Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1917. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1704, 26 April 1917, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1917. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The war risk on cargo to England was advanced to live guineas per cent, this week. It is understood that the price paid by an oversea firm for the Antarctic expedition ship Aurora, which was sold recently, was £(>,- 000. Mr X. E. Baildon, (he newly appointed manager of (he local gas works, will arrive in 'Foxton tonight, and will take up his duties almost immediately. Tiie Awahou sailed at noon yesterday for Wellington with a small cargo of hem]). She is due back again with general to-morrow afternoon. A steamship which was ‘built Jive years ago at a cost of £BO,OOO, and lias already earned her total cost, was recently leased at Boston, Massachussetls, for 12 months for £240,000. Owing to there being no train from Palmerston North to-night, the Magistrate will be unable to get down to preside over the monthly silting of the Magistrate’s Court, which was set down for to-morrow. Several cases under the Licensing Act and defended civil cases have been adjourned until next sitting. The balance of the list will be heard by Justices. “No taxpayer will suffer because of furnishing the fullest information to the Department,’’ said the Commissioner of Taxes, at a meeting of farmers held in Masterton. “When we make an assessment we make it high enough to induce the person to object—it is then we get the actual facts.” He advised settiers to Jix a standard value on their stock and to stick to it for taxation purposes. “Germany is (he Uriah Ileep of the nations, but she Ims out-Heep-ed herself,” said Mr Hall Caine in a speech at the American Luncheon Club, in London. “To talk about attaining peace by the methods of murder is like trying to force the gates of heaven with skeleton keys that have been forged in hell.” At Wellington on Tuesday, on the application at Mr J. W. Macdonald, - solicitor to the Public Trust Office, Mr Richard Douglas Newth, sou of Mr and .Mrs 'William New Hi, of Foxtou, was admitted as a solicitor by the Chief Justice. Mr Newth is chief clerk in the Public Trust Office Wanganui, and is an ex-pupil of the local State school. Ye who read me, and, perhaps, need me, Treasure every word I say; No wild rumour, but wise humour, In a gay Miltonian way. I don’t sell you when I tell you That I’m absolutely sure, Laryngitis and bronchitis Yield to Woods’ Great Pepper-' mint Cure 2

An earthquake was experienced locally yesterday morning at about 10.40 o’clock.

Yesterday was observed as a close holiday among the local business people in honour of the second anniversary of Anzac Day.

A baseless rumour was circulated locally on Tuesday afternoon to the effect that the Prime Minister had died suddenly in England. Rumours of this nature should be traced to their source and an example made of the perpetrator.

An octopus with tentacles about 3ft. long was hooked on Monday by a man fishing from the. small wharf at the Patent Slip in Evans Bay. The octopus was pulled out of the water, but, winding its tentacles around a pile, it desisted all further efforts to bring it on to the wharf, and finally dropped back into* the sea. People in the habit of sitting an the rocks near the shore in these small bays should take notice that octopuses are not infrequent visitors to those spots. —Post.

An instance of the straits to which part of the management of an Auckland dairy factory were reduced in a former coal crisis was mentioned by Mr H. E. Pacey, managing director of the New Zealand Dairy Association (says the New Zealand Herald). Having used up all available coal, and then all the firewood that could be procured, the manager started upon the fence posts of his works, and had them fed into the furnaces. By this means he succeeded in keeping his machinery at work until the crisis was ended.

Income tax “excess” demands result in the department getting a. good many candid expressions oi! opinion and the venting’ of no inconsiderable anger. But probably the best yet on record reached the department the other day from a well-known Wairarapa resident at present serving his country in (-amp. “I just received the attached notice,” he wrote, “to pay 5s excess tax, but its 1 am now a money making unit for the large moneygetters in this country, and it is now possible that I shall be dead meat in the next few months, I cannot see my way clear to pay any more taxes. Truly, 1 have given all I have except my sou! and the gold stopping in my teeth. May 1 respectfully suggest that the men the Appeal Board fail to place in our army find the necessary taxes.” No doubt the writer considers that he Ims got even with a much discussed department.

Several Southern mine managers, at present in Auckland, referred to the statements made by Mr P. C. Webb, M.P., in regard to the cost of producing coal in New Zealand, hi reference to the statement that the. cost of “getting” coal here was lower than in other countries, the following figures for 3012 were quoted, the prices being the cost of producing coal from the mine to the pithead, all charges, such as administration, included;, — Tinted Kingdom, Os 0;, ! d per ton: America, (is Jd; Australia, 7s (Ud; New Zealand, 7s llfjd. In regard to the output of coal per man per annum, the last available figures were quoted as follows :—Tinted Kingdom, 244 tons, the output having been reduced owing to a strike: America, 000; Australia. 542; New Zealand, 508. It was pointed out that in many of the mines in the Dominion coal was more easily worked than in other parts of the world. —Herald.