LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Franklin Times, Volume 10, Issue 798, 9 January 1923, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

“Why do parsons always recommend their parishioners to purchase Ford care,” was a question put by a young urchin to his father recently. The father, after a mental struggle, gave the riddle up, and asked for the solution which the young hopeful gave, declaring that it was because this particular make shook the devil out of them.

A spirit worthy of cultivation by the community in general has been displayed by a number of the Dunedin waterside workers towards one of their comrades who has been laid aside by illness fotf some considerable time. The unfortunate man is a keen horticulturist, and his fellow workers, recognising the necessity of keeping his plot in order, set to work during a slack period on the waterfront and cultivated his large garden. The climax was reached when a party of watersiders made their appearance the sick man’s residence armed with the necessary equipment and started to paint the house. The man was a watersider, and worked on the Dunedin wharves for many years. • He received an injury while following his occupation some time ago, and his recurring illness is the direct result of this injury.

A serio-comic testimony to the absorbing interest of the books of. a popular novelist is found in the reports in the New York newspapers of the recent electrocution of a condemned man at Sing Sing. During the afternoon,’’ the report says, he occupied himself reading one ot Robert W. Chambers’ novels. Aitov dinner he returned to his book, leading as rapidly as possible so that he might find out how it ended before he was killed. He did not learn, but a gulp'd who bead the book told him that it came out all right. A piece of news in which no woman can fail to be interested is that a Boston man has invented a sort or super-sewing machine which will relegate even the most modern 0.l automatic stitchers to the| background. The new contrivance will not only perform all the operations that the ordinary sewing machine accomplishes to-day, but a good many more in addition. Its inventor claims that much of the hand labour now necessary on the best class oi machine-made goods can be done neatly and efficiently by the machine, which will sew on, trim, and finish lace edgings, insert lace trimmings, make French seams, and complete the rest of the complicated finishings that no sewing machine has yet been able to tackle, and all this will be done in a tenth of the time demanded by present methods. If the new machine comes up to expectations yet another blow will be dealt to the “ready-made” trade. The majority of the competitors in the Canterbury lucerne campaign are busily engaged taking their second cut for the season (says an exchange). Some of them completed the operation a fortnight ago, with the prospect of a third cut the fiist week ot ten days in the New Year. As the bulk of the areas are only iji from IT to 13 months, the early cuts secured are very gratifying to the competitors. The railway plots at Templeton and Ashburton, and the demonstration areas at Darfield are to be cut as soon as possible for the second time this season. The areas have responded marvellously to the inter-ciiltivation treatment given by the committee since taking them over. They promise to* produce more than double the hay and feeding they did previously, with the addition that the lucerne is clean and carries a good leafage well down the stalks. It is in the leaf that the virtue of the plant lies. The committee wish to stress on competitors on the necessity of following the advice regarding the time to cut, which is when the new shoots of the new growth are coming away at the crown of the plant. Undue delay means clipping ofF the tops of this growth, thus affecting thfe next crop.