LOCAL AND GENERAL

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 818, 24 March 1910, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Winifred McGregor, aged 13 mouths, was drowned through falling into a copper left standing in a back yard at Stratford on Monday. Captain Scott expresses his gratitude for New Zealand's donation of £ 1000. He states that he proposes to obtain a considerable portion of his stores in New Zealand.

A petition has been numerously signed in the Hastings district, praying the Government to take over the late Mrs G. P. Donnelly’s property at Waimarama about 6000 acres.

A decree dissolving the Hungarian Parliament led to tumult, the Opposition declaring ‘.he Act unconstitutional. One deputy threw a heavy book at the Premier and injured him. Another hurled an.inkpot, which severely wounded the Minister for Agriculture. A man named Zimmerman, who married twenty-four women since 1872, has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment at Brooklyn on a charge of perjury in swearing that he was not married in connection with the marriage license for his twenty-fourth marriage.

It is the intention of the Mouloa Drainage Board to shortly call tenders for deepening and cleaning several miles of drains. The engineer is at present engaged taking the levels, and as soon as this work is completed tenders will be inched.

To-morrow there will be special services in All Saints’ Church for Good Friday. Besides the morning and evening services there will be a “ three hours meditation from 12 o’clock to 3 p.m. on the seven vows from the cross. There will be a pause at each hour to allow worshippers to come and go.

Diseases among root crops are particularly pronounced this year throughout the district. The potato blight also attacked the tomato plants and shrivelled them up long before they ordinarily should have ceased bearing, and lately turnip crops have come under a disease that rots them away wherever it puts in an appearance.—Hawera Star.

The Southern Standard states that the rabbit pest in the country is more prevalent than for some time past. As much as 7 j 2 d per pair is being paid this year to rabbiters, some of whom are making as much as £2 per day. Every morning boys attending school arc to be seen taking their catches to the market , and some of them earn good pocket money by this means. Mr Cousens, superintendent of archaeology in Bombay, has explored mounds forty miles east of Haidarabad containing Buddhist monasteries. He excavated a shrine and found a chrystal bottle containing a silver casket, enclosing a golden cylinder wherein was a gold cup with fragments of human ash, evidently one of the nine portions of Gautama's cremated remains.

Those who have sat down as one ot thirteen to table may take heart on remembering the case of Lord Roberts. On New Year’s Day, 1553, Lord Roberts sat down to dinner with twelve others at Peshawnr. Eleven years later the thirteen were all alive, though most of them had taken part in the suppression of the Indian mutiny, and several had been wounded.

The defeat of the proposed water and drainage loan caused a correspondent to forward the following lines: We sing the man behind the gun, The man behind the plough ; The man behind the pick, and

some — I can’t remember now, But far more numerous than

them all, Who furnish stuff for rhymes We find in each community, The man behind the times.

On Sunday All Saints’ Church will be decorated for the Easter Festivals. As Easter is the queen of festivals there will be three celebrations of the Holy Communion, and this will allow every parishioner to obey the command of the prayer book “ that every parishioner shall communicate at Easter.” The evening service will be fully choral, at which Mr A. Jenks, will sing a bass solo.

On Thursday last Mr T. Bevau, seur., of Manakau, celebrated the 69th anniversary of his arrival in the Dominion. He is still hale and hearty, and was among the interested spectators at the Otaki Maori church celebrations on Sunday, Mr Bevan well remembers the opening of the Church sixty years ago. That was a very different ceremony, there being very few pakehas about in those times, and the Natives being far more numerous.

Writing in reference to Woodville and its institutions, a correspondent of ttye Danuevirke News says:—The municipal swimming baths at Woodville are a credit io the place. Built close to the town, of concrete, with dressing rooms, diviug boards, and high diyes, also a water chute, they would be hard to beat in any part of the Dominion. They are about xooft. long by 50ft. wide, with a depth of from 3ft. to Bft.; and they are well patronised by both sexes. At one time before the baths were opened there were very few children who could swim ; but now there is hardly a child over four or five years that cannot. It will be noticed that Woodville possesses an up-to-date water supply, also municipal gas works. Sprinkle Inskci'xbaxk on the window ledges. The flies go there Inskcxibanh kills flies.* 4

A four roomed cottage at the Beach is advertised to let.

The services in the Methodist Church on Sunday will be conducted in the morning by Mr J. Chrystall, and the evening by the Rev P. J. Mairs. Special Easter Auth ems. The Scotland Yard authorities have discovered renewed activity on the part of an infamous gang of blackmailers, numbering 200, which victimised many people of high social standing some years ago to the extent of ,£200,000. Sydney Hairison, a young man of 18, employed in the Government Life Insurance Office, shot himself in the right temple with a revolver at Invercargill on Monday, and died an hour later. The cause is unknown.

The police are prosecuting the Hungarian Deputies who assaulted Ministers during the recent scene in the Diet, when the Premier was injured by the throwing of a heavy book, and the Minister of Agriculture by an ink-pot. Much interest is being taken in the operations of the recentlyformed Wairarapa Mineral Prospecting Company. The two prospectors engaged by the company are now out on the Tararua Ranges, and their return, and the result of their efforts, will be awaited with interest. Commercial failures in the United States during the year 1909 were 12,924 in number, with defaulting liabilities amounting to £30,920,693- This is a much more satisfactory return than was provided by either of the two preceding years.

