LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 13 February 1909, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The new local Post Office should be ready for occupation by April next.

The many friends of Mrs Barber senr., will regret to hear that she has been seriously ill, but is making a satisfactory recovery. Welcome rain is being experienced throughout the district.

An advertiser desires to borrow or good security. The Returning Officer notifies than an election for the return of five qualified persons to serve as members of the Incensing Committee will be held on Tuesday, March 9th. Nominations close on Monday, March xst.

The Maoris state that the katipo spider retires to an underground cell in the winter months, and passes them in a torpid condition, when it may be handled with impunity. A man named Morgan was gored through the leg by a bull a few days ago, and was taken to the Waipukurau Hospital for treatment. The leg had to be taken off as mortification set in, and the unfortunate man is doing as well as can be expected under the distressing circumstances.

Obsequies of the late Hone Heke commenced, when the body was taken by rail to Otaki, where a taugi was hdd. Yesterday the remains were taken on to Wanganui and finally to Kaikohe, for interment. The Native Minister, the Hon. J. Carroll, was at Otaki, and went on to Wanganui.

At the meeting of the Feilding Chamber of Commerce, Mr H. Tolley stated he had been appointed by the Borough Council to represent the Feilding borough on the Foxtou Harbour Board. He would be pleased to receive any advice or suggestions from the Chamber with reference to Harbour Board matters. Members expressed the hope that Mr Tolley would watch carefully and prevent any rating of the Feilding borough for Harbour Board works.

By advertisement, Messrs Fvans Bros, notify that they have purchased the bakery of Messrs Cargill and Sons, and hope by strict attention to business and only baking first-class goods, to merit a fair snare of public patronage. Mr Evans is not a stranger to Fox ton, having been in the employ of Mr Perreau for a number of years. The firm will make a speciality ot small goods, and afternoon tea may be procured at the shop. A trial is solicited. The divorce case, Stirling, Laird of Kippendavie, Perthshire, against bis wife and Lord Northland (eldest sou of Lord Ranfurly, and a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards), and the cross-suit, Mrs Stirling against her husband and Mrs Atherton, who was connected with the Yarde-Buller case, is exciting interest in the revelations and doings of smart society. Seventy thousand words of reports of the proceedings have been telegraphed from Edinburgh. Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice, speaking at a Sphinx dinner, said he could not imagine anything worse for public morality than such divorce reports.

The following from the Outlook is of local interestWe have always maintained that if the minister will enter the public school to teach the Bible the schoolmaster will support him. We have just learned that on different occasions recently the Hawke’s Bay senior inspector of schools has chanced in making official surprise visits to different schools, to’hit upon the minister's Bible class in each. In every instance he has expressed his delight at what was proceeding, and at the suggestion of the officiating minister he has himself taken the whole lesson. He has thus not only given the weight of his own example to the work, hut he has given the ministers themselves an object lesson in teaching. Writing at the end of November to a member of his family, an exDuuedinite, who is employed on the Cunard liner Mauretania, says :—• You would be heartbroken to see the poverty and starving that is going on here. When we are coming out of the dock gates in Liverpool at night there are hundreds of little children, with hardly any clothes on, standing waiting outside the gates, with their hands out, crying, “Have you any bread left?” The men save the crusts from their sandwiches and give them to the poor beggars at the gate. . . You have no idea of the terrible poverty just now. There are shoals of unemployed in every trade here just now, and the English Christmas is going to be a most pitiable time for many thousands of homes. People who are out of work in the colonies and say they cannot get a living don’t know what they are talking about, and ought to be treated with a stick. One meets hundreds of men who would willingly work hard all day for a shilling in order to obtain food for their children. Great dissolution sale at Walclioru and Stiles’, on. Saturday, January Kith. Stock to be sacrificed regardless of price.*

A grand floral fete-is advertised to take place in the Palmerston Show grounds, in aid of the Palmerston N. Hospital and Nursing institutions, on Wednesday next, Mr Signal, junr., son of the esteemed manager of the Foxton River Service, is shortly to proceed Home to finish his trade as an engineer. Mr Signal is at present at Messrs Cables’ foundry, Wellington,

The local rep. cricketers journeyed to Levin this morning, to try conclusions with the Horowhenua reps. It is feared that, owing to inclement weather, the match will have to be postponed. Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs Fawcett are appealing to the suffragists to attend service at Westminster Abbey and intercede for the success of their cause in the coming session.

