NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1396, 11 May 1915, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

When members of some small local bodies assemble to do business they generally settle down to make a night of it, pull out their pipes, puff out copious grateful clouds, and talk, talk, talk the whole night through, with frequent glances at the press table just to see if the reporters are doing their work. There is going to be nothing like that at the Hastborne Borough Council if the new Mayor (Mr James Patrick Kelly) has his way. At his installation recently be outlined the procedure he intended to follow in dealing with public business. Here are three gems from his “ Manifesto;” “Think much, talk little,” “ Don’t mistake the council for a debating society,” and “If any of you has an axe to grind send it to town, where greater facilities for doing it exist,” —Post.

During the hearing of an assault case at the S.M. Court recently, the defendant, a diminutive man who, in a pugilistic sense might be classed as a feather weight, at once set out to impress the Court with bis knowledge cf ringcraft. He posed as a miniature Jack Johnston, and described to a much amused Court bow he had fought his opponent tor an opening, and went on about body-blows, jabs, swings, short-arm jolts, and upper-cuts, until told by his smiling counsel to “cut it out ” and come down to plain facts. The sequel to the case —representing in fine and costs a sura of 14s —was a salutary reminder that amateur pugilism is an expensive pastime.

In the last few months no fewer than nine steamers have arrived in Australia from Eastern ports with smallpox on board. This is accepted by the Commonwealth Director of Quarantine (Dr. Cumpston) as an indication of the beginning of a severe smallpox cycle in that particular part of the world. He stated last week that past experience showed that there were well-defined cycles of epidemic disease like small-pox. Uunder bis instructions preparations have been made to cope with the introduction of the disease into the Commonwealth, and he advises persons who intend travelling in Asia or among the adjacent islands to become properly vaccinated before leaving Australia.