LATE LOCALS.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1919, Page 3

LATE LOCALS.

! A grand bazaar will be held on Saturday afternoon and evening from 2.3 C .at the Depot ltevell Street by the girl scholars of Standard V of Hokitika State School in aid of Westland Hospital. Help the children’s effort to help a worthy object. All assistance, and every penny will l>e welcomed.— Advt. j Advice has been received that Miss | Mabel Andrewes, daughter of Mr A. jA. Andrewes, Town Clerk, has been successful in passing recently the Government examination for a shorthand jtypist. Miss Aiidrewes was a pupil of St Colunibkille’s Convent school. The examination was conducted under the supervision of Mr Stuart, Chief Postmaster.

“You will not make your mark in the world unless yoir have education, physical fitness, and high character,” remarked General G. S. Richardson when addressing the pupils of Mount Cook -School, Wellington, on the occasion of the reading of the school Roll of Honour. “I hope you boys will try to develop that character. It was one of the characteristics of the New Zealand Army during the war that our men were men of good character. There was very little crime throughout the Expeditionary Force.”

Reports from the local dairy companies go to show that there is a considerable falling-off in the supply of milk fend butter-fat as compared with the corresponding period of last year (says the “Otago Daily Times”)-. South of Balclutha, owing to the unfavourable weather, farmers are faced with a poor outlook as regards winter feed. There (s, of course, more butter than is required for the local irinrkets, but the ■quantity available for export shows, a heavy drop as compared with the quantity shippod at this time last year. Reports from the North Island state, however, that the butter prospects there are quite satisfactory.

Some time ago it was suggested that the high price of silver might be met l>v the issue of nickel coins in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Treasury officials hold, however, that as a safeguard against the circulation of false coin the metallic content of the coin should have a definite relation to the face value, (writes the “Melbourne Age”). In this connection, it is curious to note that counterfeit coins are not always worthless. For instance, just before the war tRe Treasury authorities were very interested in some seventy half-crowns bearing various dates from 1871 to 1900, which had been weeded out from the money In circulation in the community. All these coins were spurious. Yet bank tellers professed themselves practically unable to distinguished between the false arid the gen nine coins, and as a fact the counterfeit coins in many instances contained more fine silver than the real halfcrown, though close examination showed that they had never been turned out by any official mint. The . standard half-crown contains 925 parts’of fine silver and 75 parts of alloy. Many of the spurious coinS contained as much as 956 parts of silver, being thus of’nibre.‘actual value than the real article. The matter was carefully investigated at the time, and it was decided that the generous coiner had never actually operated in Australia, but that the products of

his work had been innocently introduced by some traveller from overseas. Probably the coiner’s mistake was duo to an insufficient knowledge regarding the mixing of the silver and alloy.