GENERAL NEWS.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 29 November 1917, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

A cinematograph firm was fined £5 at Dargavillc on Tuesday for showing films which had not been passed by the censor. It was stated that this was tho first case of the kind heard in the Dominion. It is stated that within the last three weeks over 800 yearling cattle have been sent from Taranaki to various parts of the North Island. The majority were heifers, one line of over .100 Jersey heifers being sent north to start a dairv herd.

Publicity has recently been given to a statement that the Fourth Brigade of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force has been, or is about to be, disbanded. The Minister of Defence (Sir James Allen) stated yesterday that he had made no such announcement, and added that the Fourth Brigade is not yet disbanded, and he has received no report from Gen. Godley that it is to be.

A correspondent of the Motucka "Star" reports that a young lady not ten miles from Pokororo has "donned the bkieys" this season and is shearing her father's sheep, owing to the dearth of labour, with very satisfactory results. Some time ago a similar case was reported in Sandy Bay, where a young lady has done fine work on her father's run with the blades.

Four well-known schoolmasters from certain schools in the Wanganui district are anxious to assist the Dominion's requirements during the pending Christmas holidays, and have decided to go harvesting where the chevalier barley grows in Blenheim. The action of the schoolmasters is being followed up by many children, who, particularly from higher classes, have engaged to go harvesting in the Hawke's Bay district.

A sad accident occurred at Mania, near Masterton, on Thursday afternoon, when the cighteen-old-months son of Mr and Mrs T. H. Rutherford was drowned in a water-race. It appears that Mrs Rutherford went out to feed the fowls, leaving the infant playing on tHe grass. She was absent only a short while,' and on returning to the house missed the ehild. On searching, the mother found the baby lying in about two feet of water in a race that passes through the varcl, and which is netted off except at a spot leading across a plank to the fowl run.

In North's second innings in their match versus Trentham, at the Basin Reserve on Saturday afternoon, C. G. Wilson lifted one of Shackloek ? s swift deliveries from the centre of the field right out into the roadway, where the ball bounced and neatly holing one of the lower windows of the Caledonian Hotel, landed in the dining-room. It was a fine hit. good for six runs, and in celebration thereof a little "liquidation" —"for the good of the house" — resulted. Among the tests to which the iron from the Moturoa works was put at Wellington some ten days ago was the breaking strains of bars 3ft long by 2in by lin. The supports of the bars were exactly three feet apart, and ■weights were applied in the centre until fracture occurred. In the case of a bar made from pure Taranaki pig, fracture occurred when MOcwt had been applied and the deflection measured 7-lGths of an inch. The second bar, half Taranaki and half scrap, broke at 29cwt, but the deflection was not taken. The third bar, o.ne part Taranaki and throe parts scrap, broke at 28cwt, deflection 11-32 of an inch. The "Taranaki Herald" says: These results will convey more to the uninitiated if we explain that an ordinarily good iron will break under the same conditions with a weight ol 22c\\t or 23cwt. Thus the pure Taranaki iron is shown to stand one-third greater strain than ordinary iron.

The Government recently received from the Koine authorities an inquiry as to whether provision could be made for the treatment, at the thermal springs of New Zealand, of a limited number of Imperial officers, suffering from injuries received in the war. The Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. G. W. Russell, states that the Imperial Government has been invited to send 20 officers to Rotorua as an experiment. Provision has been made for their treat-

ment on the same lines as that received by New Zealand soldiers, except that they will be expected to make their own arrangeemnts for lodgings. The Minister also states that applications for treatment have been received from a number of Australian soldiers, who had been informed that they might come to New Zealand and be treated as ordinary patients. He added that if the Commonwealth Government made application for the treatment of Australian soldiers at the thermal springs, the request, he had very little doubt, would receive favourable consideration.

