GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2117, 20 April 1920, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Few families have a better record for marksmanship than that of the Ingram family, of Levin, says the Chronicle. Messrs L., W. and C v Ingram are well known members of the Levin Rifle Club, and are among its most consistent shots. Another brother, Mr E. Ingram, has been doing remarkably good shooting at Hawera recently, one of his best efforts being a score of 103 over three ranges out of a possible 105. Mr Ingram’s son is following in his father’s footsteps, and he, too, put ip) some promising performances on the Hawera range lately.

It may or may not have been to help to meet the high cost of living that a King’s shirt and night-cap were recently sold by auction. The night-cap, anyhow, had come to be something of a superfluity in the original.wardrobe, as its owner lost his head as far back as Hilt), it having, in fact, belonged to King diaries 1., of unhappy memory. When put up, at the same time as other relihs of the Royal Martyr, at Rushbvooke Hall, for 500 years the seat of the.loyal Jemyns, the two shirts and the night-cap fetched ten guineas—without any accusation of profiteering against the seller.

There was at lime when the name “fireman” was synonymous with an exceedingly rough sort of gentleman with an unslakable thirst and a short orbit that hit only the places where they sold beer and policestations. But things arc changed. There was a boat ,a few days ago on which a man was actually forced by his fellow firemen to leave on account of his drunken habits. Instead of being herded together like four-footed animals, the men on the craft in question have two-berth cabins, a proper mess room, and a moss room steward. The droughty person when ho joined went aboard the ship half seas over. He repeated the performance at every port touched at, and his fellow firemen got so fed up with his habits that he cleared out—the place was too respectable for him. Auckland filar.

If all the lands under sugar cane in Australia were concentrated in one block they would occupy a space of only 20 miles by a little more than 14 miles, or a square with sides of about 17 miles. Ye! in 101 i sufficient sugar was produced in the Commonwealth to more than meet aU local requirements. Since then the cultivation has fallen oil, and this year’s, harvest is not expected to total more than 180,000 tons, which is 100,000 tons below requirements. It was found by the Royal Commission which recently inquired into the sugar industry that there arc no extensive compact areas of rich agricultural land in the Commonwealth which are suitable for sugar cultivation on a large scale. The various centres of production are separated by long distances, and the industry is conducted under various conditions of soil, rainfall, and temperature,, which materially affect the method and cost of cultivation. In New South Wales and in Queensland districts south of Machay there has been a gradual displacement of sugar cultivation by other forms of agricultural effort, of which dairying is the most important. In some parts of the New South Wales river districts dairying and fruit production have wholly displaced cane cultivation.