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Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2077, 11 May 1907, Page 3

“More rain,” is the general cry, (says the Bruce Herald), as there is a shortage of water for flaxmills and agricultural purposes, and many of the creeks have not yet started to run.

“The season is really too good (writes the contributor of tho Manawatu notes in the Farmers’ Union Advocate). It seems to be exactly following that in England, so far. There a friend tells me that he left last December, and there hadn’t been a cold day. But of course later advices tell us that there was a very cold snap, with continued snow. Will our season bo the same? Anyhow, it is the finest autumn I remember, and that is over 30 years. Talking to older settlers, they say that they remember seasons like it in the sixties, but that was before my time. Tlifc grass is simply disgustingly plentiful, and as a dairy season we have not, since the industry started, had such a March and April for yields.”

Another phase of the child-labor question is mentioned (says tho Post) in the report made to the Wellington Education Board on truancy by the Board’s Truant Inspector, who wiote:—“ln the outlying districts of the Wairarapa, I came across parents who wore quite indifferent about their children’s education, and, when spoken ‘ to, they , informed me that they had got on fairly well without education, and they thought that their children would do the same. In one case the mother told rr-~ that her three children, aged respectively seven, nine, and eleven years, had to milk -ten cows daily, and she herself milked seven, as her husband was not fitted to do the work. I am powerless to compl them to send their children to school regularly, as the school -is situated two miles away on the other side ,of the river. A similar case was met with in the Manawatu district, where the father, in reply to a notice sent, stated that his children had to help to milk thirty-six cows, whilst he and his wife, even with the aid of the children, had to work from daylight to dark. This man is working.the farm on the share system. The compulsory clause cannot be enforced in this case,- as tfje home is three miles and a half from the nearest school.”

It is noticeable Hint a goodly proportion of thoso engaged in stonohroaking on tlio roads about tlio Timaru district are very young men, many appearing to have barely reached the years of manhood.

At the last meeting of the Canterbury Trades and Labor Council a motion was passed expressing regret at the discovery that the Christchurch police employ a Chinese rook, and purchase their vegetables from a Chinamn n.

During the hearing of a bankruptcy case at Palmerston the question of business credit cropped up, and the Judge remarked that he was sufficiently cognisant of the commercial world to know that a man could get credit by putting a name upon a window, whether ho was a discharged bankrupt or not. Mr. D. M. Luckio writes to the New Zoaland Times; —“Our flagship having recently been placed in quarantine, recalls a curious fact in an occurrence of like nature which happened in Auckland so far hack as 1873. when H.M.S. Emerald was quarantined in that harbor, much to tho chagrin of the vessel’s commander. Commiserating with his ship’s segregation I sent the captain, enclosed

in tlio customary bird-basket, a couple of our best carriers from the pigeon loft of tlio Daily .Southern Cross (now and for somo thirty years amalgamated with tho New Zealand Herald). Accompanying these was a note explaining the method of attaching the messages, and informing the commander that any communications

ftom his ship would bo promptly transmitted to its destination on arrival at tlio office. Days passed but no bird came to the loft. On the fourth day a letter reached me from

the “captain who, after thanking me for my kindly consideration, explained his silence, and apologetically narrated the untimely fate of the birds; His cabin steward had

duly received the pigeons, and deeming them some courteous friend’s present for his master’s table, incontinently wrung tlioir nocks, and next day at dinner produced them in a savoury pigeon pie. It was a disli whose contents (for they wore ‘fliers’) were in those days worth at least three guineas.”