LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 30 March 1909, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The monthly sitting of the S.M. Court will be held to-morrow. Sir Wm. McGregor, Governor of Newfoundland, has been appointed Governor of Queensland. A storm at Pittworth, Queensland, unrooted many houses, and seriously damaged the Catholic Church and other properties. The French postal trouble has ended, the Government having accepted the assurance of the men’s fidelity. Two Japanese warships, formerly the Russian cruisers Bayen and Varyag, will visit Esquimau and Vancouver in the middle of May.

The Federal Government intends to ask the Government of New South Wales for the transfer of a full thousand square miles for Federal territory.

An Italian named Benjamin Mores, died in the Auckland hospital on Sunday, the result of injuries alleged to be due to an assault made upon him.

The return cricket match between Foxton and Miranui will be played at Shannon on Good Friday.

The Saudou Football Club is to be re-organised and will probably enter both senior and junior teams in the competition controlled by the Foxton Sub-Union.

The Wellington Fresh Food and Ice Co., are approaching the local farmers re putting up a creamery. If a sufficient number of cows are guaranteed they will erect a creamery somewhere in the vicinity of Mr Brown’s property, and be ready to commence operations at the beginning of next season.

The Committee which was se up in Fondon to report on the best means of obviating the damage caused by vegetable fibre from bale packs becoming mixed with wool, has issued its final report. It recommends the use of specially prepared packs of closely woven texture with a thick corrugated paper lining. Mr Hall-Jones, High Commissioner for New Zealand, on behalf of Mrs Seddon made a present of the late Mr Seddou’s portrait to the battleship New Zealand, lying in Portland Roads. Mr Hall-Jones and Capt. Stoddart made spirited speeches and the crew cheered Mrs Seddon and the High Commissioner. The portrait has been hung in the wardroom.

A murder and suicide were announced by a postcard which was received by Mr Frank Perkins, of Birmingham, from his brother-in-law in Burton, whose name was Goodreid. The postcard began : “ Florrie is dead, and I do not think her husband will be here much longer.” Mr Perkins went to Burton and louud his sister’s body on a couch and her husband hanging from a hook in the ceiling. It is supposed that the man strangled his wife and then wrote and posted the card, and returned and hanged himself. The requisition asking Mr W, Ross to allow himself to be nominated for the Mayoralty was presented to the gentleman in question yesterday. ■ Mr Ross, while acknowledging the honour sought to be conferred on him, said he could not accede to the request this time, owing, firstly, to his periodical absence from Foxton, and secondly, he thought that the honour should be conferred upon a Councillor. Mr Ross has consented, however, to stand for the Council, which fact will heap-' preciated by all who signed the requisition.

A .meeting of'/fbe . local 'school committee will be held to-morrow rrght to consider applications re school cleaning. Early this morning a fire broke out in Taranaki Place, Wellington. A two-storeyed boarding house and Rountree’s chocolate factory were completely gutted. A single man, named James Flemming, a saloon passeng'er from Lyttelton by the’ Maori, jumped overboard as the steamer was approaching Wellington wharf on Sunday and was drowned. A fire at White Cliffs, a town 780 miles from Sydney, destroyed a block of business premises. The inmates were asleep at the lime,, and there were several narrow escapes.

The entertainment in aid of the local State School funds, to be held on April 14th, promises to be very good. The programme will consist of glees, choruses and recitations by scholars and tableaux by a number of young ladies. At the annual meeting of the Mangaweka Library Committee it was stated that the voluntary contribution box in the reading room had only collected-a shirt button, a tin tack, and two dead spiders dining the year. Ex-President Castro is reluming from Europe. He wi 1 remain at Tiinidad as he will allowed to laud at Venezuela, and steamers will he prosecuted il they biing him.

On San Jay mottling a thirteen roomed house at Rongotea owned by Mr Thompson and occupied by Mr C. J. Jeffries, was totally destroyed by fire. The, house was insured for aud the furniture -for'^7s-

In reply to Mr Wood at the Harbour Board meeting yesterday, Mr Hennessy said that according to a report he had perused in the Mauawatu Hekaed of 1878, the members ot the defunct Harbour Board were not aware that they had the power to collect wharfages.

The Emigrants’ Information Office in London reports that during 1908 the enquiries made respecting Australasia increased 49 per cent., compared with 1907, and nearly doubled Canada’s increase- Departures-for Australia totalled 21,694 aud f° r New land 11,675. After a dinner given in honour of Lady Arthur Paget in Washington, Mrs Pierre Lorillard, junior, wife of a tobacco magnate, committed suicide by inhaling gas in the bathroom. When discovered she was still wearing her diamond coronet.

At All Saints’ Church on Sunday evening, the ,Rev. G. YoungWoodward preached a very able and commendable sermon on “ Scandal.” He touch briefly on its awful effects in social and other communities, and made an earnest appeal to his ' hearers to contrive, one and all, to rise above the practice of scandalising.