Interesting Items.

Manawatu Herald, 14 January 1905, Page 2

Interesting Items.

The New Year was ushered in Carterton by gales, rain, and bitterly cold weather. A farmer over that way exeressed himself thus —“Lor if this is summer, how many of us will see winter ?”

The Taihape Brass Band bad a lively time on Boxing Day, when the five-horse waggon in which it was travelling got into difficulties in the Moawhango Ford. The river was running high, and the swingle-trees got adrift from the pole. The driver, in attempting to turn the horses up stream, fell off, the centre wheel horse fell over on its back, and a bandsman who attempted to straighten out the tangled skein also tumbled overboard. A Maori named Riwi-teike plunged in on horseback and saved the drowning driver, and two bandsmen rescued their comrade. The centre horse was already drowned, and the rest, with the harness and swingle-trees, Were recovered with difficulty.

Alarmed at President Roosevelt's declaration concerning Americans and race suicide, the women of Boston have founded an insurance system for the encouragement of maternity. For the birth of each child mothers may obtain from £io to £IOO from an incorporated association charging small fees. It is stipulated that 18 months must elapse between the birth of each child in one family.

Two sweet young things resplendent amid the daintiness of frills and Bounces tripped into a local shop on Wednesday and asked demurely for sixpenn’orth of toilet requisites. Whilst the man behind the counter hastened to comply with the request, his charming customers with a deftness characteristic of their calling annexed sundry small goods to the value of 20s from the counter. Five minutes after a bellicose shopkeeper was hot upon the trail of the frills and flounces, and an interesting interview on a boardinghouse doorstep, followed by indignation, tears, and eventually cash reparation, closed an unpleasant incident.—The Manawatu Times.

The Ashurst correspondent of the Manawatu Standard, moralising on New Year’s Eve, says “ Several new faces have knocked at our door,” Another sign of the times, says the Examiner, when faces go knocking, but perhaps they were hard faces.

While waiting for a train at St. Louis, Alia., Jasper Gomers sat on a piece of tar, and fell asleep. When he awoke the tar had softened, and he had sunk into the stuff until hia feet, arms, and head only were outside. He had to be chopped out with an axe.