THE KAIPARA AND WAITEMATA ECHO With which is incorporated "The Kaipara Advertiser & Waitemata Chronicle" HELENSVILLE, THURSDAY, May 2, 1918. FLASHES.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 2 May 1918, Page 2

THE KAIPARA AND WAITEMATA ECHO With which is incorporated "The Kaipara Advertiser & Waitemata Chronicle" HELENSVILLE, THURSDAY, May 2, 1918. FLASHES.

The usual monthly memorial service will be held on Sunday next, May sth, in the Lyric Theatre, and an address will be given by the Rev. J. L. Hodson.

A meeting' of the Second Division League Committee will be held in the Helensville Library this (Thursday) evenirg at 7.30 p.m. sharp.

Miss Margaret Wilson, daughter of President Wilson, is singing at military camps throughout America under the auspices of the V.M.C.A. Miss Wilson has a beautiful voice, and is received with enthusiasm by the men in khaki wherever she goes.

The Waitemata County Council at its last meeting considered a request from Mr Vernon Reed, M.P. for Bay of Islands for the signatures of Councillors to the petition to be submitted to Parliament asking that the whole of the North Auckland peninsula be constituted a separate Crown lands district, to be known as. the Northland Land District. After a brief discussion, in which the Chairman: supported the request, and Mr A. M. Lang expressed the opinion that it would be better for the Waitemata County to be under the the control of the present Board, as its offices were Auckland city, the Council deferred the matter for a month to allow members to give it full consideration.

In the course of an address at Binning recently, Sir Arthur Yapp said that the people of London had had a taste of war now and again, but the place to realise.the^horrorof war was France and Belgium. .At Peronne he saw things enough.to .make anybody cry. The only building left standing was a V.M.C.A. hut, and ..-there everything was intact. It was marvellous how nature was repairing the desolation caused by the war He had never seen finer red poppies or more lustrous blue cornflowers than he had seen on the battlefields of France ; neither would he ever forget the scene of a queue of 200 or 300 wounded soldiers quietly, uncomplainingly waiting to enter, a V.M.C.A. hut after a battle. Queues in England were a reproach, but that queue was a tribute to the nobility and greatness of the British soldiers, covered, as. they were when he saw them, with the indescribable mud of Flanders, mingled as it was with their own blood.

To-night (Thursday) Church of England social in the Lyric Theatre. Particulars of a property for sale at Cc Pua are advertised in this issue. The Secretary of the Helensville Ac;limatization and Game Conservation Society reminds members that their annual sub. of 2/6 is now due. The authorised roll of the Second Division Reservists may now be inspected at the Secretary's (Mr L. L. 3ailey) office. To save reservists untecessary trouble it will be to their idvantage to see that their names appear mder the correct classification, as in some cases men are incorrectly classed. The Helensville School Committee has the pleasure of acknowledging, with thanks, the receipt of £10 6s 6d in aid of the formation of the school swimming bath. This sum is half the proceeds of the concert held by the Maori Entertainers on the 24th ult. The remainder of the proceeds were devoted to patriotic purposes.

When a Bay of Islands ranger wrote pathetically to his Acclimatization Society to know if he had power to search the bag of a sportsman, all the change he got from a discriminating Council was the instruction: "It all depends on whether you are physically capable of doing it." That local kody is blessed with more than average intelligence.

"We are being rationed wisely," writes a resident of Norfolk, England, "but there is nothing like famine or severe want. In fact, I am not sure of these restrictions, taken on the whole, are not beneficial. Food is dear. Butter is 2s 6d per lb, eggs 4H each, beef and bacon Is lOd to 2s per lb, but bread is plentiful and vegetables pretty cheap. I can get good apples here at 3d and 4d per lb, and potatoes at Is 2d per stone. I have any amount, and so have all the people about here, So the submarine won't starve us."

The ink bottle and the pen which abound everywhere on the writing tables of the V.M.C.A army buildings are of themselves evangelistic agencies in the V.M.C.A gospel of " Keep the home ties from breaking." Throughout these buildings ink and pen are continually asking the question, " When did you write to Mother last?" Unquestionably, thousands of mothers are hearing from their boys many times more frequently than they would get letters if the Association's investment in pens, ink, and paper were less. The opinion of the boys was well expressed by one young soldier, who said, "Those ink bottles make you feel that the V.M.C.A ■ cares more for the folks at home than you do."

Members of the Parakai branch of the Auckland Women's Patriotic League have been asked to provide goods for the Red Cross shop in Victoria Street, Auckland, on May 17th and 18th. They hope to make a canvas of the district about the 15th or 16th, asking for any saleable article. The following will give some idea of what will be useful:— Home-made cakes (with butter), homemade jams, bottled fruit and pickled, homs-made sweets (especially in jars or bottles), infants' and children's garments, knitted garments, ladies' blouses and underwear, limited supply of fancywork, plants and cut flowers, vegetables, eggs and poultry. Nothing of any value will be refused, as if impossible to ship to Auckland, will be sold here.

" I have never seen live men so far apart as Lord Rhondda and Mr Hoover work better together," said Sir William Goode in an address before the London Rotary Club. " Hoarding has been defined by the United States as the holding by dealers of more than thirty days' supplies and the purchase by individual consumers of more than the usual amounts." The American people are now asked to observe for our sakes a wheatless Monday and Wednesday, a meatless Tuesday, and one meatless and one wbeatless meal every day. Can you wonder that the following psem is having wide circulation:— My Tuesdays are meatless, My Wednesdays are wheatless, I am getting more eatless each day, My home it is heatles, My bed it is sheetless, They're all sent to the V.M.C.A, The bar-rooms are treatless, My coffee is sweetless, Each day I get poorer and wiser, My stockings are feetless, My trousers are seatless, My ! How I do hate the Kaiser !