The Attorney-General advises the Auckland City Council that the amending of the Municipal Corporations Act is receiving attention. The proposed amendment is for giving local bodies power to refuse billiard - room licenses where they are not satisfied with the character of the applicant.

The following have been nominated for election to the Teachers’ Superannuation Board : North Island—Messrs W. T. Grundy and W. Foster (Wellington), J. Aitken (Wanganui), and W. H. Newton (Thames) ; South Island —W Davidson and J. Jeffrey (Dunedin) and T. Hughes (Christchurch). The election will take place at the offices of the Education Department, Wellington, on Monday, March 1. The Salvation Army has recently been honoured by royalty. Wednesday’s cable news informed us that the King had given a hundred guineas to the funds for the Army’s work amongst the poor. Further, after the operation on General Booth’s eyes some weeks ago, the Queen sent the following message by telegraph to the head of the Army:—“Have felt so much for you, and hope operation successful, and trust you are getting on towards complete recovery and that the sight you need so much will soon be completely restored. —The Queen.” At the last meeting of the Mauawatu County Council during lunch time; the growing'ot crested dogtail grass was discussed. One Councillor said he sowed a pound of seed in a twenty-acre paddock and in three years the grass was growing over the whole paddock. Another Councillor pointed out, as accounting for this prolific growth, that the sheep did not eat the seed, but they thrived on the grass itself. It was described as a succulent grass, possessing good nutriment. “ You can’t beat dogstail for sheep.” said one stuidy farmer, and this statement was endorsed by his fellow Councillors.

The Melbourne Age slates that a well-known lady resident at Black Rock and friends were fishing for snapper near the outer sandbank one morning, when suddenly their boat, luckily a large and heavy one, was surrounded by three or four large sharks. The lady had just caught a fine snapper, and was hauling it into the boat, when one of the sharks sprang out of the water and snatched the fish from the line. Eater one of the other members of the party caught another fine fish, and once more a shark lifted its head above water, bent on an easily secured meal. This time, however, the angler was too quick for the marauder, and landed the catch safely in the boat. The. shark displayed intense anger at being disappointed It lashed with its tail at the boat in fury, and next it got underneath and tried to capsize the party. The boat was, however, too strong, and those aboard tqo experienced and steady of nerve for anything serious to happen. Nevertheless, the incident was exciting enough and had the boat been small and in less capable hands a catastrophe would have been difficult to avoid.

Speaking at the banquet tendered to Mr Buick M.P. for Palmerston on Thursday night, Mr Newman, M.P. for Manawatu, gave expression to the pleasure it afforded him in joining those present in tendering their congratulations to Mr Buick. He believed that in Mr Buick they had secured a man who would do them honour, and who would be an honour to the Parliament to which he had been elected. He believed also that the election had been won in an honourable and straightforward manner. The same was to be said of the adjoining electorate to which Mr Guthrie had been elected. Even from supporters of the Government he had heard nothing to the contrary. With regard to his own electorate (Manawatu), he wished to state that all classes were absolutely determined that the land tenure in this country should be freehold. (L,oud applause.) This opinion was held almost universally in the towns as well as in the country by all classes of the community. He believed this had more to do with his return than any other question before the electors. It was his conviction that the people did not want the second ballot. They were determined that the men they elected at the first ballot should secure the seat, and they objected to go to the ballot a second time to vote. He had found also a strong desire that some check should be put upon the financial system of the present Government. He assured them of the pleasure it would give him in working-with Mr Buick for the benefit of Palmerston North, Great dissolution sale at Watehoru Stiles’ and Co.’s on Saturday, January XOth. Kemember, for Id days only.*

A piano is advertised; for sale.

