NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1065, 18 February 1913, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Labour, in the shape of trades unions, is moving energetically in the direction of obtaining : the Saturday halt-holiday in Wellington. The Housewives’ Union members have expressed their sympathy with the movement, and all present undertook to; collect signatures toward making; the petition for an effective poll on the question. !

The manufacture of tobacco, (says-theii Waikato Argus-) is attaining the dimensions of *an im-portant'-industry in Hamilton. The industry has been carried on successfully for some time, and the demand for the tobacco grown to such an extent that a new company is being floated to extend the business.

A tomato recipe. Peel some fresh tomatoes—if they are very large, one for each person will be sufficient. Divide each tomato into thirds or quarters and fry them slowly in butter, turning them as they brown. When nearly done, dust with salt and pepper and sift a little flower over them—a trifle more than a heaping tablespoonful to four tomatoes. Finally, add a cupful ot cream or rich milk, and simmer until the gravy thickens. Serve on slices of toasted bread.

Interesting details required in the description of offenders by guardians of the law: Nose: straight, pug, hooked, Roman, large or small; feet; large, small, or proportionate; gait: slovenly, smart, active, erect, stooping, etc. ; chin; round or pointed ; general appearance; doctor, clergyman, clerk, labourer, miner, sailor, hawker, pugilist, speiler, etc. ; particulars of whiskers, hair, eyes, complexion, build, dress when last seen, and uumerous other clues to identity. These directions are set forth in the new police regulations.

Probably there are few people in Wellington who are aware that the cannon which was hauled up to the top of Mount Victoria with so much difficulty 4o years ago, and was for a long period fired precisely at noon each day, is one hundred years old. Some months ago (says the Evening Post) Mr James Harris, ot Ellice Avenue, Wellington, wrote to the Cannon Foundry Company, Falkirk, asking when the field-piece in question was cast, and he received a reply that the cannon was sent out of the works in 1813.

Mr Jack London has seen some of the lepers’ hells of the world, and he visited Molokai, one of the Sandwich Islands, expecting to add to his experiences of the human inferno ; but, to his surprise and delight, he found it nearer to being a leper paradise. All its denizens are always as jolly as sandboys. Gloom, care, anxiety, and, apparently, suffering there are none. Does an ulcer show itself in an islander’s foot ? The resident surgeon excises the diseased portion, washes out the wound, aud drenches it with carbolic acid, and in a few weeks the leper is again on his feet,, running races or riding steeplechases. People who are sent away refuse to be banished from the leper island. A happier community Mr London has not seen, and, even as it is with all its risks, he would prefer it as a place of residence to hundreds of better-famed places that he knows.

A bathing incident which had a humorous aspect, occurred to a surf bather at Byall Bay, Wellington. The man in question—a clerk in a local warehousestripped off among the sand dunes, and, after placing his clothes in a heap, went to disport himself in the breakers. When he had communed sufficiently with the waves, he betook himsejf to the spot where he had left his clothes, only to find it marked by a heap of burning ashes. All bis clothes had been burnt, and even his boots and the bag in which he carried his bathing dress and towel had perished by fire. Beyond the supposition that a lighted match had been thrown among his clothes,: either by himself or someone else, he was unable to account for the accident. As the immediate result of the accident, the bather had to , stay shivering in his wet bathing dress until other clothes were brought out from town.