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Horowhenua Chronicle, 8 July 1915, Page 3

At caucus of the Opposition held on Monday the offer of the Prime Minister to form a coalition was rejected. A man named Thomas Lacey was cenvicted at the GisTlorue Police Court last week of having stolen a policeman's biiill dog, and was ordered io come up for sentence when called iipon. A Maori who had volunteered his services for the front was notified that he had been accepted, when the following telegram was received:—"Just got married yesterday. Sorry can't go." At the meeting of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, the chairman, in reporting on the queetion of revising the staff's salaries, stated that the committee had decided, after consideration that there should be no alteration in the scale this year. It wae tliought that if matters remained as at present it would be doing a greater justice to those already employed, ae a revision might mean that some of the board's employed would have to be put off. The decision of the committee was unanimously agreed to. Floating an 11.000 ton liner on a cushion of air was the remarkable feat performed by a wrecking party recently, in extricating the liner Zeelamd from a mud bank in the St. Lawrence River. The Zeeland, running at high speed up the river in a fog, went aground with bueli* force that the mud was three feet about the usual light load line. She was undamaged, but the sucFiou of the mud was so great that the boat could not be moved, even with the.aid ot * fleet of powerful tugs, and the vessel's own engines, developing 12,000 >hrp. As a last resort, the use of air was thought of. Fourteen brass drainage plugs in,the ship's bottom were unscrewed from within, and into each hole a hose connection was threaded. Tubes were led from these lo an air compressor, designed for diving operations. Finding no outlet from under the hull, the air effectually broke the seal between the ship and the mud, and the Zeeland was safely afloat in deep water in lees than ten mizratea.