The through daily railway service, Auckland to Wellington and vice versa, commences to-morrow. The journey will occupy 19 hours.

The Bakers Conference at Christchurch has decided to recommend the general adoption of the cash coupon system.

The services in in All Saints’ Church to-morrow will be conducted by the Rev. A. K. Worsley, vicar of Levin,

The services in the Methodist Church to-morrow morning will be conducted by the Rev. P. J. Mairs, and in the evening by Mr G. Huntley. At Hastings on Thursday a proposal to rate the town properties on the unimproved values was carried by 77 votes, the polling being 323 for and 246 against. On Sunday week, the 21st of February, the All Saint’s Harvest Festival will be celebrated. The fruit and vegetables will afterwards be divided between the All Saints H >mo, Palmerston, and Saint Mary’s Home, Wellington. All the flowers and vegetables with which one exhibitor was so successful at the Palmerston Horticultural Society’s Show oil Wednesday, weie grown from Sutton and Sons’' seeds supplied by the sole district agents, Messrs Barraud and Abraham, Limited. Latest schoolboy howlers : To kill a butterfly you pinch its borax. The bloodvessels are the veins, arteries, and artilleries. A ruminating animal is one that chews its cubs. Algebra was the wife of Euclid. The masculine of vixen is vicar.

A remarkable co-incideuce. On Thursday last a calico notice, depicting celestial bodies and this old world we live in, together with the mystic word ‘ ‘ Wragge ’ ’ was suspended from Mr W, Gray’s Post Office Hotel balcony. The same afternoon welcome rain refreshed the dry crust.

While a mob of sheep was being driven through Rangiora from the saleyards, one of the sheep, catching sight of its own reflection in the plate-glass door of Mr J. Johnston’s furniture shop, bounded through the glass, which was a quarter of an inch in thickness. Undeterred by the crash, two of its companions followed it.

The schooner Maroro, which left Newcastle for Wanganui on the 3rd inst, returned to Sydney. During a fierce gale on Friday she was thrown on her beam ends, and Captain Feast was washed overboard and drowned. The mate narrowly escaped, being rescued from the rigging. The Maroro lost her mainstay and sustained other slight damage.

The mutilated body of Catulle Mendes, the French poet, was discovered close to Saint Germain, Paris. It is suggested that robbery was the motive of the outrage. Catulle Mendes, a French author, was born at Bordeaux in 1843. Since 1861 he has been a prolific writer of lyrics, novels and plays. In 1866 he married Mdlle. Judith Gautier,

The services i n the local Presbyterian Church will be conducted to-morrow, both morning and evening, by the Rev. Mr Aitken. In the evening Mr Aitken takes for his subject “Sins Deliverer," which is one of a series of addresses begun last Sunday evening, bearing on the scriptural plan of redemption, union to Christ, justification, adoption, and sanctification or Christian holiness.

When on his recent visit to England Mr W. Cower n, of Hawera, saw a machine which claimed to separate the gold from the sand in an auriferous iron sand. The process was' first to separate the iron from the grey sand, then the gold from the latter. Mr Cowern informed a Patea Press reporter that as the outcome of correspondence the firm had sent him a machine which had just landed in Patea. Mr Cowern proposes making experiments with the local ironsand and testing the machine’s capabilities of being able to separate the iron from the grey sand.

A short lime ago two Spanish paintings —one representing Christ after being taken from the Cross, and the other the Immaculate Conception—were represented to the rectpr of St. Eaurence Jewry (Eondon) for the adornment of his church. Both were in perfect preservation, but needed cleaning badly, and were accordingly sent to a picture cleaner. .This cleaning disclosed the fact that the first named painting is the work of Juan Baptista del Mazo, a great Spanish painter who ranks next to Velasquez, his instructor and father-in-law. This discovery has converted a picture of comparatively little, value into one of great worth, for it is a veritable old master such as picture coße,ctors are always on tbe look-out willing to buy at fabulous prices.