NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2165, 19 August 1920, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

An extraordinary sight was witnessed in East linn, England Avhen two big timber yards were destroyed by fire. The fire spread Avith amazing rapidity. Tongues of flame, eighty yards long, fanned by a steady breeze, crossed the road, and both stacks of timber blazed fiercely, the flames mounting to a groat height. Houses were hurriedly vacated, the occupants taking their furniture and goods out of the danger zone.

Groat difficulty is still being experienced by Xcw Zealanders in England in obtaining passages for the return trip to the Dominion. Advices received last week are to the effect that some of the travellers are glad to book by steamers that sail direct from British ports to Sydney, as tliis is the more speedy way of getting home. , The Shaw, Savill and Albion Company (says "the Auckland Herald) has notified Auckland clients that all its vessels bound for Xew Zealand are booked up to the end of Xovember. Le Matin (Paris) publishes a letter sent by the ex-Crown Prince of Germany to the ex-Kaiser in July, 1917, strongly urging peace. The Prince declared that the spirit of the German people was deplorable. u lf peace docs not come before the end of the year,” he wrote, “a revo-

lution will be imminent. It is no longer any question of victory, but of the life of the German people. Our dynasty is in danger. That is a great misfortune, but it is nothing compared with the danger threatening Germany." A new method of enforcing the .'-peed-limit of motor cars is being tried in Greece. Policemen are posted along Hie main roads armed with planks studded witli long sharp nails. When a ear which is exceeding the speed limit is scon approaching they drop the plank in front of it. If the car runs over the plank (he tyres are inevitably punctured, and it is brought up short, when the police servo their summons, and the owner of the car not only has to pay for (he repair of his lyres, but is also liable to a line.

“There are abroad throughout the land very loose ideas as to what is honesty,” said Mr S. E. McCarthy, 8.M., at the Magistrate’s Court in Christchurch, in connection with a (barge of theft against a woman. “It is the duly of this court as far as it can to correct.those ideas." Those who received articles known lo be stolen, lie continued, were thieves, and were not lo bo trusted. The crime of stealing articles from restaurants was becoming a very serious one indeed, and proprietors throughout the Dominion would say that such things were constantly being stolen. A London correspondent writes: —Here is something for the bootmakers to take note of. I am told on the “strict' quiet" that the American authorities are experimenting with leather from sharks and porpoises! The experiments have been going on for some lime, and the

authors claim that excellent soft leather can he made in -this way, and that it is useful for uppers of boots. It was a bright young man, i hear, who first suggested the idea as a means of solving (he problem of bringing down the price of boots. ■So, maybe, before long we shall be treading on shark’ Hide. Mhat use is a shark, anyway? The thefts of a girl, aged 10, in order to buy presents for a boy even younger than herself were described at Wiilesdcn Police Court, London. The girl, Christine Brainier, was charged with stealing £1 2s (id from her foster mother. Christine told (lie magistrate that she broke open her foster mother’s box and took a £1 note and a half-crown. She bought some red, white and bine ribbon for Empire Day, a bracelet for Is, and a ring for lid. Pulling on the jewellery, she went lo meet a boy, younger than herself, bought him some sweets and other presents, and took him to the pictures. The magistrate said she was suffering from moral disease —kleptomania in the strictest sense of the word. He remanded her for a week to see what could be done lo save her from her besetting sin of dishonest y.

A business man whose affairs take him frequently through the Waikato and other dairying districts in the North Island is exercised in his mind regarding the probable scarcity of cattle in a few years' time. “Too many calves are being slaughtered," he remarked to a representative of the Auckland Star. “At some farms where they used lo rear sixty to eighty calves each year, 1 now find only four or live are .-.aved. This is the outcome of the good prices that are being paid for the milk, ft pays the dairy farmer better to sell the milk than to rear the calves. This is, of course, looked at from the point of view of immediate profit, but what of the future? If the calves are not being reared, where is the supply of cows to come from in a year or two years’ time ? One tiling is evident, namely, that the price of cattle is not: likely Lo come down unless more calves are reared. It seems to me that instead of £ls to £2O each, the price of good dairy cows is more likely lo be nearer £3O to £4O each.

More than a month lias elapsed since Mr W. H. Hawkins developed the particulars of the “Tiraumea land scandal,’’ in connection Avith which a Wairarapa laud owner was enormously enriched at the expense of the community and a group of settlers. The Minister of Lands promised to publish a reply, hut ha.s failed to do so. Mr Hawkins, in a letter to the Taranaki News, draws ■ the attention of the public to another ' transaction even'more glaring than the last. If relates to an estate of 11,000 acres, valued in 1912 at £45,000. The owner paid taxation on this amount up to 1910, and “then the Government unloaded it on to the shoulders of returned soldiers, at an aggregate value of £130,000. The improvements on (he estate when the matter was fixed up for balloting were valued at £1,320. “The altitude of the estate runs from thirty yards to nearly a quarter of a mile above sea level." Mr Hawkins invites the Minister to do a little research Avork in reference to the area he means, and then tell Parliament the details Avhed he brings down his regulation in regard to the “Tiraumea scandal."