LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1743, 20 October 1917, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A mervement is afoot to start a co-operative store in Shannon. Thex*e Avere 24 fatal accidents on the New Zealand railways in the year endecT March last. • Monday nest is Labour Day, and the local fiaxmULs will close for the day. An uneasy conscience.—The §e'dto the Treasury acknowledges in Thursday’s Gazette the §um of 3s 2d, forwarded to’the Railway Department by a person unkuoAvn.

A slight earthquake was felt in this district on Thursday evening. Ten military offenders were in the hands of the Palmerston police yes.terday. These men have been arrested in various districts for different offences, and will be dealt with by the military authorities. - E. J. Collett was fined £35 at Petone for selling milk containing 29 per cent, of added water. The Magistrate said if fines were ineffective he would imprison the offenders. The Kaiser has decided that all German officers and soldiers who are prisoners will receive the Iron Cross on their return home after the war, if they can prove that they did not surrender voluntarily. The financial result of the Catholic bazaar is not yet known, but the Rev. Pat her Corley informs us that the effort was a great success. He desires to thank all who assisted in any way with the bazaar. Advertising is all right if it is done properly, but no return could be expected from a poster recently tacked on the fence of a cemetery in Brooklyn (New York) which reads, “Awake Your Country Needs You!” At Christchurch, Stanley Frederick Fountain, labourer, lately of Oamaru, a reservist who failed to go to camp, was sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment and ordered to be handed over to the military authorities at the conclusion of the sentence. Female fortune-tellers have been raking in the shekels at Auckland from domestic servants and other simple-minded women to such an extent that the police have started a crusade to sweep them out. Several of these charlatans have been convicted and gaoled. The police raided an alleged house of ill-fame at Island Bay on Thursday night, and arrested five women. At the Wellington Police Court yesterday, Rene Manley, Gertrude McEwAn, Thelma Collier, Mary Morgan and Vera Malcolm were remanded till Tuesday on charges connected therewith. As showing how profitable dairying may be with good cows, and the high prices paid for cream last season, Mr Taylor, whose farm is at Cinder Hill, near Stanway, received £2OO for the cream from nine cows, and Mr Berger, Makino, who only milked two, received £OO for his cream. —Star, Subjects of Allied or neutral countries proceeding to China will not be admitted to that country unless they present passports with 4in. photographs of the holder attached thereto, signed by Chinese Ministers or Consuls, and stamped with seals of Legations or Consulates. To relieve the schoolboys’ instinct to carve his name, and to save school desks from damage, the Rangiora High School Board, at the suggestion of the principal, decided to mount a suitable board in the playground on which the pupils would be permitted to carve to their heart’s content. A Gazette statement shows that from April till September a total of 5,055,806 passengers were carried on New Zealand railways. The number of season tickets issued was 148,394. The number of head of live stock carried was 2,471,613. Of timber, minerals, and other goods a total tonnage of 2,431,726 passed through the department’s hands. Says the Levin Chronicle: “The time is opportune to enquire how much longer the misnomer, ‘Otaki Electorate’ is to continue. ‘Horowhenua’ would be a much more appropriate appellation for the electoral district in question,’ and Levin, as the chief town and borough in the constituency, is still better entitled to give its name to the electorate.” Lieut. Roy Fitzgerald, M.C., of the Gloucester Regiment, a brother of Mrs A. A. Stewart, of Eltham, was taken prisoner by the Germans five months ago, and was in hospital in Genuany suffering from wounds. Mrs Stewart has received a cablegram announcing that Lieut. Fitzgerald had outwitted the Huns, and escaped from Germany. A miner named John MacPherson was killed on Thursday in the Waihi mine. It appears that a round of holes had been fired, after which McPherson returned and barred down the loose stones. A large piece came away unexpectedly, striking MacPherson on the head, and killing him almost instantaneously. Deceased leaves a wife and six children. “If I could tell what I know (and why it should not be told I cannot for the.life of me conjecture), there would be no panic fears in England for the coining winter,” writes Mr Harold Begbie in Lloyd’s after a visit to the Lopdon docks. “But this surely I shall be allowed to say —that with ordinary care we are at this moment absolutely safe from starvation,” A glaring case of evasion of \he School Attendance Act came before Mr Hewitt, S.M., at Ohakune, the other day. Mr Skinner, the Wanganui Education Board’s truancy officer, proceeded against Mischewsky on nine charges of not sending his boy regularly to school. The lad is almost 14 years of age, and has not yet passed the second standard, but has been employed driving commercial travellers to and from Raetihi', aM isAoV driying for a carrier. Fines and costs totalling £8 12s 104 were inflicted, Only recently the same defendant was fined £6 16s on simiiaf' charges, and altogether he has been fined over £3O for the absence of his son from sehooll ~ ,

The following have been killed in action :. “Privates D. Hurley, (Palmerston North; H. Burnett, Rata; C. McClymont, Pahiatua; A. R. Lehndorf, and T. B. Power, Woodvi}le; H. W. Mitchell, Otaki; A. Scaccisi,' Levin; Lance-Corporal Stratton, Levin; Lance-Corporal McDonald, Levin. .

