LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1798, 7 March 1918, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

What troubles this country is not the the high cost of living, but the cost of high living. ! Money spent may serve a more deserving person; food lyid.manpower washed i rf utterly lost to the world. Lavish living in times of peace leaves us a surplus from which, hy economising, we may relieve those stricken by war famine,

Bush fifcfes are raging in parts of Taranaki.

During Constable Woods’ ah-' sence on holiday leave, Constable John O’Donoghue will he in charge of the local police district. Sir Saunders, of Shannon, has disposed of his residential property in Thynne Street to Mr Woodroofe, of Himatangi. A Wellington letter-carrier named Alexander John Bramley, has been committed to the Supreme Court for sentence for the theft of postal packets. Mr H. Signal, of the linn of Messrs Ross and Signal, after spending some time in the Cl Camp, has been declared unfit for military service.

The Prime Minister stated recently that the New Zealand Government had decided to grant the sum of £IO,OOO to the fund for the relief of sufferers by the Halifax disaster. During 1917 the number of interments made at Karori Cemetery, Wellington, was 875, as against 894 in the previous year. The number of cremations in 1917 was 28 —nine more than in 191 G. Members of the Presbyterian Ladies’ Social Guild were entertained at an afternoon in the schoolroom by Mrs Bredin yesterday, when a’most enjoyable time was spent. Some of the finest land in the Dominion is to be found, along the Manawaiu, and £SO to £7O per acre is the price asked for that on the Hats near Shannon, says a Post correspondent. A further draft of returned soldiers (draft 143) arrived in Wellington at ah early hour on Tuesday. They comprised 40 officers, 2 nurses, and 573 other ranks—a total of 021, The only Foxton returned man was M. Lenihan. Sir Tjiomas Mackenzie (High Commissioner for New Zealand) visited the New Zealand camps, and found all units very tit. He also visited the “incapiicituteds” at Torquay, where a good hall is being provided for their entertainment, pending-repatriation. Tickets for the forthcoming concert to be held in the Town Hall on Thursday, March 21st, in aid of St, Mary’s Church, are finding a ready sale. Among the artists who will take part are Miss Teresa McEnroe (of Wellington), and Mr F. B. Burke (of Auckland), whose items alone are worth the price of admission. A despatch from Washington states that the general belief in military and diplomatic circles is that the great mass of the Russian people will refuse to accept Uni climax of the Bolsheviks,’ folly and treachery and make an abject surrender to the Germans.

The Press bureau states that mails from Australia and New Zealand, containing a few letters and many newspapers and parcels, were on hoard a ship which was torpedoed. The posting dates of the New Zealand letters were from December 221 li to 17th.

A drunken man had a remarkable escape from serious injury in Auckland on Saturday afternoon. The man was riding on the front platform of a fra incur, and as the oar went round a corner he i’ell on to the road. The heel of one of his boots was sliced off by the wheels of the car. He was taken to the hospital, where it was ascertained that he had escaped injury. The man was ordered to pay 10s costs. A young man named J. Johnson met with a painful accident at one of the local tlaxmills .this week, through a belt breaking and striking him on the face. His injuries, which, fortunately, were not serious, were medically attended to. A few days previous the same young man was carried by a, belt to the rafters, and had portion of his netjier garments torn off. Mrs Jane Cocking, of Camberwell, died on February ll)th, in her 102nd year (says the Sydney Herald). She was a remarkable woman in many ways, both physically and mentally. She did not use spectacles, and until three years ago could see to thread a needle. Mrs Cocking was born in Kent on December 13. th, 1810, and was married in 1814. She came out to Adelaide with her husband (an architect) in 1848.

The military prisoner, George Cnffrey, who has caused the authorities some little concern hy taking every opportunity to escape from custody, evaded the surveillance of, (wo members of the military police, a sergeant and a lance-corporal, in whose charge he was, at Auckland last Wednesday afternoon, and is still at large. The publicity that has been given Catt’rey dates back to February 2nd, when he was arrested as airabsentee from camp, in a house in Hobson street, by two plain clothes detectives. On that occasion he was discovered hiding in a chimney. He was taken to one of the forts, but the following day escaped by bending the-stout iron bars outside the window of the cell in which he had been confined, and defied the authorities for five days to recapture him. On the sixth day he was captured by one of the same coustables in the Albion Hotel, and once more handed over to the military authorities. EVERYBODY KNOWS,

. Chamberlain’s Colic and Diarrhoea Remedy is to-day the bestknown medicine in use for the relief of bowel complaints. It is especially good for griping, diarrhoea, dysentery, and pains in the stomach, and should be taken at the first unnatural looseness of the bowels. For sale everywhere.—Advt,

Te Aufe College, a very old landmark in Hawke’s Bay, was totally destroyed by fire on Tuesday night. The fire started in the kitchen, shortly after midnight, and, the building being old, the flames spread, with remarkable rapidity. The whole of the students got out safely, but lost a considerable portion of their effects. * During the hearing of a civil ease at the Palmerston Magistrate’s Court yesterday afternoon (says the Standard), reference was made to the class of timber used in some Government buildings. Mr L. G. Reid, the Magistrate, said that when he first went to Dannevirke he noticed a lot of blotting paper on the Magistrate’s desk, and on making inquiry he ascertained that it was to catch the rain that came through a hole in the roof. He had suggested—and the suggestion had eventually been adopted —that it would be better to get a plumber in and get the roof repaired. “The true basis of life, the very essence of life, is struggle,” says Professor Macmillan Brown, “and if you cease to struggle you may as well die. I have voyaged much among primitive peoples, and have seen this point emphasised time and again. Whenever war, the only occupation of the men, ceases, they die off. I saw this last winter in the Marqueasas, where a population of half a. million at the beginning of last century has dwindled down to 2,500, cheifly because they have ceased their usual occupation. The men loafed, there was no more struggle; they were dying rapidly.”

At si recent meeting; of the Palmerston Borough Council, the medical officer reported that bugs, were swarming in one of the hoarding houses. Bed bugs swarmed behind the wallpapers, and many of the mattresses, although in many cases newly bought by the present lessee, only served as nests for these insects, which fed, when possible, on human beings and acled directly as propagators of infectious diseases. He urged the Council to have Ihe walls stripped both of canvas and paper and then treated by antiseptic washes, to the satisfaction of the Inspector, before being repuperod. Dr. Whittaker also slated that he considered it advisable to make a systematic inspection of all boardinghouses before the winter. It was decided that the Health Inspector carry out Dr. Whittaker’s suggestions.