NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2156, 29 July 1920, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Referring to the proposed taxing of motors, a correspondent in the Wairarapa News suggests that “the fairest thing would be a tax on benzine or motor spirit, as then each owner would pay in exact proportion to the amount of running his ear did. No one seems to have considered this, so I give it out as my quota to the discussion.”

The present shortage of benzine and kerosene recalls the fact that when oil wells were first worked in America it caused uneasiness in the minds of the devout. The result was that a petition was presented to Congress in the early days which is illustrative of the trend of thought at that time. The following is an extract from this interesting petition ; “That various persons in drawing petroleum from the bowels of the earth are cheeking the designs of (lie Almighty, who had stored it there undoubtedly with a view to the last day, when the world shall be destroyed. 1 ’

When the Prime Minister, Mr Massey, was in Britain last year he was presented with the freedom of the City of Cardiff. He has now received a very handsome casket to contain the parchment scroll which certifies to his enrolment as a freeman of the ancient city. The casket is a very fine piece of work in gold on an oak plinth, and with a marble base. It is decorated with the arms of the city in enaSnel, and national emblems, together with a finely executed miniature painting of the Prime Minister. This is the seventh trophy of this kind that Mr Massev has received.

A good story is going the rounds at the present time, says the Waimarino Call. It is to the effect that one of our soldier settlers having taken several acres of bush land in the Kuatiti block, started to fell the trees. . There happened to be a large rimu which he thought he would start on first. Not being used to fho game, he started chopping all round the tree (known as pee topping). He had some doubt as to which way the tree would fall, so he thought it would be the safest plan to dig a trench alongside the tree, so that when it fell he would be ready to jump into the trench, and thus be out of the road of the falling tree. When the tree did fall he sprang into the trench, and the tree fell across it. The poor soldier was I wo days and a night in digging himself out.

A strong movement is on foot in New Zealand, on the part of the Wellington Group for Female Prisoners, to organise a radical change in the treatment of imprisoned women by the adoption of farm colonies, on Ihe principle operating in New Jersey, U.S.A. It is proposed that a farm colony should be established on land suitable for market gardening, dairying, fruit-growing, etc., preferably in the Manawatu district, because there are to he found suit able climate and soil, with good access to .Wellington as an excellent market. The scheme for the institution itself, as suggested by the group, is to provide for the strict classification of prisoners, with cottage homes and ordinary civil standard of living and dress for those who are approaching the end of their detention, soy as to avoid unfavourable reaction on their return to civil life.

A curious case of how the mind can on occasion triumph over the body was mentioned at a meeting of the South Canterbury Hospital -Board the other day (states the Christchurch Press). A resident of the country wrote to the board complaining that he had sent his wife to Timaru Hospital with a poisoned hand for treatment. The resident medical officer (Dr. Fraser) had operated on the hand, and discharged the patient two days later. She left that day for her home by train, but on the journey she had to he taken off the train and placed in a private hospital, whore a doctor had been called in to operate again on her hand. The husband desired to know why an operation at a private hospital was necessary after his wife had been discharged from the public hospital. Dr. Fraser said the explanation was that the Avomau was suffering from hysteria, and not from a poisoned hand... Her temperature was normal, and though he had operated on her hand twice (expecting to find pus. there, on account of the intense pain of which she complained), he could find nothing wrong with it! A letter was received from the country doctor who had operated on the hand after Dr. Fraser, stating that he, too, diagnosed the case as one . of hysteria. He found no signs of pus, hut allowed the patient to think that he had done so, and after this she had recovered. The board accepted their medical officer’s explanation as quite satisfactory.