NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1680, 1 March 1917, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Wliat will be, when completed, one of the biggest suspension bridges in New Zealand will shortly be eommeneed by Mr Joseph Dawson, the well-known bridge engineer, of Pahiatua. The new bridge will be about 448 feet long, and will be situated between Foxton and Palmerston North. Messrs Seifert Bros, are the owners, and it is estimated that the completed cost will be about £3,000.

The “little bootmaker of Featherston,’’ who has marched over the Kimutukas with every draft since he accompanied the men of the fifteenth reinforcements, has produced a small souvenir of his connection with the New Zealand forces. The frontispiece is a picture of “the soldiers’ mascot,’’ in his old volunteer uniform, and carrying the flag that he has borne proudly at the bead of nine columns of New Zealand soldiers. His Excellency tin? Governor has accepted a copy of the souvenir, and has acknowledged in a personal letter.

Dentistry as a profession is becoming more and more useful owing to the increasing prevalence of dental disease, and also to the fact that the public are at last walking up to the importance of having sound teeth. At the present time there is a serious shortage of dentists in New Zealand, ft was recognised that the regular <|iiola was one dentist to 1,500 people. When the war began there were 2,200 people to every dentist, and it has uow r increased to 2,(550 through dentists joining the forces.

Every sensible doctor wants you to keep the bedroom window open, but no doctor wishes you to be cold in the night. If your feet are cold you can wear socks; if your body is cold, you can put something more on the bed; if you have a. bad circulation and your lingers get cold, you can wear gloves; keep yourself warm by all means, but keep your window open. If you find your strength of mind failing, drive a nail in the window-sash so that you cannot shut the. window entirely.

The skeleton of a man was found on the hills about six miles from Manakau. It is supposed to be that of Peter Smith, a German, who kept a shop at Otaki, and has been missing since .Inly, PHI. tin friday Constable Satherley, with a party of settlers, brought the remains into Otaki for burial. The sum of Kis !hl in silver was found near the skeleton, together with a silver watch and chain, and a silver ring. These articles are known to have belonged to Smith, and it is practically certain that the finding of the >keleton solves a mystery of several years’ standing.

A good story is going the rounds of the town at present with regard to a couple of orchard thieves who made themselves obnoxious in a place not a hundred miles from Mangaweka. One of the fruit growers who had suffered particularly heavily from their depredations decided to try the restraining effect of small-shot, and with that aim in view spent a recent Sunday night in his orchard with a double-barrelled shotgun for company. The thieves duly arrived, and after letting them get a good start on their picking, the owner bombarded. As a result it it rumoured that two people find it a good deal more comfortable to stand up than to sit down —at any rate, so goes the tale.

A story of the seriousness with which gallant France is taking the war was told by Major Lampeu, D. 5.0., in the course of a lecture at the Returned Soldiers’ Club on Thursday evening. In one place, he said, he found himself billeted in a most comfortable house, every hospitality being shown him. In the sitting room was a piano, and turning to the daughter of the house, he asked her, “Do yon play?” “Yes,” was the reply. “And sing?” “Yes,” again was the answer. “Then I hope I may hear yon,” lie continued. To this the girl replied, “I do not sing or play until the war, is over.” The story spoke for itself, and everywhere in France it was the same. Every frivolity, every amusement was put aside until the war was won. Major Lumpen considered it was a privilege for the New Zealanders to he lighting beside the French soldiers, and they would gain much from the contact.

At a meeting of the Christchurch Ministers’ Association the following motion was carried unanimously; “That this Association calls the attention of the Government to the necessity of preserving the absolute equality of the clergy of all churches in the Dominion in regard to military service, and the Association desires to protest against the employment of the authority of canon law in appeals before the Military Boards, since the canon law has no authority whatever in British Courts. They desire specially to protest against the statement of a Roman Catholic Archbishop that the requirement of service from priests by the State would be regarded as religious persecution. The Association respectfully submits that unless absolute equality as between the clergy and the different churches is very sternly insisted upon very grave disquiet and disturbance will be created in the Dominion.”

The lady editor of the “Woodville Examiner’’ writes: There are those w r ho say that New Zealand ■women are not doing all they might in these times. They may be good at knitting sox, and making puddings and such like. But when it comes to “buckling to" and tackling men’s work, so that men may fight, or tackling more work of any sort, than they have previously been used to, they do not make such a good showing. Be that as it may, and we really think that it is the case in many instances, it is extremely heartening to hear of the very latest achievement on the part of women-folk in our ow r n district. At this present moment while we write, Mr Chaytor’s threshing plant is putfiing merrily in a field of Mr Beattie’s, some three miles out of town. On Wednesday, Sirs Chaytor drove that traction engine all the way from Ballance —and whichever way you come out of Ballance you get" “devil’s elbows” in the road-to-day she is running the engine for her husband, and the three young women are helping on the stack and in the field. Mr Chaytor must be. a proud man to be “boss ’ of such a concern!

Mr G. H. Hocking, of Sydenham, Christchurch, who has just returned from Melbourne and Sydney, after a three months’ trip for the benefit of his health, was shown while in Melbourne the charm which Te Kooti, the Maori rebel leader, wore during the war. The present owner of the relic is a friend of Mr Hocking. He is Mr Thomas Manaliack. of Unionstreet, Brunswick, who obtained it through the late Dr. John Matson, of Auckland. The charm is an ovalshaped piece of light-coloured stone, probably imanga greenstone, from Mr Hocking’s description, and is carved in the form of three birds heads, the heads representing in Maori idea the islands of New Zealand. It is inlaid with pawa shell. Te Kooti wore this ornament round his neck when he was sent as a prisoner to the Chatham Islands, and he gave it to the little daughter of Dr. Watson, then military surgeon on the Chathams, on the occasion of his (Te Kooti’s) marriage to a Maori woman prisoner. The little girl, at his request, was permitted by Dr and Mrs Matson to be a bridesmaid at the rebel chief’s marriage. There is a proposal to purchase the relic for the Auckland Museum.