinct success wijfch the eptire programme on Saturday.

“We have nothinig *;o learn from shows in England, Scotland, and Ireland,” said Mr D. Buchanan, of Feilding, when speaking at a farmers’ function at Masterton. In the Dominion the stock are bred under natural conditions and Ithe quality equals that of Great Britain, with perhaps exception in Ayrshires. English show cattle are over-conditioned and suffer from bad feet through being housed and artificially fed.

Palmerston North Protestant clergymen waited on the annual meeting of the Manawatu Bowling Association recently and asked that the Easter tournament should ndt commence on Good Friday. The meeting declined to meet the request, the voting being four in favour of starting the tournament on the day after Good Friday and 12 in favour of starting on Friday. The Feilding Club voted againist Good Friday play.

A London cable staites that applications from 108,364 ex-service men for free passage have been received by Overseas Settlement Committee, represertting over 200,000 individuals, although the applications close on December 31. It is anticipated that more will be dispatched next year than this. The applications of ex-service men approved since April, total 12,409, including Canada 5035, Australia 482 J, New Zealand 1081, South Africa 992.

The American weakness for havins “the biggest ever” of everything has spread even to the musica world. “The biggest ever’ xylophone has now appeared, and this is how a New York daily describes itWhat is said to be the 'biggest xylophone ever made has been delivered to George Carey, xylophone soloist to Sousa’s Band, the vast device being the result of a long cherished plan “to produce impact melody of a quality and degree never before derived from this style of instrument

Our Job Printing Department is S,

To have travelled round the world before she was eight months old is the experience of Marion Lucy Holland. She was born in Shanghai, China, on October 4th, 1920, and left there with her parents for England on November 6th by way of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco. Then she crossed the American Continent by train to New York, and leaving New York on December 14th by the Aquitania, she arrived at Southampton on December 21st. Hpr parents, who were on holiday, returned with her from Liverpool on April 15th, 1921, via the Mediterranean, Suez, and the Indian Ocean, and 1 reached Shanghai on May 6th, 1921, more than a wieek before she was eight months old. Her grandparents are wondering whether this is a record for a child traveller.

Here is another good pen picture of the New Zealand Premier taken from the “Bradford Daily Telegraph : —“Mr Massey, by the way, is not exactly the kinc? of man the average pressman welcomes most heartily. The reporter tends to judge humanity—or at any rate that part of it which speaks in public—by standard of words per minute. From this point of view the New Zealand Premier has a shocking record, for words flow from his mouth at upwards of 200 per minute. Nor does Mr Massey provide those pithy personal paragraphs with which the conscientious pressman loves to intersperse the more solid matter of a report. On one occasion this mornipg, for instance, he noticed a group of reporters and ran like anything. The “Leeds Mercury” describes him as a very kefen student of history, who never tires of delving into the past records of >the nation.”

A Wairarapa paper says .—lt is an open secret that recently many hundreds of cows have been told to dairy farmers, which were never intended as dairy catfcle, which have no milking blood in them, and which until a few months ago were everyday, unblushing stores. The dairy farmers of to-day would be.wise to take an interest in the cow-testing movement which is being advocated by the officers of the Dairy Division. Inefficiency is unpardonable in a dairy herd to-day. We can take it for granted many dairy men are giving feed and shelter to a certain number of cows which are sheer “robbers.” No dairyman can afford to do this in present circumstances. The sooner he takes stock and asks each cow what she has to < say for herself in terms of butter-fat the better for his pocket. No cows at all is better than the robber, which is consuming feed the good ones can do better with.

The Dunedin Star >, says : —Otago flour-millers are wanting Australian wheat to mix with Ithe softer wheats in the making of first-grade flour, and a message was recently sent to the Wheat Controller asking Feave to impoi*; what is needed, but so far there is no reply, though there has been ample time, and the nonreplying is interpreted as a dedarathe importing will be permitted until the New Zealand stocks are exhausted. If that is the position thte New Zealand millers are in an awkward fix. They really require a hard wheat for mixing. The New Zealand stock of Velvet is out. It is said that fi permission were given the Australian wheat could be landed here at 8/2 per bushel, bags in. That would be relatively cheap, since our Tuscan is now 8/Hunter’s 8/3, Pearl 8/6, reckoning in the millers commission of per bushel. But it is not a question of price. One Dunedin miller said to-day that ho would willingly, pay 8/6 for the Australian wheat if he could get it.

A London correspondent writes : A piquant little vignette of postwar life was told me to-day by a lady who knows both the people concerned. The son of a Midland vicar, who joined the Army before his university career was completed, rose fiom a subaltern to the rank pf colonel and jthe command of his regiment. His father died during the war and 1 he, found that he had no qualifications for post-war employment. A yjear ago, in desperation, he accepted a job as butler to a wealthy widow whose husband had made a fortune during the w; r. A few weeks since he asked ii he might.have the following Thursday off, as he had a private engagement. His mistress replied that it would nox be convenient, but that it could be arranged if fthe appointment was a pressing one. Under some pressure he. admitted that he had received the Royal command to attend at Buckingham Palace to be mvested with the D.S.O. whereupon the lady not only consented to his havinig the day free, but insisted on his using her Rolls-Royce. She then asked if Re was taking his mother or his nancee wjth him, and his replying that his mother was dead and that he was not engaged she coyly suggested that he should take her. He could not easily refuse, with the result that the Rolls-Royce carried to Buckingham Palace the servant and ►■he mistress that the latter might witness her busier being honoured by the King.