NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1091, 9 January 1912, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Three hundred and fifty motor cars were registered in the Auckland provincial district during 1911. On January xst 1911, the number of motor cars registered for the district was 227. Now it is 577. The number of motor cars in the Auckland district has thus been considerably more than doubled during the past 12 months and more are being registered daily. The great majority of the 277 cars on the register are owned in the city, there being very few cars kept in the country districts.

New York claims credit for being the world's largest toy market. The statement is made that the annual volume of trade at wholesale prices is 75,000,000 dollars, a large part ot which is shipped to the great fairs of Europe and Asia. Export trade from New York commences in July, and lasts until well into October. Toys in loads have been sent from New York to India tor Durbar celebrations. - Six hundred Indian princes resolved to give public entertainments that will include the distribution of toys to children.

A resident in the Phillipine Islands describes the way the natives catch monkeys in the interior of that country. It appears that these creatures are very fond of the meat of the cocoanut, but are too lazy to gnaw the outer shell, unless desperate from hunger. So the natives cut a small hole in the shell, just large enough to admit the small, slender hand of the monkey. When the hand is thrust inside and filled with the cocoanut meat it cannot be withdrawn. It never occurs to the monkey to relax his grasp and release the handful of meat. So he chatters and scolds, and shows his indignation at being entrapped until the native who sets the snare comes and takes him prisoner.

A belief that children are sometimes permitted to see supernatural visitors was expressed by the Bishop of London in a recent sermon. He urged his hearers not to regard all the children said as mere fancy, and he told a remarkable story to uphold his point. The father of five children, feeling ill, had gone to lie down. The youngest girl was sent to bed, but ran from her room, calling, “Come out! There are two angels walking up the staircase.” No one else could then see anything. Later the child again called out, “Come out ! The angels are walking down the staircase, and father Is walking between them ! All five girls saw the same thing ; and going to their father’s room they found him dead.”

New Zealand. “In Dunedin,” he said, “you can get 16 tram tickets for is, at Christchurch the number is reduced to 14, but in Wellington the price is is for 12. (Laughter). In Melbourne you can’t get 12 tickets for is,therefore I don’t think your charges here are too high ; but you see if) like me, you had called first at Dunedin and enjoyed the liberality of that town and had gradually travelled up the coast, you would feel that you were being taken down when you came to Wellington.” (Laughter). It is only a specimen of the confidence trick,” said the Mayor of Wellington, amidst laughter. “It is the way Dunedin carries out its Scotch characteristics. They give you 16 tickets for is, but the length of the ride is very much less than anywhere else. (Laughter). The length of the sections in Wellington is longer than in any other part of New Zealand —that’s a fact ! This shows that the Scotch in the South are still true to their traditions,” (Applause and laughter).

“I had a great surprise in England,” said Mr McGoweu, the New South Wales Premier, at the annual dinner of the Yorkshire Society in Sydney recently. “I had read my Dickens at home, and I thought that there was no man more naturally humorous than the Cockney, and no man less so than the Scotchman. Well, I was at a dinner in London, and I said that after watching the London policemen and the splendid work they do I was quite prepared to believe the story of the twelve French policemen who came over to study the way in which the London police control the traffic. They stayed some mouths in London, and endeavoured on their return to put into practice what they had learned. A lew days afterwards there were twelve funerals in Paris. (Laughter). Would you believe it ?—a London reporter in mentioning this story remarked that I failed to explain whose the funerals were. (Laughter). Well, when I was in Scotland, the Provost asked me to attend the council. I went, and made a speech, and told them that we could tell a man’s nationality in Australia by the way he got out of a train. If he jumped out of it before it stopped he was an impetuous Irishman ; if he descended leisurely and walked firmly out ot the station, we knew him tor the matter-of-fact Englishman. Then, he added, the other man looks under the seat —(laughter)—or on the hat rack —(loud laughter)—to see if his companions have left anything behind. The Scotchmen I was talking to saw the joke as well as you do. I was afraid I had trespassed too far on their generosity, so I added, ‘Of course, he is going to return it to the Lost Property Office.’ And I heard a Scotchman murmur, ‘Ah, weel, it all depends.’ ”