LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 9 February 1909, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The death is announced of Mr M. Staunton, postmaster at Waipawa, aged 51 years. “ Archie” M’Neil, the prisoner who escaped from the Terrace Gaol, is now reported to be in the Wanganui district. Considerable anxiety is felt as to the whereabouts or fate of Mr Matthew Todd, a Feilding baker, formerly in business in Palmerstou_

A man was rescued alive in Messina, after having been buried for 37 days in a confectioner’s shop. He fed on sweetmeats and liqueurs. Charles Adam Mason, farmer 63, of Puerua, near Dunedin, fell dead while milking a cow. His wife was speaking to him at the time.

Mr Fred Williams, late of Foxton, has leased a peice of land from the Mouloa Estate near the late Shannon ferry site and is dairying there.

Great bargains in drapery, millinery, and sunshades are announced for this week at the Bon March?, Palmerston. It will pay buyers to see these parting prices.* Absorbing interest is being taken in the approaching visit of King Edward and Queen Alexandra to the Kaiser. The police are overwhelmed with applications for tickets to witness the entry of the Royal visitors into Berlin.

Splendid crops of rape may be seen in every direction along the Manawatu line, and especially about Shannon. If this is a criterion of rape crops in other districts, no wonder lambs are fetching high prices. A splendid specimen of a cucumber, grown by Mr W. Nye, of Park Street, from Sutton’s seed, was left at our office yesterday. The vegetable pleasured ift 6j£in in length, with a proportionate girth. E. Durnan (the Canadian sculler, who was defeated by G- Towns for the championship of the world) is anxious for a match with the champion Arnst. He offers to pay Arnst £2OO expenses (the amount demanded by Arnst for a match with Barry in England). At the local Court yesterday morning, before Messrs P. J. Hennessy and F. W. Frankland, J’s.P., a first offending inebriate was convicted and discharged, and a prohibition order granted against him on the application of the police.

The body of the child Klsie Hausen, who was drowned in the Manawatu River on Friday, was recovered on Saturday morning by Mr Rivers. An inquest was held, and a verdict of accidental death was recorded.

Mr Neils Hansen, a well-known farmer, of Stanway, was driving home from church with his wife last Sunday, when his horse shied, and Mr Hansen was thrown out of the buggy and killed, “The only person that hasn’t got a mortgage now is the person that has nothing to mortgage,’’ observed the Mayor of Mastertou, during the course of a discussion at the meeting of the Masterton Borough Council on Tuesday evening.

Two sous of Mr John Close, of Murrungowa, Victoria, aged three and seven years respectively, died last week from the effects of eating unripe fruit. The remainder of the family, four girls, the eldest of whom is 13 years of age, are in a precarious state from the same cause.

The police raided Mrs Crooks’ Royal boarding house at Oamaru „on Saturday, in search of sly-grog. They found a bottle and a half of whisky, which they took possession of.

The Christchurch Supreme Court calendar is very light. Robert Carlyle, for breaking and entering and theft, got three years’ hard labour, and was declared an habitual criminal. Albert Walker and Walter Yeadon, for breaking and entering got three months without hard labour.

In accordance with his promise to have a Royal Commission set up to inquire into the alleged charges of bribery in connection with the Ohinemuri Incensing Committee of some years ago, the Prime Minister has asked the Chief Justice to arrange for two of his colleagues of the Supreme Court Bench to accept the office of Royay Commissioners for the purposes of the inquiry. When Saturday’s express from Auckland was coming down the Main Trunk it was delayed by requirements of the Works-De-partment. This, however, the big engines made up, and coming down the Raurimu incline the train was travelling so fast that at one curve the occupants of one of the carriages were thrown over against each other and one elderly passenger was so alarmed that she began to pray for the safety of the train. Palmerston Times. Mr A. P. Whatman, of Masterton, has entered into a legal bond to pay jC 1000 towards the cost of a battleship, to be subscribed for by the people of New Zealand, and presented to the British Navy. The conditions are that the Government are not to subsidise the subscription, the ship is to be called the Abbottsford, and the balance of a million pounds is to be raised within twelve months. “ You don’t need to think that you can sit here Sunday alter Sunday and drowse off to sleep while I am up here in the pulpit all sweat and hollerin’ until I am hoarse, trying to wake you up, that you can refuse to pay me anything for my labour and expect to ever enter into the Golden Gates. There is a day of reckoning coming, brethren.” —(From a sermon by the Rev Mr Moore, reported in the Bingville Bugle, U.S.A.) The magazine Da Revue, published in Paris, states that the Dowager-Empress of China, before dying, induced Yuau-Shih-kai (the recently dismissed Grand Councillor), Prince Chun (now Regent), and the Chief Eunuch to compel the Emperor to take opium and suffocate himself with gold leaf, under a threat of strangulation. The Emperor did what was wanted, hence the refusal of European medical help. The Empress then appointed the present ruler (the infant Pu-yi) and died next day. On Thursday, the whole of Messrs Vcilch and Allan’s stock will be offered to the public at clearing prices. Every article throughout the extensive building has been reduced to a price that will leave no possibility of nonclearance- Country residents who can spare the time will be amply repaid by making a special trip to Wellington to participate in the sale. Everything for the home can be bought at this store. The mail brings those who are prevented from attending in person directly in touch with the great values offered. A special announcement appears with this issue, but space does not permit the firm cataloguing a tithe of the lines to be sold. Customers can order anything they may require, and can rest assured of getting the benefit of the drastic reductions.*

