LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4469, 20 September 1922, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The meeting Pf the Paeroa Business Men’s Association called for last Monday evening again lapsed for want of a quorum. It seems a great pity and shows considerable want of enterprise on the business men's part not to spare a couple of hours every week or so to further the interests of their town and district generally and their own businesses in particular.

Don’t forget the 12th October. Presbyterian Ladies’ Guild Sale of Work in Central Theatre, afternoon evening Particulars will be advertised later.*

A proposal is oil foot at Te Arolia to build a large and up-to-date picture theatre. Elaborate plans have been drawn and preliminary negotiations entered into for a suitable site.

The Waihi Hospital Ball, which took place at Waihi on Friday evening, was an unqualified success. The total receipts taken amount to £7B.

Ticketholders for the Salvation Army Gift Tree are reminded that gifts will be distributed on presentation of tickets on Thursday afternoon and evening. Several items will be given during the evening by local friends. Admission free.

What the Opotiki "Guardian” describes as “a sensational burglary” ■was perpetrated while the Opotiki Golf Club’s ball was in full swing, the whole of the club’s supply pf claret, consisting of .about four gallons o>f tihat delectable liquid, being removed from the stage. Apparently the claret was removed by way of the stag l ? door, but what is puzzling the golf authorities and the police is how the burglars could have escaped with their booty without being observed.

For the first time for fourteen years a. man who had been confined to his room at Dunedin, through illpess for that time, was priviledged to hear a concert. A receiving apparatus was set up at the invalid’s house (relates an exchange), and he enjoyed pne of the excellent conceit programmes arranged in connection with wireless telephony experiments.

A party of four Australian ladies, who may be said to have visited, every towni ofi 1000 people in New Zealand and Australia, declare tihat in regard to the comforts of life we are 50 years ahead of them (states the Manawatu Daily Times). Our hotels everywhere are incomparably better. Over there, except in the very largest cities, they have no drainage system, water supply, or electric light or hot baths, frequently not even a cold one in that dusty land. Here most villages and many country houses have all these decencies of life.. w Canterbury College has reason to be prou.l pf the achievements of two men who were students there together about 30 years ago and have since gone out into the world and made their mark (says the Wairarapa Age - )- Sir Ernest Rutherford, the eminent physicist, went from Canterbury College to Cambridge, and then to McGill University (Canada). He achieved fame by his Researches in radio activity. Sir William Marris, who was probably the most distinguished scholar who ever, passed through Wanganui College, went from Canterbury College to Oxford., and passed 1000 marks ahead of the next competitor in tihe Indian Civil Service examination. He has risen to the top of the tree in that service, and has now been appointed Governor of the United Provinces (India). Strange to say, Rutherford and Marris first appeared in the honours list in the same year (1914) ; the former being knighted and the latter made a C.1.E., New Zealand has sometliipg to be proud of in these two careers.

The Government'offices throughout New Zealand will celebrate Monday, September 25, as Dominion Day. A Pahiatua tradesman was fined 20s and costs for mutilating a copy of the Hawke’s Bay Herald in the Pahiatua public reading room. In our Hikutaia notes published on Monday last it was mentioned that the cause of the death of the late Mr Durbin was pneumonia, Since the publication of tihe statement we learn that this was not the case. A post; mortem performed by Dr. Ritchie revealed the cause to be embolism. The annual meeting of the Paeroa Cricket Club will be held in the Soldiers’ Club on Saturday next, the 23rd inst. In view of the splendid peniformance put up by this chib last season, it is hoped that they will receive the support due to them, and that members and intending members and enthusiasts will turn up to the meeting and assist the club to boom cricket along in this towp.

Attention is drawn to the advertisement of the meeting of ratepayers of the Netherton riding of the Hauraki Plains County called for Saturday evening next. The meeting is convened by Messrs J. A. Reid and H. Hare, who took an active part in calling the meeting wlhich was recently held to discuss county matters generally and the Kirikiri bridge proposal in particular. In connection with the latter matter petitions are now in circulation, and when signed are to be forwarded to the Minister of Public Works, praying that no money be granted or allocated by the Government for the Kirikiri bridge until suc’lr time as a poll of the ratepayers has been taken on the matter and the poll is carried in favour of the proposal. The Netherton settlers are determined to fight the matter out, and with this object in view a meeting of ratepayers is being lheld to form an association to look after the interests of those concerned in objecting to being included in the rating area.

At the Annual Musical Festival, which is to be held in Hamilton on Labour bay, the South Auckland Methodist choirs will take part in the competition. It is the intention of the Paeroa Methodist Church choir to enter the competition this yean in the "B” Grade, which grade is open to church choirs that have not yet won a competition. Mr G. Foster has plenty pf good local talent to work on, and is hard at it bringing the choir up to competition standard. The shield for competition in the "B” Grade has been presented by the Church Musical People, of Thames, and the “A” Grade shield has been donated by Mr T. AV. Webster, pfl the Hamilton Methodist Choir. A further trophy is also donated by the Bristol Piano Co. for hymn singing. Two of these shields are at present on view at. Mr A. L. Mitchell’s photographic studio, ajid are attracting a lot of interest.

“It was the liveliest sale I was ever at,” said a farmer to a "King Country Chronicle” reporter the other day, when referring to a clearing sale that lie recently attended in that district. “I saw fully half a dozen fights. Neighbours who had real or imaginary grievances against one another met, after having a ‘spot’ or two, and the next thing one would see would be one of them staggering back from a violent punch on the nose. This set others going, and soon things were very lively. I was-ready, for if any of them had tried to stir up an argument with me I should ihave got in the first blow. That was the only thing to do, as far as I could see.’’ The farmer was about 15 stone, and looked well able to deliver something.

The committee responsible for community singing at Te Awamutu (states the Waipa Post) introduced a novel turn to a ratepayers’ meeting op Thursday evening, having arranged a community singing programme ihalf an hour before the meeting opened. “If we are going to argue and debate municipal policy at the meeting,” said one of the promoters,- "is there any logical reason why we should not have a jolly good singsong to put us in a happy frame jf mind to ‘kick-off* with ?”

When dealing with directors’ fees apd the chairman’s honorarium at the Whangarei Dairy Company’s annual meeting one shareholder stated that he knew of a case in the Feilding district some years ago where a chairman of directors who had served faithfully and well for a lengthy period was voted the munificent sum of £1 Is. The recipient had the cheque framed and hung up in l is diningroom. (Laughter.)

A member of the Otago Daily Times staff asked a well-known Dunedin medical man whether he considered that Dr. Pitts, of Waimate, was justified in making the assertion that the number of deaths under anaesthetics had greatly increased in New Zealand during the past year or two. The Dunedin doctor said that he fully supported Dr. Pitts’ statement. He said that it was always absolutely necessary to use the best chloroform —an anaesthetic which he favoured. Questioned whether he considered that there was any reason which, might cause a patient to succumb, the Dunedin doctor said that faulty training had a direct effect in the administration pf an anaesthetic. Some doctors gave such a strong dose of an anaesthetic that the patient’s resistance was severely reduced. As a matter of fact, he became heavily drugged. On the other hand, there are medical men in Dunedin who over a long course of years have not had one single death resulting from the administration <of an anaesthetic. In view pf the allegations made by Dr. Pitts, and from liis own knowledge of! what had happened in certain cases, th® Dunedin doctors held that the Minister of Health should take steps to have an exhaustive inquiry made into the whole matter. and .that laymen should be appointed to any committee which the Minister might think fit to set up. The Nelson Jersey Cattle Breeders’ Club is considering the question of importing a Jersey bull and several cows from Jersey Island. I