NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2210, 2 December 1920, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

As a sequel to a recent ease of insulting conduct, in which water was squirted upon two British and two French officers inspecting the Cuxhaven naval barracks, Admiral Charlton has handed to the German Government a demand for the dismissal of the commandant at Cuxhaven in the presence of the insulted officers, and the punishment of others concerned in the affair.

./‘No woman is hound to live with a man who makes a mere tank of himself,” said Mr S. E. McCarthy, S.M., at the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court recently, in granting an application by a woman for a separation order, “It’s not good for a woman,” added the Magistrate, “and it’s not good for the race that a woman should bring into the world children whose father is a drunkard.” , t

“I how to your knowledge of common law, your Honour,” said Mr T. M. Wilford to Sir Bassett Edwards at the Supremo Court, Wanganui, last week, “but-not to your knowledge of racing law,” His Honour remarked that he knew something about common sense. He did not profess to know a great deal about racing law, nor did he desire to improve his knowledge in that direction.

The (In liters of aviation are exaggerated in the pnlilie mind, says the Bulletin of the Department of Overseas Trade, owing to the prominence given to accidents. Recently a dinner was given in London to the survivors of the first 10(1 British pilots. Notwithstanding the facts that these men began their flying at the time when aeroplane construction was still largely experimental, and that many of them were engaged in the war, 75 out of the 100 were found to he alive.

.Fond parents are now no longer satisfied with photographs or paintings of their children as a solace for (he time when both sons and daughters leave home, says a London ]taper. Many are having the silvery notes of their children preserved on. talking-machine records. AY hen children grow into adults their voices, as well as . their features, change, not always for the better. In fat are the choirboy's voice or the lisping notes of a baby girl will lie heard in the home of their infancy, even after their owners have departed to found their own establishments. The cost of a recording of a child's voice is about £25.

The Government will shortly authorise the establishment of two aerial mail services. One will cover Auckland to Whangarei, and probably include Dargayille. The other will afford an important improvement in the mail service between Christchurch and Blenheim. Lmler present conditions mails from the southern part of the South Island destined for Blenheim and Nelson have to be sent to ’Wellington, where they lie'at least twelve hours before being sent across Cook Strait, 'the proposed aerial mail will effect a great saving of time by giving a direct route to Marlborough. ■

Speaking at Wellington la.-t week, the Hon. E. B. Lee, .Minister of Industries and Commerce, said, men with families and with small means were having a hard si niggle against existing circumstances in many eases. “Putting that to one side, however,” said the Minister, “there is at the present time, in my Judgment, hick of economy among the younger members ol the community, in particular among the unmarried. Anyone rending the history of this country can see it was built up by what may be termed rigid economy, and I think the following of that example woidd give us one of the solutions of the problems of to-day. This applies not only to Government departments, Iml generally in the conduct of the daily life of the comumnitv."

When a baker was proceeded against at Auckland lor selling un-der-weight bread, Mi’ J. A\. Fovnton, H.M., remarked tbal the offerico was an ancient one. The Magistrate further said, in reply to defendant’s statement that he had had trouble with (he tiring of his oven, that he knew bakers had difliculty in regulating' the weight of bread, but it had always been so. The laws of Hamonradi, in ancient Babylon, laid it down that the milkman who watered milk be drowned in the pool from which lie drew the water, and that the baker who gave light weight should be baked in the oven in which the light bread was baked. The law was not now quite so extensive, but still it had to be made effective. Defendant was lined £lO and Os costs.

The disregard of human life in the present era was touched on by the Rev. G. Knowles-Smith in an address to the Methodist Synod at Masterton this week. Life, he said, was being held more cheaply now than ever before. What was the manufacturer doing but gambling with lives when he sold to a Government shoddy material for soldiers at the frontHe did not realise the lives he was jeopardising nigh worthless stuff; all that mattered was the speedy accumulation of wealth. But on the other side, too, there was the same disregard of life. What mattered it to the coal miner that his own family starved, or that the family'of a fellow-work-er in Wellington went cold for want of coal? From to-day’s revolution were to be learnt two outstanding facts. The first was that the world had come very largely to disregard religion, and the second was that a cause of the world’s unrest was universal wrong-thinking. It was the Church’s duty to put the world right. Political economy in which so many men were versed could only solve a

problem dealing with £ s. d., it could not restrain evil. That was the Church’s duty, but first the Church must regain its grip on spiritual life.