Greal dissolution sale at Watchorn and Stiles’, on Saturday, January 10 th. Stock to be sacrificed regardless of price.*

The champion bullock at the Boston Show weighed 22j£cwt., artd was the heaviest in the country. It was sold for ,£43 10s.

The first shell snails were introduced into New Zealand on some plants imported by the Auckland Acclimatisation Society. Captain Norris, then agent for the Society at Tauranga, begged a few, and carefully nurtured them on lettuce leaves —they reminded him so of the dear Old Band. He took such care of them that a few years later he was paying good coin for small boys to pick them out of his lettuce and out of his orchard, and for buckets of salt to sizzle them up in when captured, and ducks and seagulls took quite a new responsibility on their bills.

Publicity, says the Otago Daily Times, was recently given to a paragraph stating that F. W. Trembath had received a trophy asserted to be valued at ,£6, but which on expert valuation turned out to be worth 15s, and was returned by him. The society, on receipt of the trophy, which consisted of a lady’s watch, returned it to the donor, who was much hurt. The watch bad cost him ,£3, and he produced the receipt, but the society in its prize list, had assessed the value at £6 6s. The donor of the watch, who has had this unpleasant publicity given to him, and who was under the impression that the prize would be given for girls’ Highland dancing, has now emphasised his good faith by sending Trembath a handsome gold watch of the value of £7 ios. “ Rudyard Kipling, when he dined with me,” said a literary Chicagoan, “ told me about Simla. It seems that Simla is up in the mountains —the hills, as they say in India—and the ladies go there iu hot weather to escape the heat of the low country. Well, Kipling said that one lovely, cool morning at Simla he was presented to a ‘ grass-widow.’ They call those ladies ‘ grass-widows ’ whose husbands are detained by work iu the hot cities of the plains. She was awfully pretty and charming, and, as they talked together in the pleasant coolness, Kipling said: ‘ I suppose you can’t help thinking of your poor husband grilling down below ? ’ The lady gave him a strange look, and he learned afterwards that she was a real widow.’

It is not every day that a man, under the hallucination that he has to go to gaol, goes there of his own accord, and behaves as though he had been placed there by the strong arm of the law, yet such a case happened in Tiraaru the other day, says the Herald. A men went to the lock - up voluntarily, slept there, and waited the following morning, expecting to be taken before the court at 11 o’clock. But no one was more surprised than the police to find him in the cells, and the only explanation he could give as to how he had got there, was that he had dreamt he had been run in, and had himself turned the delusion into a reality by voluntarily walking iu. After making sure that he was awake, the self-imprisoned individual went to his home.

It was at a military camp not one hundred miles from Eketahuua (says the Express). Seated in a tent was the officer commanding the squadron in company with a staff officer. The latter was particularly anxious to reach his hotel before closing time, and not being acquainted with local licensing conditions, he addressed the captain as follows: “ Can you tell me when the hotels close here ?” “Oh yes,” hesitatingly answered the captain; “but here comes the chaplain-captain ; he probably is well versed in these matters, and we will ask him.” With a merry twinkle in his eye at the probable score he was to make off his own bat, the captain said : By the by chaplain-cap-tain, can you inform the staff officer when the hotels close here?” “ Well —oh yes ; I believe on June 30th,’? was the quick retort, which completely bowled the attacking party.

