LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4429, 19 June 1922, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A meeting ofi the Rotokohu Ratepayers Association is called for Friday evening next, and as there are several important matters to be dealt with all members are requested to attend. All gentlemen interested in forming an Athletic Club in Paeroa are requested to attend a meeting to nc held m the Druids’ Hall on Thursday evening next. Referring to tarring operations, in the course of his annual report the chairman - of, the Taranaki. County Council stated that two-coat work at the present time was costing approximately £7OOO per mile. The Borpugh rate notices for tne present year have now been issued. Mr. Furley, town clerk, informs us that they were al] posted at 12.30 on Friday and one lady set an example of promptness by paying her rates and water, charges by two o’clock an the same afternoon. The letters denoting the place of registration of the six cars which carried the Hauraki Plains senior representative team to Waihi on Saturday were by no means representative of the Plains, only one bearing the letter.? “H.P.” The other bore such identification marks as "A.,” "W.P.,” “T.H.C.,” and “S.D.” The total number of registered sol - dier amputees, as recorded in the annual report of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association, is. 1046, of whom 944 are ajive and in the Dominion. The provision of artificial limbs and accessories to "service” patients is stated to be quite satisfactory. There are 21 totally blind “service” patients, apd most of these men appear to be happily employed in occupations they learned at St .Dunstan’s in England.

It was a case plj either misrepresentation or mistaken identity when the Hauraki Plains senior team figured in the representative fixture at Waini on Saturday. The spectators continually referred to the Plains representatives as the Ngatea team, amd we are told that even on the posters the match, was advertised as “Ngatea v. Waihi.” Ngatea’s fame as a metropolis is, to use the Yankee expression, travelling spme, and it must appear, to Waihi-ites at any rate, a large town, if it can send representatives who will compare favourably with those of'a metropolitan area the size of Waihi.

Tn the annual Defence report) to Parliament mention is made of the flact that there are still eighty-six men who were entitled to war gratuities ranging from £l6O downwards whq have made no application for the money. A belated applicant turned up at the Defence Office at Wellington the other day—nearly four years late —and made his claim good to the gratuity the New Zealand Government rewarded the returned soldiers with on the termination of their service in our Expeditionary Force.

A Palmerston North accountant, when asked what was the greatest financial lesson to be 'learned from the war and its aftermath, yepl'ed: "Though £8,000,000,000 had been spent, no financial stringency was felt until the interest on foreign loans and payment for foreign goods became due. .The lesson was, homemade goods and homerraised loans up to the point, of stringency.”—Manawatu “ Daily Times.”

The satisfaction which follows bn the doing of a good deed is no doubt a full reward, but sometimes satisfaction is tempered by a feeling ?f justifiable disappointment (observes the “Otago Daily Times.”) A young man walking a,long .a road near the Anderson’s Bay. Ctenietery found a large roll of notes, and. at once set about discovering the owner. Noticing a woman coming to him with'her handbag unclasped and evidently looking for. something, he asked if she had lost anything. She said, she had dropped a considerable sum of money, and on the young man asking her if the roll of notes was hers, and then handing them over, she expressed over-wrought feeling with, "On, thank you ! thank you I” That was all.

Steady progress is being made with the Waihi-Athen'ree section of the East Coast railway construction Works, and it is gratifying to note that the number of workers at present engaged is in the vicinity of 220, inc'tiding eight men sent out from Wa’hi yesterday (states Wednesday’s Da:iy Telegraph). This batch, we gat!'er, will make up the full complement of, men to be engaged on the work. Of the number employed 68 are engaged on the Woodlands Road. The Mangatoetoe bridge across Station Road, which has a span of 370 ft, has been completed as far as the concrete construction is concerned. This work involved the placing in position of no .less than 15 concrete piers. About half the concrete work ha? been completed in the construction of the Victoria Street bridge, which has a span of 130 ft. The Adams Street bridge is now in. hand. The engineer (Mr. Dauber) hopes within six months to have about a quarter of a mile of rails laid from the Waihi railway station junction to the bank of '.he Ohinemuri River, Altogether, it is understood that the work, generally speaking, has, during the past four or five months, been satisfactory.

Comment of a bitter nature was made at the meeting of the Waitotara County Council as the outcome of notification by the Postal Department that roadmen employed by the County Council in the back districts would each have to have a mail bag at a charge of 27s 6d (says the “Wanganui Chronicle.”) Councillor J. H. Burnet said that the Department was imnosing great hardships on the back country people and the demands being now made were idiotic and wickedly bad. People getting one paper and one letter a week were being charged £4 a year. . Councillor Ross said that it was costing some settlers 5s a letter. It has been decided to bring the matter before the notice of the postal authorities by deputation.