LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4727, 21 July 1924, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

wroni to-day Messrs R. P. Gibbous, Ltd., of Kopu, take over and control the Kopu-Orongo ferry. A porpoise almost nine feet long was washed up on the bank of the Waihou River near the Kopu ferry during the week-end. The preliminary hearing of the burglary charge preferred against John Johnson, charged with breaking, entering. and theft from the business premises of Messrs Slyfleld and Wright, Paeroa, will be taken at the Police Court, Paeroa, to-morrow.

A man named James Grant, aged about fifty years, a .labourer lately employed on the railway construction works, Paeroa, was arrested by Constable McClinchy this morning on 5 warrant issued from Auckland for failing to provide adequate maintenance for his wife, Emily Grant. He will be taken under escort to Auckland to-morrow morning.

The youth, an ex-employee of the Paeroa Post Office, who was charged with the theft of postal packets, appeared before Mr W. F. North, J.P., at the Court on Friday afternoon, a further remand being granted until July 26. Mr R. S. Carden appeared for the accused. Bail was allowed, himself in one sum of £5O, and one surety of £lOO.

Thc weather locally during the week-end was somewhat boisterous. •Although no rain fell on Saturday, there was a cold south-westerly wind blowing. Shortly after mid-day yesterday the weather broke and heavy westerly showers fell intermittently, culminating in a heavy thunderstorm accompanied by hail and sleet shortly before eleven o’clock this morning. The weather has been much colder during the last few days.

The Main Highways Act, 1922, dividing New Zealand into eighteen highway districts, has now been amended by adding to the description of the area of each district the words ‘‘including all town districts not forming part thereof that are situated within the boundaries of any sucn county.” To the No. 2 district th§ words “All that area comprised within the Avondale Borough” have been added.

A Chinese newspaper contains this letter from an applicant for work’. “Sir,—l am Wang. . . I can drive a typewriter with good noise and my English is great. . . My last job has left itself from me, for the good reason that the large man had dead. It was on account of no fault of mine. So, honourable sirs, what about it ? If I can be of big use to you, I will arrive on some date that you should guess.”

What might easily have been a serious accident was narrowly averted on Friday afternoon. It appears that a two-seater Ford car was being driven along Arney Street at a moderate pace when, in attempting to turn the corner into Normanby Road, a gear-wheel in the steering gear broke, causing the car to get out pf control. With presence of mind the driver shut off the engine, and the car crossed Arney Street at right angles, negotiated the footpath safely, and came to rest against the stone kerbing enclosing the flower-beds.

A canny Morrinsville business man used to make it a practice to take the electric bulbs out of the sockets of the fixtures iu front of his shop at night, lest they should be stolen (states the Morrinsville “Star”)., He discontinued the habit on account of the breakages of lamps. Since the theft wave has reached Morrinsville and bulbs have been stolen from outside fixtures he has been placed between the devil and the deep blue sea, and is puzzling over the quandary of whether he should take the bulbs in and risk the breakage or leave them out ai d risk them being stolen.

“A county council has no morals,” declared Or. Smyth at the meeting of the Waitomo Council recently, when a letter from the Bank of Australasia, appealing that the council should, on moral grounds, pay half the cost of the fence erected by it between the properties of the two bodies was being considered (reports the “King Country Chronicle”). “Speak for yourself, Cr. Smyth,” retorted Cr. Thoms. Several councillors commented that the bank was not in the habit of considering anything but legal obligations, and it was decided to adhere to the pievious refusal tp pay any part of the cost of the fence.

A somewhat heated argument took place outside a certain garage in Napier the other day, when the owner of a car asked for a refill of his petrol tank. Having given the order (recounts the “Telegraph”) he yvalked away, and, returning shortly after, drove off, only to find that his (as he thought) newly-filled tank had again been very mysteriously depleted of benzine. Returning to the garage he remonstrated, but was assured that the tank had been filled. Subsequent inquiries elicited the fact that the man detailed off for the job had obligingly filled the tank of another car that was standing near. The owner of the latter vehicle is now (it is rumoured) going about singing the praise of his car which, he declares, runs on practically no benzine at all.

For Influenza, take Woods’ Great Peppermiht Cure.