LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4717, 27 June 1924, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A novel occupation is being followed by a girl of sixteen years of age, that of driving a tractor which is engaged in stumping, etc., on the Makcrua swamp. The girl (savs an exchange) puts in full time at the work.

The largest bullock ever handled at the Ashburton Municipal Abattoirs was slaughtered the other day (says the “Guardian”). It was a five-year-old Holstein, and after having been allowed to hang for four days it turned the scales at 14351 b.

Mi D Leach, secretary of the Ohinemuri Acclimatisation Society, has deposited with the office of this paper a plan showing the aiea from the Ngararahi canal reserve to the Ohinemuri River and delining the dead water of the Waihou River and intervening areas of land which the society proposes to take steps to have gazetted as a game sanctuary. Anyone dcsi’ous of inspecting the plau may call and do so.

Sunday will be the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle and Martyr, and will be observed at St. Paul’s Church with festival services. Owing to the vicar’s absence there will be no celebration of the Blessed Sacrament, but Mattins will be said at 11 a.m. and Fsetal Evensong sung at 7 p.m. St. Peter’s Day has always, throughout the Western Church, been regarded as a festival of the highest rank amongst the days appointed in commemoration of any of the Saints.

When a woman prisoner at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court was referred fo by a witness whom she had robbed as “the young lady,” Sheriff W. J. Robertson reproved the witnsse for the “snobbery and affectation” of his speech and said : “There are people to-day who call all sorts of rogues and vagabonds and thieves and cutpurses “ladies and gentlemen.” It is a ridiculous misuse of words. In a court of justice there are no ladies and gentlemen; only men and women.”

Everyone will be charmed with this week’s issue of the “N.Z. Sporting and Dramatic Review” with its abundance of topical illustrations gathered from all the main sources of the world. Very keen interest is sure to be taken in the pages devoted to the League football matches of the Englishmen in Australia. Graphic descriptions of the Napier Park Racing Club’s winter carnival and the Australian Jockey Club’s meeting at Randwick are afforded. The centre pages concern the British Empire Exhibition, and there is a wide miscellaneous selection.

The clocks throughout the Palmerston North Post Office hitherto excellent timekeepers, lately developed a tendency to vary, sometimes gaining or losing on alternate days. After much inconvenience (states the local "Times") the variations are now attributed to the proximity of strong magnetic currents set up oy .the automatic telephone system or from the electric light. The difficulty of obtaining reliable results from a clock attached to a car in nearness to the dynamo is quite familiar, but the vagaries of the post) office timepieces are a new experience.

His Worship the Mayor (Mr W. Marshall), accompanied by Mr E. E. Gillman, chairman of the committee, addressed the pupils of the Paeroa District High School in the school grounds on Monday last and explained the aims and objects of the Young Citizens’ League, following on the remarks made by the League’s president, Mr E. C. Cutten, S.M., at the school iu November last. The spread of the movement in this town appears to be assured, judging by the enthusiasm displayed by the children and the rate the enrolments are being received by the headmaster, Mr G. H. Taylor.

Some idea of the number of rabbits which infest the lands of the Waikato may be gauged from the statement made on Tuesday by the manager of a rabbit-skin firm at Frankton that he had received no less than 224,000 rabbits since March 11. Had the last three months not been as wet as they were he would have expected close on half .a million rabbits. The carcases are sold to Auckland firms for food, and the skins are dried and despatched to England and America. Rabbit sitin coats are much prized by Americans, who do not show any reluctance to refer to them by their proper names, as is the case in New Zealand. The prices for well made coats ranged up to 800 dollars. Coats made of rabbit skins sold in America under 57 names the value being assessed according to the treatment and cutting of the skins.

In the safe o£ the Roseland (Makaraka) Hotel, when that building was burnt to the ground recently, was a sum of niony, approximately £7O. Of this amount (reports the “Poverty Bay Herald”) about £3O was in banknotes, while the bulk of the remainder was made up in three cheques. Various speculations as to the state of the contents were made by those who witnessed the Are. The safe was opened the day after the fire, and bank officials made a careful investigation of the notes, etc. It was found that the notes were all charred, and it was quite impossible to distinguish either the names of the bank of the numbers of the notes. The cheques, on the other hand, could be easily distinguished, and the numbers were noted. Mr Bennett, the licensee, will thus lose the value (£3O) of the notes that were burnt. Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure. For Coughs and Colds, never falls

I A Masterton resident returning ! home late one night encountered a horse, which he recognised as the property of a neighbour, sleeping soundly on the road. Fearing that it might be run over by a motor-car (relates the "Wairarapa Age”), he wakened it by whispering softly in its ' car, and then led it gently by the forelock and put it into its paddock. Asking Ills friend next morning if he had found the horse all right, he got the whimsical reply that he found two of them in his paddock, and could not understand where the duplicate came from. They were both grey, and as like as twins. The sleeper of the night before was a stranger from some other street.