NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1743, 20 October 1917, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

A New Zealand soldier, writing to his relatives from Palestine,: says This is an awful place for dust, which is ever so much -worse than the sand of the desert. A manwalking raises a cloud of it, so you can imagine what happens during the movement of 2,000 or 3,000 horses. The whole country becomes obliterated from view, and those who are unfortunate enough to be amongst or near .the horses fairly choke. The flies are far worse than further down, and one often wonders whether the flies will eat the jam off one’s bread. Fortunately at night they do not worry .one, or I think we should all go crazy, There are here, as in Sinai, a wonderful collection of insects, and other life. In addition to those of Sinai, we have scorpions, tarantulas, centipedes, crickets, gnats, and wasps,. Fortunately it is not so hot here as further south, and even on the hot-* test days we have a cooling breeze

from the sea.

Mr Roger Babson, the eminent statistician of Wellesley College, Boston, has gathered the following interesting figures from a close study of war casualties-Under present conditions, where manpower is being saved, no‘more than one in 30 is killed. Only one in 500 loses a limb —a chance no greater than in- hazardous conditions at home. Mr Babson’s conclusions are based on the mortality figures of the French army for the full three years of the war. Attention is called to the fact that present fighting is not claiming anywhere the number of dead recorded for the first two years. He says: “Most of the wounds sustained in the trenches are clean cut and of a nature that a few weeks in the hospital makes the subject as fit as ever. But 300,000 French soldiers have been discharged on account of wounds during the three years of the war. Most of the wounds received in the' trenches are on top of the head, simply scalp wounds. Practically speaking, a wound is either fatal or slight, with but few in between these two extremes.” Early action has; been taken to prevent Jim Larkin, the notorious Dublin agitator, who was on his way to Australia, from landing cither in Sydney or in New Zealand. The mail steamer on which Larkin was a passenger was to call at Auckland first. Accordingly the captain received peremptory instructions to drop the Dublin notoriety at Pago Pago, in American Samoa. Pago Pago is in touch with Sydney by means of a three-weekly service. Larkin is said to have expressed great indignation when the ship authorities told him that he could not proceed further on the voyage. He wanted to be allowed to go as far as Auckland, but this was refused, the captain informing him that his orders were imperative. It was thought by the passengers that Larkin would return to America by the first available boat, as the embargo placed upon him has been notified to all steamship owners plying between Pago Pago and and between the Samoan group and New Zealand. Even if he showed up in Sydney, remarks the Sydney Sunday Times, he would be bound to be deported, so that the chances are that by now he has accepted his exclusion in a more or less philosophical spirit. The Sah Francisco Chronicle of sth August devotes a considerable amount of its space to the career of Brigadier-General Bernard (Tiny) Freyberg, V.C., D. 5.0., whom, strangely enough, it hails as “a San Francisco citizen.” The article is headed “San Francisco Athlete Rises to Brink of General. Bernard Freyberg Has Meteoric Career in War,” and proceeds to deal with the career of New Zealand’s most distinguished soldier*. “From subaltern to general of the British Army,” says the Chronicle, “is some record —a record never approached by soldier *in ancient or modern times. And this honour has fallen to the lot of a San Francisco athlete, Barnard Freyberg,” Brigadi-er-General Freyberg’s people reside in Macdonald-crescent, Wellington. He was born in Surrey twenty-six years ago, and came out to New Zealand with his parents when still an infant in arms. A dairyman, who was giving evidence in a case in the Magistrate’s Court, Christchurch, complained bitterly of the manner in which motorists assumed a monopoly of the road. Mr T. A. B. Bailey, S.M., the presiding Magistrate, instantly championed the cause of the automobile. “Now, look here,” he said, “ you milkmen complain about motor ears. Well, I was,driving my motor car down a street the other day, and two milkmen with their carts blocked the whole road while they discussed politics. They seemed quite indignant at being disturbed.” “Oh, I know milkmen have a bad name,” retorted the witness. “It is said that they are bad on water, but motors are bad on land.”