GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2245, 1 March 1921, Page 1

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

At the conclusion of an open-air prohibition speech at Taumarunui, Captain Hawkins remarked that! this was only one speech of the many which he hoped to’mala' there between now and tlie next licensing poll. At this announcement a young man in the crowd called out: “If you come here then we will duck you!” Captain Hawkins thereupon replied: “Look here, young fellow! 1 am old enough to be your father, but I will give you a livepound note if you can duck me now. Come along here and try!” Thq youth seemed to think discretion the better part of valour, and the crowd enjoyed the joke immensely.— Press.

Appreciation of the high ideals of the New Zealand Press was evpressed by Colonel Sleeman at the Auckland Officers’ Club. .“I congratulate you,” said Colonel Sleeman, “on possessing a Press which, with few exceptions, stands for the highest icdals possible. T have given over 300 lectures here in the five years of my appointment, many of which, during the war period, contained confidential matter. Yet the discretion, the good taste, and the reliability of the Press and its reporters have been such that my confidence in its reliability has never been shaken. I cannot leave New Zealand without stating that 1 consider your Press the most impartial, fair and accurate of any 1 have met during 25 years’ service in many parts of the world. It typifies the spirit of your splendid Dominioh. No matter what seas divide us in the future it will ever hold a warm place in my heart."

“I happen to be, for the time.being, Minister of Mines,” Mr Massey said in the course of his speech at Hokitika last Wednesday. “A number of newspaper editors, who think they know all about it, say that ‘Mr Massey has overloaded himself, and cannot do justice to the work in hand.’ But if a man at the head of affairs wants to get the run of the different Depart incut--, and the knowledge he ought to posses?-, there is only one way to do it —and that is to take over the Depart meut and run il himself, then lie will get the necessary detail knowledge. .1 took our finance, and a result I got much information on the subject. I am prepared to sav this: That whoever the Prime Minister may be, the one Department that lie should control, besides the ordinary work of the Prime Minister’s Department, i?- that of Finance. He cannot do his work nor his duty to the country unless he is conversant with the details of finance.”

The recent hank robbery at Murchison, when a sum of £2,00P was stolen by some one who hound and gagged the cashier, calls to mind a similar "attempt to rob the Bank of New South Wales at Feilding aboii 1 twenty-live years ago, A junior, who was generally regarded as a gentle and simple-minded vouth, was met on his return to the sleeping quarters at the hank by a stalwart Bill Sykes, armed with a sand hag and a rope with which to subdue and bind his prospective victim. To his surprise, quick as a flash, the bank revolver was touching his ear, and he was marched through the dark street to the police station, where, under orders, he very peluctanlly knocked for admission ayd submitted to official arrest. He received a sentence 1 of three years’ hard labour. The plucky junior was duly promoted and became Ihe hero of the tennis courts for having captured a desperate ruffian at the point of an empty pistol!

The police at Claremont, South Africa, were visited by a man who gave information that a swarm of bees had been stolen from his premises, and asked assistance in discovering the thief and reco\eiing the goods. Four days later a swarm of' bees came and hovered about the Mowbray police station, and the police were ultimately successful in capturing the queen bee. A rude beehive was hastily constructed, and, the queen bees’s wings having been dipped, she was placed in it. and the swarm joined her. Ihe bees, however, were dissatisfied.with their new home, and soon took ilight, carrying the wingless queen with them.

Extraordinary scenes were witnessed at a funeral at the town of Monopoli, Apulia, Italy. The procession was on its way to the cathedral when a tremendous ■ thunderstorm suddenly burst over the towi/. Thunderstorms are most unusual ft this season, and the whole funeral procession, led by 11 priests, fled m superstitious panic to the bishops palace, leaving the hearse standing in the rain. When the inhabitants, who had also been, terrified, regained their courage, they held a demonstration outside the palace, and

threatened to lynch the priests, who had to be escorted by police to the interrupted ceremony.America’s merchant fleet totalled 12,406,000 tons in 1920; before the war it was 2,027,000 tons. The United Kingdom has about inside good the ravages of war; her merchant fleet, including the Dominions, is now 20,143,000 tons. The world’s forests are being so depleted that from Brazil comes the statement that reforestation of the eucalyptus tree is proposed. Five years suffices for the growth of the tree to a commercial size, and the expense is calculated at three shillings sterling per cubic meter of wood.