LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 5 March 1907, Page 2

LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS

Mr C. Spiers desires to thank all who assisted in putting out the fire at the pound cottage yesterday. A mob of over 1000 sheep are now en route from the Wairarapa to Wanganui by road, the adequate railway trucks not being available. John Kinley, an old offender, was charged by the police at the local Court this morning with being drunk and fined 20s. or seven days. Mr Cockburn was the presiding J.P.

A large waterspout was disporting itself in the direction of Shannon yesterday afternoon. It -appeared at times like a gigautic stocking and then it would change in form as the wind effected it. When it broke, a heavy shower of rain fell throughout the district. Several well-known Foxtonians, we understand, left by this morning’s coach for Wellington, en route for the Exhibition, comprising Mr and Mrs Coley and two daughters, Mr T- Eee and two daughters, and last Mr h. E. Reade, our local solicitor. The latter only intends to be away for a brief period as he is due at the final test match M.C.C. New Zealand, commencing next Friday. A meeting of the Foxton Cooperative Building Society will be held in Perreau’s rooms on Friday evening at 8 o’clock to elect directors. The required number of shares has been taken up in order to make a start, but it is not too late for those who have not made application for shares to do so. This society offers a splendid opportunity to young men to invest a shilling or two a week to their advantage. Mr de Ridder, the canvasser, has been very successful in alloting shares. An incipient fire broke out in the borough pound cottage yesterday about noon. An alarm was sounded and Messrs Fred Hatfield and Goddin, and several other emyloyees at Mr Jupp’s, mill were on the spot, and quickly got it under. The fire originated in a room occupied by Mr Spiers, the poundkeeper, at the back of the cottage. A box caught and the fire was quickly getting a hold. The bedding and clothes were damaged. The poundkeeper’s book was badly burnt. The cause of the fire remains a mystery. Mrs Walls, who occupies the cottage, was not at home when the fire started.

Mr P. H. Rae-Hcward has a section of land in the Avenue for sale, price .£65 ; also sections in Main St.

There were 814 applications for sections 7 and 8, Forest Reserve, Pohangina. C. Oliver (Ashurst) secured secton 7, and W. H. V. Smith (Otaki) section 8. The Exhibition Fijians have been farewelled at Christchurch. They were quite delighted with their presents. One of them received and bore off a large packet of Epsom salts and a tin of insect powder. Note received by a school teacher not a hundred miles from Feilding : —“ Dear Sir, I should thank you to give my daughter corporal punishment instead of hitting her.”

The State, Fire Insurance Department notifies by advertise mens that Mr P-- H. Rae-Howard has been appointed Foxton and district agent. Mr Rae-Howard will inspect risks and .give insurers all information m reference to the people’s office. . A Mataura farmer, who is in the happy position of being able to hold for a rise, is reported to have sold three years’ accumulations of oats, amounting to some 10,000 sacks, at 2s 5d per bushel. The same farmer is said to have secured asßd per bushel for a similar holding three years ago. An extraordinary method of suicide was described on January Bth during the inquest on Ernest Christopher Murray at the St. Pancras Coroner’s Court. He barricaded • himself in his room, smeared his bedclothing and the floor of his room with butter, and set fire to the room. The jury found that he committed suicide while of unsound mind by setting his room on fire.

Writer in the English Gardener states that the best way to keep flowers is to put the stalks in boiling water for ten minutes immediately after picking them. The boiling water has the effect of sealing up the pores, and prevents the sap from running out. Flowers with hard, woody stems will live ten days or a fortnight in this way. The method has been proved to be very successful with dahlias, Japanese anemones, perennial sunflowers (all when cut with long stalks and foliage), with Michaelmas daisies, long trails of Virginian creeper, sweet verbena, and also lilac, syringa, and branches of wild rose.

A story of a cow and a lost ring is telegraphed from Melbourne to a Sydney paper as follows :—Mr Easton Johnstone, of Wallan states that some seven years ago he lost a gold ring, which he thought must have fallen from his waistcoat pocket into a trough in which he was mixing bran and chaff for a cow. Having searched insuccessfully he came to the conclusion that the cow must have swallowed the ring. A few days ago, in the presence of.a Government official and others, the cow, being condemned, was killed, and upon a post mortem examination being made the ring was found in the appendix, none the worse for its seven years remarkable burial. The towns of Stratford and Midhurst have been quite excited over the trial of a civil action in which Dr. Paget sued a farmer named Mr. Lowry Baskin for damages. It seems the doctor was sent for to attend Mrs. Baskin, in her confinement. When his last visit was being paid he was taxed' with having used certain language which the defendant thought was insulting or disrespectful. Angry words passed, then blows, both parties claiming that the other struck tne first blow. Under examination the defendant said that the doctor struck him with his riding whip, whereupon he struck the doctor back, then “dumped him on some firewood and thumbed him all he could.” Drs. Carbery and Wylie testified that on the eve of the assault they found Dr. Paget suffering from a broken arm, a wound on the forehead, and a contusion on the back of the head. The j ury returned a verdict for the defendant.

