THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, MAY, 18, 1927. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5127, 18 May 1927, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, MAY, 18, 1927. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Owing to the increase in crime in Auckland the Commissioner of Police has appointed five more detectives to that city.

Extensive oil-boring operations are to be commenced in the Whangamomona district, behind Stratford, in the near .future, and there is a likelihood of an amount approaching £lOO,-000-being spent within the next two or three years.

The first offender who was charged with drunkenness while in charge of a horse and gig at Paeroa on Saturday afternoon and remanded at the local Police Court on Monday morning, appeared before the Justices on Monday afternoon. Senior-Stergeant D. A. Maclean appeared for the police and Mr R. S. Carden for the defendant, who pleaded not guilty. After hearing the evidence of a number of witnesses as to whether the defendant had taken drink or was incapable of driving his horse and gig, the Justices of the Peace, Messrs B. Gwilliam and G. P. Lamb, decided that the evidence did not prove the charge and the case was dismissed. An order fo*r the suppression of the name of the defendant and witnesses was also made-.

Superstition dies hard. A Thames lady’ designed to leave by the Marama for Sydney last week. On learning the sailing date was Friday, the 13th, she postponed; her departure until the next steamer. 1

The Ngatea District High School having been raised in grade. on 4 account of the large increase in the roll number, applications for the positions of headmaster and infant mistress were- called recently. At its last meeting the School Commi.tte adopted the recommendation of the Education Board that Miss Gray be appointed infant mistress from the 18th instant.

As the result of a protest made recently the Minister of Health, the Hon. J. A. Young, has cancelled the contract for the erection of three villas at Stoke, near Nelson, for the accommodation of approximately 130 classified patients. The protest was made on account of the proximity of mental hospital accommodation to Nelson. The villas will, therefore, be erected in a. different part of the district, but in a locality to which no objection is likely to be voiced.

There are more ways than one of securing cheap coal supplies (states the Waikato Times). Recently, on the railway crossing at Frankton a scene that would make those unfortunate beings who could not afford to run cars turn green with envy was enacted. A certain car was pulled up on the side of the road, aind the owner was busily engaged in picking up lumps of coal off the train line. The coal bunker had been specially kind to th elucky coal lifter, and he was able to collect his week’s supply free of cost.

A new bird, the turken, a cross between a turkey and a Rhode Island hen, and which, it is said, will effect a revolution in the poultry business, has been raised in Canada. It has. a hen’s body and a turkey’s head.

It is estimated that Liverpool people alone invested about £50,006 in sweepstakes, on the Grand National, which was run at Aintree on March 25. More than 40,000 10s tickets

were sold to members in the Exchange- News Room “sweep.” The first prize was considerably more than £BOOO, the second £3OOO, and the third £l5OO, and the fourth £lOOO. In the Cotton Exchange sweepstakes the winner received £5OOO and the three other chief prizes were £2OOO. £lOOO, and £5OO. From the Liverpool Stock Enchange sweepstakes £5OOO mad up from 10s tickets to members, was distributed, and there were hundreds of smaller sweepstakes.

An inspector, has been appointed ed to control the traffic on the Great South Road between Otahuhu and Papakura. This has been found necessary owing to the speeding of motorists on the new concrete section.

This morning a batch of 25 unemployed men arrived by steamer and were taken direct by the Public Works lorries to the construction work on the Waihi-Whangamata road.

Patetonga footballers had an unenviable experience on Saturday last, when the Plains West team journeyed to Turua to play an inter-club match. One car negotiated the clay roads without serious mishap, but a motor lorry was stuck several times and had to be lifted out of holes by the passengers. Rather than risk the road in the dark the return journey was made via Paeroa and Morri,nsville.

The Thames Valley A. and P. Association (Te Aroha) had a most successful show last year. It started the year with a debit of £153 and commitments amounting to £45, making a total of £l9B. The year’s operations were so successful that they finished ■up with a credit of £42 14s.