A woman was fined £2O at Petone for stealing gas from the Borough Council. The meter had been removed, but the defendant connected the rising pipe with the house .service by means of a piece of hose. When discovered, four burners and a gas-ring were in use. Gas xvas also escaping through faulty con-, neetion.

At an inquest held at Feilding into the cause of the death of Harry Hughes, who was knocked down in the street on Monday last by a motor car driven by Wm. Rowe, the evidence showed that death was due to a fracture of the skull, and that at the time of the accident Mr Rowe was driving at a slow pace. The verdict was that no one was to blame for the accident.

“I don’t know what the Government is thinking of,” said the member for Napier in the House, in speaking, on the allowances for the Second Division. Mr Parr: “They don’t think at all.” Mr Brown: “They think as they think, but-that is no thinking at all. We want them to think as the country thinks, and if they don’t think as thsy think, well we will make them think.” (Hear, hear, and laughter).

A dastardly act was perpetrated at Knottingly Park, Waimate, on Sunday, between the hours of 10.30 a.m. and 2 p.m., when the emu, one of the great attractions of the park to children, was deliberately and cruelly, killed,, states the Timaru Herald. The bird was apparently "knocked on the head with a stout stick, and the tongue was then cut out by the roots. The bird is valued by the Domain Board at £3O. The matter was immediately placed in the hands of the police.

Since the sink-at-sight policy of the Hun began, in February last, the enemy has averaged the sinking of more than half the ships attacked. During the past 35 weeks—the period covered by the new and more destructive policy —the submarines have sunk 597 British ships of over 1,600 tons burthen, and .196 under, that tonnage —793 in all; whilst 508 •ships were unsuccessfully attacked. And in these latter weeks the French and Italian shipping has paid a heavier toll than previously.

For the year ended March 31st, 1917, the net profit on the working of the New Zealand railways was £1,873,946, compared with £1,637,473 for the previous year. The percentage of profit to capital invested was 5.30 per cent., and for the preceding year 4.72. Net earnings per average mile open ■were £632, as against £555 for the'previous year. The number of ordinary passengers earned during the year was 14,173,115, a decrease of 28,391 on the number for the previous year.

“The girls should go to work in shifts,” said Mr A, E. Glover, in the House, in speaking on a measure affecting girls employed in marble bars and other refreshment rooms. This remark appeared to tickle members, “Why not come in platoons?” said Mr Wilford, amidst laughter. “Whatever you like,” said the obliging Mr Glover, “a rose by any name smells just as sweet.” The explosion of laughter that followed the declaration outrivalled all other outbursts of mirth.

“Everything is deteriorating in quality to-day, while the prices for articles are going up,” said Councillor McKenzie at Monday night’s meeting of the Petone Council. “Even ladies’ stockings are constructed of such poor material that you can see through them.” The remark created considerable laughter, the Mayor stating that it was not poorness of material, but the fashion, “Why, the girls wear short dresses so that you can see through them,” he added.

. In answer to a question by Mr J. T. M. Hornsby in the House of Representatives, the Minister of Defence said he had had a conference ■with O’s.C. of military districts on the subject of holding Territorial camps in country districts, They recommended that such camps should not be held, and he proposed to agree with the recommendation, and to extend the principle to the Senior Cadets in country districts. He did not propose to do away with the Senior Cadet parades in the towns, because he thought it was the best for the boys. If those required for farm work would make application to the group officer, leave would be granted, unless there was' no real reason for exemption.

“This matter is already being investigated by the Government, and will receive careful consideration on completion of the necessary inquiries,” stated the Prime Minister yesterdaydn a printed reply to a question by air W. £. .Field, M.P. for Otaki, as to whether the Government has yet given any consideration, or taken any action, with respect to the intended operations in this country of the Nestle and Ang-lo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, which is believed to be an alien company, having practically all its shareholders ‘ in Switzerland and other foreign countries, and which threatens to ,4tiH4 * Ideli 1 industries manufacturing the same product, and said to be amply supplying all present needs,

Fresh supplies of Lettuce daily at Walker & Furne's,*

“What is enabling Germany to hold out at the present time?” ask- * ed Mr Alexander M’Taggart, scicn- ' title chemist, Weraroa 'Training Farm, in appealing before the, Third Military Service Board. “Merely scientific knowledge of agriculture and the application of that knowledge.” “The war is being brought home to us at last,” said the Prime Minister, when speaking at the “Our Day” celebrations at Wellington yesterday. “For a long time wo did , not realise what this war meant. Now we look at the papers when they come along morning and night, and we see that our men are taking •part. We have intense admiration for our soldiers, and we are glad to read that they are doing so well. They got into a difficulty the other day, but there was no turning back.”^ At the local police court this morning, before Mr Hornblow, J.P., James Friend and Mary Ingerston were charged with drunkenness by the police. Constable Woods stated that the couple arrived by train from Palmerston last evening, and were under the inflifence of liquor, and conducting themselves in an unseemly manner. Friend, who pleaded guilty, said he arrived from Feilding to transact some business at the post office on behalf of In-, gerston, who was a niece by marriage. Ingerston also pleaded guilty, and stated that she was a married woman with thx'ee children in Wellington, and was visiting native friends at Motuiti. Both were convicted and ordered to leave the town immediately.