GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2122, 1 May 1920, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

■ln the course of a speech'at the officers’ reunion at Palmerston N. on Saturday evening, BrigadierGeneral Hart, according to a Press message, stated that it was quite on the cards that New Zealand might, at no distant date, have to defend herself from an outside nation. It was, therefore, necessary to be always prepared, and there was no other way,to do this than to strengthen the Territorials. This could best be done by officers who had an experience of actual warfare ottering their services to that force.

Some of the preparations made by the Maoris at Rotorua for the delectation of 11.R.1t. the Prince of Wales are quite out of the common. Among other stories told is one (quite authentic) of a wahine whose dental equipment was faulty. She had no less than seven t#clh extracted, and had-them replaced with gold ones, a prominent central one being set with a diamond worth £SO. The result should be a both expansive and expensive smile, which should .impress 11.R.H. as being at least unusual.

The story of the rat which was fed foi' some days on the “poison” supplied by the Auckland City Council, related at a meeting of the City Council a month ago, has a sequel. This was narrated at the last meeting of the Council. The narrator said he had submitted a packet of the mixture to the Government analyst, who had reported that it contained no trace of certain poisons which he named. There were slight [races only of phosphorus, which wa.s probably oxidised, in which case is would become a tonic instead of a. poison. Thai was the mixture on which the rat referred to had thrived for so long. The Mayor remarked that while the mailer had a. humorous side it a,lso had a serious one. IT the mixture supplied by the Council for exterminating rats was not effective steps must be taken to procure one that was.