Ror the purpose of discussing the question of forming a drainage board in the Netherton riding, a meeting of the Netherton ratepayers will be held in the Netherton Hall on Saturday next, May 21.

For throwing a corrosive substance in her husband’s face, causing bodily harm, Evelyn Creasey, who appeared in the Supreme Court at Invercargill yesterday, was sentenced to 12 months’ reformative detention.

The Waikato Hospital Board decided on Thursday to raise the salary of Dr. G. W. Gower from £l2OO to £l4OO per annum. The secretary, Mr E. J. Johnson, was appointed secret--1 tary-manager, and had his salary increased from £5OO to £6OO per annum.

When a Yugoslav was sentenced in the Police Court at Auckland on Monday on a charge of being an idle and disorderly person he stood in the dock with hands folded across his chest and, with tears streaming down his face, commenced singing “The Prisoner’s Song.”

Some people have been heard to remark that times were hard in Wanganui just now (says the Wanganui Herald). Any idea of this statement being correct is discounted by the fact that for the performances of “No, No, Nanette!” at the Opera House last week over £l2OO was taken.

The astonishing statement that he thought a single man required £3OO a year to live on waS made at a bankruptcy meeting in Hamilton on Monday, when William Leslie Carr was examined by the Deputy-Official Assignee. Bankrupt’s schedule showed a debt amounting to £10'93 18s 6d, of which £5OO was secured by a mortgage, leaving a deficit of £593 18s 6d. A horse named “Jock,” aged 21 years, and 50 shares in a box company possessed by bankrupt were declared to be valueless.

The biggest newspaper ever published was the “Illustrated Quadruple Constellation,” issued in New York in 1859.. The paper measured 8% feet in height and 6 feet in width, and consisted of eight pages, each containing thirteen columns. A ream of the strong paper on which it was printed weighed 3cwt. Forty people were occupied continually for eight weeks in order to bring out this oddity, which its designers proposed shouldb e issued once every century.

“Motorists asked to be taxed, so that revenue would be available to the Government to make better roads. It may surprise you, but motorists in New Zealand are the highest taxed of all motorists in any part of the world. We pay ordinary taxes, tyre tax, motor-car import duty, road tax, license fees, and petrol import duty—tot them all up, and a few others not mentioned, and you will find that motorists in this country are really paying more than their fellows elsewhere.”—These remarks wc-re made at the meeting of the Te Awamutu branch of the A.'A.A. on Monday.

M. Baleine is well known in the showmen’s world of France as the person who earns his living by swallowing frogs alive. All his season, on the Promenade des Anglais, the fashionable waterfront of Nice, Baleine is a conspicuous figure arriving with a large glass bowl containing half a dozen live frogs, and another from which he drinks about two quarts of water. He swallows the frogs one after another, after which he collects tribute. After ten minutes he takes the frogs from his mouth, alive and apparently none the worse for their sojourn, and, with jocular remarks about Jonah, restores them to the bowl.

•There is not a great deal of unemployment in Hamilton at present. So far the borough engineer has been able to place all men who are worth a place in jobs (said the Mayor to a Waikato Times representative). He added that latterly a few unemployed from outside had been drifting into the town. The Poppy Day funds collected would be subsidised, by the Borough Council and utilised for relief work for unemployed ex-soldiers.

An amusing story is told of a discovery made by a canvasser for the Poverty Bay Power. Board. The people of a house at which he was calling were unaware that he was a representative of the board, and on seeing a cord running from the light socket in one room through a hole in the wall to the adjoining room he asked what it was fer. “Oh, that’s a little scheme to beat the Power Board,” was the reply. The canvasser then informed the householder that he was representing the board, and asked to see “the little scheme” On going into the next room he found there a heating unit attached by the cord to the light socket in the next room. Thus the householder was paying 7d a. unit for ’heating, whereas if he had had a plug installed i.t woud have cost him only 3d. This kind of, "beating” would no doubt be welcomed, by; the board.