NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1032, 18 April 1912, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

“ Poison laid on this farm for milking-machine sc-llers.” Such is the notice posted upon the main entrance gate at a dairy farm in the Temuka district.

The Johannesburg Chronicle of a recent date announces the death of Mr Robert Simmers. He was at one time a farmer at Waikoikoi, and went out to Africa at the time of the war as a member of one of the New Zealand contingents.

The Ottawa Department of Labour is communicating . with the United States Government regarding the possibility of co-opera-ting in the general study of the conditions underlying the increased cost of living. The United States is planning a worldwide inquiry if other nations agree.

The Bishop of Auckland, during a recent address said ‘‘the blatant vaunting irreverence common in the nineteenth century, has passed away, and, in this twentieth century men are slow to assort, even with bated breath, that this or that ‘ cannot possibly be.’ The whole trend of modem science is towards the Cross.”

An indication of the cross purposes at work in Ireland at the present time, when a Home Rule Bill has the best chance it ever bad of becoming law, is shown by the organisation of National Scouts in opposition to the Boy Scout movement, which is spreading in Ireland as elsewhere. The “National Scouts” take the following pledge : “I promise to work for the independence of Ireland, never to join England’s armed forces, and to obey my superior officers.”

“He’s not the first man that got into trouble through eating au apple,” remarked Cr Bower at the Clifton County Council meeting recently, says the New Plymouth News. It appears that a kindhearted settler left a bag of apples for the use of a gang of men who were engaged on county work, and one of them at once left off work and sampled the fruit, leaving the teams idle. In response to a mild remonstrance from the surfaceman in charge as to why he did not choose a more opportune moment for his refreshment, he dropped his tools, donned his coat, and left the job.

In au action concerning a motor collision at Lambeth County Court last month, counsel for the defendants suggested that the plaintiff, who was riding with his fiancee at the time, was paying too much attention to her and too little to the motor. Judge Parry : That may be so in regard to young people, but it does not affect the elderly men whom the plaintiff has called as witnesses. They have probably reached the age when they are sorry they ever were married. (Laughter.) Judgment for the plaintiff.

Mr Prior Gilbert (a newspaper vendor), whose name is a household word in the Wairarapa and Forty Mile Bush, delivered himself of the following in responding to the toast of “The Press” at a smoke concert in Masterton the other night ; —“lt is essential for the equipment of a good newspaper office that the editor should be a far-seeing individual ; that the reporting staff should be diplomatic and alert ; that the foreman should be a man of great integrity and wisdom ; and that the compositor should be a conglomeration of rectitude, energy, patience and thrift; but the most responsible individual, who is the backbone of the whole concern, is the ‘runner,’ as he is the link between the office and the subscriber — (prolonged cheers) —and combines all the above characteristics in one.”