THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1923. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4544, 28 March 1923, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1923. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

There. will be no issue of the “Gazette” on Good Friday or Easter Mon--day, 30th ■ inst.. and April 2. The “Gazette” will be printed and distributed on Saturday morning, 31st inst. On Thursday, March 29, all mails at the Paeroa Post Office will closo at, 7 p.m. On Good Friday, March 30, the office jvill be closed all day. On Saturday, March 31, there will be one delivery by postmen at 9 a.m., and the office will be open as usual in all branches. On Easter Monday, April 2, the office (except moneyorder and savings bank), telegraph office, and telephone exchange will open from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.

An informal meeting of the Paeroa Rugby Union was held last evening. The programme for the ensuing season was held over pending the annual meeting, to be held on April io.

It is not uncommon for tram passengers to use their tickets for a little gamble, on the value of the number as a crib hand (states an exchange). Four southlanders on a tram the other day agreed that the holder of the poorest hand should “shout for the crowd.” The first produced a ticket bearing the number 87,886, worth 21 ; the next man’s number was 87,887, and worth 20 ; the third’s was 87.888, also worth 20 : while the fourth ticket was 87,889, worth 21.

“I see the Canadian Government has agreed to take a thousand Swiss farmers into its country, but what I should like to see would be the importation of a hundred SKviss hotelkeepers to teach the young New Zealanders the art of hotelkeeping,” said Mr Julian Grande, the well-known journalist and Alpinist, to an interviewer at Christchurch,

Arrangements have been made with the management of Woods’ Pictures to screen the results .of the Tauranga election during the programme this evening.

Atz-a ’ meeting of suppliers to the Huirau Road cheese factory on Tuesday it was decided to continue making cheese until April 20,, when other arrangements may be made. The Tur,u'i factory switched over to buttermaking recently, and the Shelly Beach factory to casein.

A, party of forty Maoris from Tauranga and Te Puke passed througn Paeroa this morning, en route to Ratana’s stronghold at Ratana, near Wanganui. The Maori “prophet” is to hold a big conversion service throughout Easter week.

“In default of the nomination of a person to be entered in the valuation list as the occupier of the property of any society or association . . . the chairman or secretary shall be deemed to be and shall be entered as occupier.”—Amendment to Rating Act, 1908.

A Ngatea contributor writes as follows : “I was very much struck oy your contention that until Paeroa is in a position to cater better for the travelling public in the way of better hotels she will always be a fifthrate town. No matter where one goes, if the hotel accommodation is good strangers will stay and leave a fai.r amount of money behind them.”

“.Bang goes the profit,,” “Good byo to the wife’s new dress,” and other similar remarks were heard yesterday on the Paeroa Frankton line. It appears that at Tatuanui, by an act of misjudgment, a can full of cream was overturned. The van presented the appearance of a receiving depot at a factory minus the necessary scale of weights. From Tatuanui onwards the van whitened the sides of the railway track, whilst dogs at various stations en route enjoyed an appetising meal.

“It seems almost too ridiculous io answer,” said Mr Justice Frazer in the Arbitration Court in Wellington, as he disposed of the question whether the spreading of jam and cream on sponge cakes by female workers was semi-skilled work in the terms of the bakers’ and pastrycooks’ award. His Honour held that the only possible element of skill would lie i i making a minimum of jam seem a maximum.

A contract has been placed with the Precision Engineering Works, Wellington, to supply 575,000 copper tokens for use in connection with the Wellington municipal milk supply, and for that purpose a special machine, turning out 80 1 tokens a minute, has been devised.

“A wonderful case is afforded by the two most criminal of New Zealand’s fauna —the sandfly and mosquito,” says a wirter in the “Lyttelton Times.” “ Before the advent of man to New Zealand and his introduction of domestic animals, these little pests must have been wholly vegetarian ; and the majority of them must still pass their lives without seeing human beings ; but if a human being does happen along rhe wretched little insects dp not seem to require much instruction in the art of blood-sucking. Yet we do not invent theories to explain how they acquired the habit.”

A correspondent informs the Hawera “Star” that she finds that dry borax sprinkled in corners and in crevices in a house will kill silver fish. She states that the same substance is effective in dealing with cockroaches.

“All the old criteria for telling a woman’s age have gone,” remarked Mr Barton, Stipendiary Magistrate, during the hearing of a case recently. “It used'to he when they put their hair up and let their skirts down. Now, as they get older, they take their skirts up and cut their hair off.” — Wanganui “Chronicle.”

“In Kingston, Jamacia,” says Mr C. H. Howerth, formerly Southland county engineer,, who has just return< cd to the Dominion, “the picture theatres have no roofs and the houses no chimneys or windows. A roof would make theatre-going unendurable, and the fine weather which generally prevails makes the arrangement quite satisfactory. No fires are needed in the homes, and jalouses—movable louvres or slates —take the place of windows, supplying all the light and air needed.”

“Unless very drastic steps are taken’ dairying will completely disappear from the King Country within the next ten years,” declared a delegate to the conference of factory managers at Te Kuiti recently. A discussion had developed on the alarming spread of ragwort throughout, the district from Kihikihi downwards, which another manager asserted was closing down farms in some instances, and would make dairying impossible in a few years’ time if some effective chock was not put on its spread. Mr A. J. Sinclair promised to communicate with the Department of Agriculture and suggest a departmental investigation and speedy remedial measures. The weed was apparently a very serious menace, and the company would certainly see what could be done to check its spread.

A. number of young Mormon missionaries are said to be systematically working the different parte of the Wanganui district each day, distributing their propaganda and trying by personal appeal to induce womenfolk to accept the Mormon belief. Within the last few days several men witn decidedly strong objections to these young Mormons visiting their homes and conversing while they were absent have apparently succeeded in coming in contact with them, says an exchange, and so strong were the arguments used that one young visitor from Utah was glad to escape, and neither he nor his colleagues have been visiting that portion of the district since. According to all accounts they have been working very hard, but have not secured many converts.