Mr William O’Brien, M.P., hits back hard in reply to the statements made in New Zealand this week by Mr Devlin, M.P., who has been collecting funds in Australasia for the United. Irish Deague. Says Mr O’Brien: Mr Devlin astutely put off his defamation of me until his Australian collections were completed. The Mid-Cork election was provoked by the expulsion from the Irish party of Mr Sheehan, and Mr John O’Donnell without any form of trial and without the Irish party being in any way consulted. The effect on Irish opinion is that not only was Mr Sheehan re-elected unanimously in Mid-Cork, but four other Irish constituencies— South-east Cork, East Kerry, West Cork, and South Mayo—have now openly sided with MidCork. The Irish party is only kept alive by subscriptions from America and Australia, contributed under a total misapprehension of the situation. The league is dying on its legs. Mr Devlin on his return won’t be able to find a public audience in any city of Ireland except Catholic Belfast, and there his partisans are engaged in a war to the knife against the Catholic bishop, while Mr Devlin is covering Cardinal Moran and the Australian clergy with adulation. The whole question of the government of the party and the administration of its funds will now be fully investigated by means of legal proceedings Messrs Sheehan and O’Donnell have instituted. The statements of Mr Donovan deserve no notice in Ireland, where he is quite unknown outside two wards of Belfast.”

The Hon. Hall-Jones states that the Exhibition will definitely eld s 6 on April 15th. The Borough Council insert a . notice re the District Electors Eist in another column.

The Manawatu County Council call tenders for the erection of a cottage at Himatangi and construction of 38 chains of drain.

The assault case Walls v. McDermott, was heard before Messrs Alf Fraser and A. Cockburn, J.’sP., this afternoon. Defendant was fined 20s and costs 17s, or seven days.

Nominations close for the St. Patrick’s Day sports to-morrow, March 6th, with the Secretaries, P.O, Box 50, Palmerston North. Entries for events 16 and 17 close on March 16th.

Over a thousand visitors have signed their names in the visitors’ book at the Dawson’s Falls Mountain House (Mount Egmont) already this season. This shows what a valuable asset a mountain is.

Mr Hickson was the first flaxmiller to put in hemp— 5 bales—into the N.Z. Shipping Go’s shed this morning. Forty-four other bales will be deposited there today.

We are informed that the N.Z. Shipping Co.’s dumping and grading shed were formally opened this morning and the following toasts were honoured: “The Manager” (Mr, Phillips), “ Flaxmillers,” ”, Contractors ” , (Messrs Young and Petteley), “ Architect ” (Mr J. W. Rough). Short speeches were made by ? Messrs'Phillips, Ross senr., O. - Austin, Hickson and Petteley. The flag was. unfurled and three cheers given for the N.Z., Shipping Co., and flaxmillers. The prospect of the potato crop is an important subject in Hastings. Mr McCarthy at Te Mata,. has largely escaped the blight, and he attributes this to carrying out the suggestion he received in a leaflet from Dublin as to the spraying proportions. The mixture recommended by the New Zealand Government is 41b blue stone and 4lb washing soda to 40 gallons of water. The Dublin recipe is 81b of blue stone and 81b washing soda to the same quantity of water.

A widow obtained an order in the Stipendiary Magistrate’s Court in Auckland, ordering each of her sons to contribute four shillings weekly to her support. The younger son is fourteen years of age, and, since the death of his father, has been brought up by an elder brother. This order includes the youngest son by name, and as he, a mere schoolboy, was unable to pay his contribution of four shillings per week, he has been arrested and is now in the gaol at New Plymouth,

Fish may now be kept - as fresh as if they had the salt water drip: ping from them. The Riverton correspondent of the Southland News writes: “I was presented with some flounders by Mr W. Bromdy, our local fisherman, which had been immersed in a liquid invented by Mr Wilson, of Otautau. The fish had been under treatment for about ten days, and were quite fresh and inviting. Such an invention should prove a gold mine for the inventor and a good thing for the colony.