LOCAL AND GENERAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 382, 29 July 1911, Page 5

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The many friends of the Rev. P. B. Fraser, who visited Te Kuiti last week organising the Presbyterian Church work, wiil be very sorry to hear that he has sustained a great loss, through the unexpected death of his wife yesterday morning. Mrs Fraser has not been in good heaith for some time, but the collapse came very suddenly.

The horticulturist at the Rnakura Experimental Farm has produced, by means of cross pollination between two varieties, a new variety of phormium tenax, which has proved to be a edium-growing flax giving a high percentage of fine quality fibre.

Paths Freres are establishing a picture-making factory in New Zealand. A number of operators will be despatched to various parts of the country, and everything of interest will be nhotograpbed, special attention being devoted to the industrial enterprises.

The visit of the Sheffield Choir to New Zealand led to an enormous demand for "Pelorus Jack" postcards. The members had heard of Jack, but regarded the story as part, of Maori -savthology a picturesque fable. W&en they found he was real they -serA oostcard3 all over the world.

A corespondent once wrote to the ]ateSir*W. T. Gilbert, complaining of the use of the word "coyful" in one of his operas. "How can anyone be full of-coy?" inquired the critic. ■"I don't know," replied the author of Bab Ballads, "but recently having come across the word 'bashful,' I am trying to discover how any one can be of 'bash.' "

"Who would go dairying in the winter?" asked Mr J. R. Scott when asked the high prices were mentioned to him. "There's no poorer-paid man in the Dominion than the men who supply milk to the town and those who go in for •dairying in the winter," he added. "They are on a par with washerwomen and clerks, who are also very much underpaid."

The Mayor of Palmerston North has been authorised to call a meeting of the ratepayers for the purpose of submitting a proposal for the installation of an electric car service for the Borough, such service to be the Edison storage battery at a cost of £45,000 for an eight mile service.

At a meet : ng of managers of the Te Kuiti Presbyteriiin Church held during the week, the matter of seating the new church was discussed at some length as to whether chairs or pew 3 should be used. It was eventually decided that the pews would be most serviceable, and an order for the same was lodged with the new firm of Pattison and Lockington, whose ten der was the lowest received.

A meeting of sheepowners in Masterton decided not to depart from the rate customary in the district for shearing sheep, viz., 20s per 100; 18s 6d per 100 for lambs. The Rev. Armstrong, as President of tfee local No-license League, forwarded a message of condolence on behalf of that body, to Mrs T. E. Taylor, Christchurch, expressing sympathy and a deep sense of loss by the sudden decease of so good and great a temperance leader as Mr T. E. Taylor.