GENERAL NEWS.

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 111, 19 December 1918, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS.

Mrs Mallett, formerly of Morrinsville, lias received word that her brother lias died in Mesopotamia. Some idea of the effect of the epidemic on business was given by a commercial traveller who stated his orders from Waihi, Paeroa and Te Aroha totalled about a tenth of liis customary figures. In a letter Sergeant C. McDavitt gives a little information about the death of Captain-Chaplain C. A. Mallett. He writes “ Chaplain Mallett was sleeping iu a small hut adjoining tl;e medical hut. Somehow the medical hut caught fire and liis body was found in the doorway of his hut. The cause of the fire was a mystery.” An exciting experience bofel a settler at Awaroa, Golden Bay, during a thunderstorm recently. He was milking the cows when a flash of lightning struck the yard, killing one of the animals, and felling a number of others, including the one he was milking. A horse in an adjoining paddock was also knocked over, and several fencing posts were split. The Eev. W. Blair, who died recently at Invercargill from influenza, was well-known in this district. He was the first Presbyterian Minister of the Te Aroha-Morrins'dllo charge when it was advanced from a home mission. He remained in charge until a further division took place, Morrinsville becoming a separate distinct. He was succeeded by Mr Butler. They have a delightfully simple way of arranging the meat supply in an old-fashioned village in Cambridgeshire (says a London newspaper). Once or twice a week the butcher sends liis boy round to all his customers to take note of their wants, and if the requirements warrant it he kills a sheep. If between them the customers cannot bespeak the entire animal, nobody gets anything for the sheep is not killed. The village either goes meatless or falls back on bacon.

It is rather quaint to observe that our two illustrious leaders contemplate another hand in hand descent on the Old Country, for where a Commonwealth can be represented by one statesman it is impossible for this small Dominion to do the British with less than two. It is, of course, perfectly desirable from a political point of view that Mr Massey shall not leave Sir Joseph Ward in Now Zealand to push the barrow of “ Liberalism,” and it is equally desirable from the political point of view that Sir Joseph shall not leave Mr Massoy behind to roll the old chariot of “Beform” along. As a matter of tactics, the withdrawal of those two gentleman, who can thus watch over each other, is a superb illustration of the political trust our leaders put in each other. Are they justified in suspecting each other of ulterior motives ? No elector in all New Zealand would suggest that the idea of continued power and perquisites hud anything to do with this careful guardianship of each other. One prefers to bolieve that tho two gontlomen intend to spend several thousand moro pounds of public funds on each other to demonstrate their devotion to the people, and for no ulterior political motives whatever. The people who pay the bill might augment it by a universal purse of sovereigns in testimony of their belief in the. utter unselfishness of our greatest men. — * Observer.’