"The Chinese believe that a n n’s children suffer for his sins in various ways,” said Mr Hwang, the Chinese Consul, in a recent lecture at Wellington, ‘‘and if a merchant gives short weight the sin may result in his descendants having tiny eyes or very flat noses or limbs out of proportion.” The overwhelming of the native village of Waihi recalls the fact that about the middle of 1887 a similar slide took place at Jackson’s Bay, on the West Coast of the South Island, sweeping houses and the hotel before it. Mr C. Robinson, proprietor of the hotel, and his wife escaped, hut their son was buried under thousands of tons of slush. The only places not touched were the residence of the magistrate tMr W. Macfarlane) and the courthouse. The slide was followed by a tidal wave.

Busy days at the Wellington meat works have brought much cash to slaughtermen. It was mentioned by a well-informed observer to the Post that during a recent week the slaughtermen employed by one of the big Wellington firms netted about ,£4OO, and this sura worked out at au average of £6 for nearly 60 men. Overtime has enabled the workers to largely increase their earnings. A haul of ,£l3 for a fortnight, it is slated, has not been uncommon, and it is said that exceptionally skilled and rapid workers have netted £8 or more in one week. The work, of course, is intermittent. The “fivers” and “sixers’’ do not come every week.

A surprise was sprung upon the members of the Eltham Drainage Board last week, states the Argus, when the clerk (Mr W. J. Tristram) put forward an unusual suggestion, namely, that his salary should be reduced. The position was that when a lot of extra work was caused in connection with loans raised by the board, the clerk’s salary was increased from ,£25 to ,£4O a year, and now that the loan moneys have been expended and there is comparatively little work to do the clerk thought that his salary should be reduced to the old figure. The chairman said it was something unique for anyone to ask for a reduction of salary. He had never heard of such a thing before; it was probably a record for New Zealand. He recognised that there was less work to do now, but he had thought of letting the clerk’s present salary go on to the end of the year, as Mr Tristram had done work in connection with the loans for which he had not been paid. The board agreed to accept the clerk’s suggestion and reduce the salary to ,£25 as from Ist April, which is the beginning of the next financial year.

An Invercargill resident who recently had occasion to go to Christchurch paid a visit to the Suuuysidc Asylum, (and says the Southland Times) happened to be at the institution when there were exceptional opportunities for seeing things that the visitor does not usually see. He did not see Lionel Terry, who is in the asylum, but he saw that unfortunate man’s latest work. Terry, he was informed, is at the present time assiduously cultivating the simple lite, aud indulging in the plain fare, the open-air exercise, and the scanty raiment of the pagan days. He has been fascinated by this pagan life, and deeply impressed with the bonds that have been fastened on men by the artificial living, dressing, aud food of these times. As a result he has written a poem, “The Prison Cage,’' in which the two styles of living are contrasted, to the great advantage of the simple life. The visitor had the privilege of seeing the poem, which, he says, possesses considerable literary excellence, aud is beautifully embellished with striking ink drawings and coloured sketches. The work throughout, and particularly the sketching, is unusually clever. Terry has a strong objection to being on exhibition, and the authorities discourage as much as possible any idly curious desire in this direction on the part of Visitors,

In order to give our staff the full benefit of the Kaster Holidays the Hkrauj will not be published on Saturday. The warship Irresistible has been isolated in Portland harbour for a week owing to all the vessel’s gunsights having been thrown overboard. The cause of the dispute has not been made public. Seventeen sheep have mysteriously disappeared from Herston Farm, and although a careful search has been made no trace can be found of them, and the matter has been placed in the hands of the police. The Rev W. Gray-Dixou, m.a. of St. David’s Presbyterian Church Auckland, has received a call from St. Andrew’s Palmerston North, to take the place of Rev I. Jolly, m.a. , who recently accepted a call to St. Stephen’s Auckland. The dredge to be used in the construction of the drainage works for the Mouloa Drainage Board arrived in Foxtou on Monday evening, and is now being put together, It is expected that everything will be ready for a commencement to be made next week.

The services at the Presbyterian Church on Sunday next will be conducted in the morning by the Rev Joseph While, ol Levin, and in the evening by Mr H. Billeus, of Palmerston North. The Rev G. K. Aitken of Foxton, conducts the Sunday School Anniversary services at Levin.

The Inspector of Awards, Mr VV. J. Culver, accompanied by the Secretary of the Flaxmills Employees Union, yesterday visited Mr Bell's Waitatapia mill to make enquiries in reference to a statement made by Mr Bell at the recent sitting of the Arbitration Court to the effect that the men worked on Labour Day at the usual rates.

An evangelistic mission will be conducted in the local Presbyterian Church by the Rev J. Pattison, convener of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church Evangelistic Committee, commencing on Sunday, 17th April next. The special service will be continued for at least one week, probably longer.

At the usual fortnightly meeting of the local Druids Lodge held last night, a committee was appointed to draw up a programme of amusements for the winter evenings. The committee will ? furnish a report at the next meeting of the lodge, and it is expected the first social evening will be held during April. Rhodesia, like the Rand, managed to create a fresh record in its gold output for the past year, but also like the Rand, it did not make much progress as in 1908. The total production of ,£2,624,000, in 1909 was au increase on the previous best in 190 S oi nearly ,£IOO,OOO ; but on the other hand, 1908 gained as compared with 1907 by nearly ,£350,000. Owing to Burns, the American heavy-weight ex-champion boxer of the world, having upset his system by too fond au indulgence in cucumbers, and having thus interfered considerably with his training, his match against Lang, the Australian champion “heavy,” which was fixed for Easter Monday in Sydney, has been put back to 20th April. The match is the heavy-weight championship of Australia.