NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1730, 15 September 1917, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

In a long and fatiguing march the tall men in the army usually fall out first or succumb to campaigning, unless, as is very rarely the ease, they have well-knit and symmetrical frames. A soldier between sft. Sin. or 9in. is usually the man most capable of bearing the strain of life.

Mr Elihu Root, speaking at a New York war meeting, was interrupted by “voices” in the body of the hall. The first interrupter was ejected through the door, while the second was thrown out of the window. After these little incidents, the speaker warned German agents that they must not push American patience too far. If this is a fair specimen of American patience, wo can look forward with joyful anticipation to the time when Uncle Sam really lets himself go and gets “mad.” —Passing Show.

An instance of the splendid patriotism with which many of the Maoris have borne the loss of their relatives at the front is furnished in a letter which has recently been received by the Inquiry Bureau of the Canterbury Red Cross Association. The writer, a native woman, residing at Kaitoke, Bay of Islands, sends first “greetings to all, with deep sympathy,”' and then proceeds : —“I send you also a message of sympathy for my beloved husband that has fallen for welfare of the Empire. I feel very much for my beloved father’s not knowing how he died, so kindly explain and let me know how he bravely end his life. Very sorry indeed, but I think he has done his duty for King and country.”

Says the Auckland Observer: — “Professor” Walter Thomas Mills, a grinning human gargoyle with side whiskers and at least four feet ten in height, is probably the worst kind of bounder who ever hit New Zealand, if one bars McMurran, the alleged journalist who wrote three yards of tripe for the N.Z. Government. Mills came to N.Z. years ago as an apostle of “Red Fed,”, was “persona grata” with Ministers, talked like an Edison phonograph with the wheels lubricated, and was accepted at his own valuation. People used almost to pray to the little monkey man. Mills has lain “perdu” as far as N.Z. is concerned for some years, but his name crops up again as a leader of the United States Socialist Party, who stafe that declaration of war by America is a crime against the people of the United States and the nations of the world. Reports from U.S.A. don’t show that Mills has been lynched, or electrocuted, or put in the Senate, so he’s probably still raving round like a diminutive lion roaring for dollars. He must have taken a few cool thousands out of New Zealand.

In Northern Queensland, an independent little body of strikers recently declared the whole railway in the Cairns district “black.”- Neither goods nor passengers might travel upon it; and, as a result, the townships along that line have been as much in danger of starvation as if they wore besieged by Germans. In Townsville the strikers notified that “any merchant, butcher, or grocer who refuses credit to his present customers” would be declared “black”; and the goods of the unhappy shopkeeper be left stranded. In Broken Hill -the police have practically been declared “black.” Nobody must sell them anything, or do anything for them. The municipal employees have refused to carry out the ordinary sanitary service at the police barracks. As the mines at Broken Hill are “black,” the local fire brigade was warned not to give any help if a fire broke out iu any of them.

Some of the complaints made by men unjustly called in the ballots are justified. But other complaints are not. Recently a man with a wife and five children was drawn in the ballot as a First Division reservist, and summoned for medical examination. He protested, and the authorities examined his papers. It was found that iu completing bis own registration form he had not slated either that he had children or that he was married, An even more remarkable ease is that of a man who died on service in Samoa, and was subsequently drawn in the ballot. A comparison of the registration form, on which the military lists are placed, showed that the man had varied the order of his Christian names, and given his occupation first as a barman and then as an accountant.