The opening of a shop "by a titled lady like Viscountess Gort_ (says a writer in the "Daily News") attracts far more notice in this country than it would in France, where many aristocrats earn their living in less lucrative ways than those of a' West End milliner. M. Xavier de Nimal states in his "Nobles et Noblesse" that the present Marquis de Torcey <3 'Etallonde keeps an inn at Carnac, the Marquis do Foligne is an omnibus conductor, the Comte de la Murchc is a house painter the Baron de Rosgrand works in a tiour mill, the Baron do Soigny is n postman, and the Comte dc St. Paul is

Peculiar circumstances were disclosed at the Court-Martial proceedings at Paimerston North in which Michael Ivillalea was charged with desertion. Accused appeared in Court in a very agitated state and gave evidence that lie had been hiding in a trench and then in a cave in a back-block locality 50 miles from Waitotara for several months in deadly fe:ir of apprehension because his employer had told him that if he ga-ve himself up lie would be shot. lie used to cut his employer's bush and plant potatoes while the latter did "sentry go" up and down Ihe section. At one period he hid himself in a trench for seven weeks until the rain drove him out, but his employer would not let him live in a whare for fear he would be caught, so he made another dug-out in a sandstone hill on higher ground. His employer kept him on starvation wages during the whole period, and refused to give up £30 belonging to Ivillalea, and threatened to blow his brains out if ho informed on him. Later he got £20 from his employer and went on to another property/ where ho was arrested on a bush track by a local constable. The employer's alleged actions will probably form the matter of further proceedings. ■

Edward Sullivan, a. trimmer aboard a transport, pleaded guilty at the Wellington Police Court yesterday of an attempted theft of a crate of cheese, the property of the Defence Department. The 'Magistrate remarked that stealing front ships was rife throughout the Dominion and something must be done to put a stop to it. A sentence of six months' imprisonment was imposed. Confirmation has been received of the following sentences imposed by the District Court-Martial which sat on Monday-: Robert Horace Phillips, charged with deserting His Majesty's. Forces, at Inglewood on June 27, 1917, was sentenced to 11 months' hard labour. Frank Vincent Gully, who pleaded not guilty for failing to parade for mcdical examination at Masterton on July 12, 1917, was sentenced to 112 days' detention.

At the Police Court, Dunedin, yesterday, Briggs Bros., trading as J. R. Briggs, were charged with failing to file certain orders for liquor sent into a no-license district, and to produce same when requested by the police. It was stated by the police that the defendants produced orders at the first request. One of these orders was declared by the police to be a forgery. The defendants refused to give up possession of, or to allow T a tracing to be made, of the alleged forged order. Defendants' counsel put in two orders which he said were those shown to the police, but both constables swore that one was not one of those previously shown. Mr Young, S.M., said he thought the order, -which the defendants in this ease had refused to produce, had probably been destroyed with the intention to stifle the prosecution. Defendants would be fined the maximum penalty of £50.

It is just over eight years since Louis Bleriot made the first flight across the English Channel. In 1909 the achievement astounded the world. To-day thousands of aviators make the trip in 1 few minutes. The importance of Bleriot's achievement can hardly be overestimated for it attracted world-wide attention to the possibilities of aviation. Now-a-days, few of the European aviators would care about tackling the Channel trip on the 25 h.p. Anzaniequipped monoplane; in fact the engine only gave off 18 h.p. Two striking features of Bleriot'a fright were, that he was so lame, owing to an accident, that he could not walk, and the fact that his historical monoplane had never flown over the earth for as long a period as was necessary for the Dover to Calais trip.

While Private Gordon Davey, son of Mr and Mrs Davey, of Himatangi, was lying ill hospital, a wounded soldier was brought in and placed in an adjoining cot. Private Gordon Davey, in assisting to make the new patient comfortable, discovered that the newcomer was his brother George, who had been gassed and wounded.

An Opuuake resident lost a valuable diamond ring in her back yard recently and after a good deal of anxious searching was unable to recover the lost treasure (states the- "Times"). The owiier then hit upon the noval plan of holding a small children's party and offering a prize to the little girl who was succcssful in finding the ring. The children entered into the treasure hunt competition with energy and pleasure, and one of them was successful in recovering it, and the novel plan resulted very satisfactorily to all parties concerned.