A case of an unusual character was before the Invercargill Magistrates’ Court recently when a young lady sued a man for the recovery of a love letter, and for £2 damages in connection with the wrongful detention thereof. Evidence was given By the plaintiff that she boarded at the defendant’s house, paying 5s a week and helping in the housework. She had paid in full for her board. After she had left the house she discovered that the defendant had a letter which had been sent by her “young man.” When asked for it the defendant said he would keep it pending the payment of money which he alleged was still owing by her for board. She said she owed him nothing, and defendant said he would show the letter round “to show her up.” Defendant had shown the letter to some of her friends, and as it contained family matters it had done her harm in many ways. A man gave evidence that defendant had read a letter addressed to the plaintiff, and that another young mau was within hearing when the letter was read. There was no defence, and the Magistrate said he was sure as to the claim for damages. The valuation of the letter was a difficult matter. He had heard of some letters that had been sold for thousands of pounds. Ah order was made for the recovery of the letter, and judgment was given for £2 damages for its' wrongful detention. The costs against the defendant amount to £2 2S. ,

A girl is wanted for housework. A boarding-house is advertised for sale. A splendid investment.

A new sect has been established in Worksop under the title of “The Watch Tower Society.” The members believe that the world is to come to an end in 1914, and are preparing accordingly. Joseph Norman, who last week at Wellington was found guilty of assaulting Alexander Armstrong, the gaoler, has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Mr Justice Cooper said he intended to ask that a formal encpiiry be made into prisoner’s mental condition.

At Christchurch on Saturday, Albert Hatcher, Walter Auder and Lancelot Wilson, young men employed as cleaners on the railway, were charged with stealing a case of plums, a quantity of almonds and two cases of kerosene from the railway waggons iu the Christchurch station yard. After hearing evidence the Magistrate dismissed the rase for want of evidence-

At Auckland on Saturday, George Taylor, a tram conductor, was backing his car at a stoppingplace on a single line of rails to allow another to pass. He was leaning over the back of the car, pulling down the trolley pole, when the rope broke. Taylor fell on the road, sustaining terrible injuries to his head, apparently involving a fracture of the base of the skull.

A somewhat unusual case was dealt with iu the Magistrate’s Court at Napier on Tuesday. The Hawke’s Bay Herald reports that Ibaia Hutana, president of the Tamatea Maori Council, proceeded against Kerai Tea ho to recover ios, the amount of a fine inflicted by the council for drunkenness under powers given to the council by the Governor-iu-Council. After the bearing of evidence judgment was given for the defendant on account of irregularities iu the proceedings taken by the committee of the council, with 21s costs. “ Who wou the fight ?” was the first question heard from the bulwarks of the Mokoia on that vessel’s arrival in the stream at Wellington from Sydney. To the answer, “What fight ?” the questioner looked down to the wobbly deck of the tug with pitying surprise, and then, making allowances for the queer inhabitants of New Zealand, said: “ Why, Bill Bang against Bill Squires !” Someone on the Duco actually knew the result, and the receipt of the news among the steerage passengers, bays the Dominion, caused an A, amount of argument that the over-Hi throw of a Ministry could hardly have induced.

One feature of New Zealand’s trade iu the Old Country was referred to by Mr F. W. Haybittle, in conversation with ; a Post reporter. “I visited the Smithfield markets,” he said, “ and, judging from the manner in which New Zealand beef, mutton, and lamb is displayed and eagerly taken up, it would appear as if the old-time prejudices against the colonies’ products of this character had entirely disappeared, and to use ‘frozen’ is now a recognised proceeding iu connection with the daily round of the busy culinary environment of London’s great hotels and restaurants. It is significant, however, that the visitor very seldom hears of or happens across New Zealand butter or cheese on the London tables. These are either supplied and referred to under another name/ or on arrival distributed for consumption iu the provinces.” Under its new policy of featuring special articles, rather than fiction, the Lone Hand continues to maintain a high standard of ’ interest. In the February issue,! a copy of which comes from Messrs Gordon and Gotch, Melba continues her contributions, this time giving personal advice on music as a profession, summing up with ' these weighty words: “ The greatest discretion should be exercised in the nominations for European study, and I insist that even an unusual voice or admirable technique is not in itself sufficient’ to warrant such an undertaking.” C. A. Jeffries begins a series of articles on “Our Unfinished Commonwealth ” (the Northern Territory), and Louis Esson writes from Thibet, and Bertram Stevens about an Australian astronomer, John Tebbutt. A charge of in- f; f competence against the Victorian police force occupies the Public Gocd department. In this issue--; the Australian beauty quest is ; ended. Miss Alice Buckridge, of ' Victoria, gets the verdict of the judges, and her photograph goes - : to America as Australia’s nomination for the world’s beauty con- ■ test. The New Zealand Com-, mittee’s selection for the final selection was Miss Baby Mowat, of Blenheim. These two and another have their photographs inJ the current issue of . the Lone /f Hand, which is profusely and* artistically illustrated. V '