GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2262, 12 April 1921, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Lor working more than ...seven hours underground, a collier was summoned at Polity poo) Police Court recently. The solicitor for the colliery company said that the summons was not taken to reduce the production, but to show miner;.' that it was illegal to work two shifts a day. Permission was given to withdraw the summons. Rats have succeeded in holding up the Derby Corporation trameax' service several times during a recent period. Finding their way into the duct near the electricity station, they nibbled holes through the lead casing, a sixteenth of an inch thick, of the power cable, and met their death by. electrocution under a voltage of 500. This caused the fusing of the cable and a consequent: waste of current.

A Christchurch lady has informed the Lyttelton Times that at a picture theatre the othe» night she was wearing a coat with a new fur collar which cost -CIO. During the performance she heard a sound behind as of something being cut, lull tbought very little about it at the [ime. A couple of. days later, however, when about to wear the coat again, she discovered that some contemptible person had cut the fur collar with scissors and badly damaged it. At the close of the address of Mr R. Masters, M.P., at Hawera, the other evening, several questions were asked, and the exchange between questioners and the speaker were much enjoyed. Mr P. O’Dea was particularly aggressive, and one retort of Mr Masters may be given as an idea of the position at one stage. After stating two or three time.- that he Ha.d answered a certain question regarding Chinese indentured labour in Samoa, Mr O'Dea persisted in having an answer from Mr Masters —“Yes” or “No.” Mr Masters rose, and shaking his fist at the questioner, roared: “You can’t come your lawyer bluff on me, Paddy!” The meeting was convulsed, and Mr O'Dea -at down, joining pi the laugh. But he rose several limes after, and eventually was “counted.out,''' to the in-lep-e enjoyment of the meeting and the chagrin of the Labour section. A large totara log has been discovered in the lower reaches of the Hu It River. The length of the log is not known, as only a portion lias been salvaged. Out of a small portion of the piece salvaged -122 excellent posts, valued at over £SO, have been cut, and the portion left is ex- ] i peeled to yield a good revenue. The j circumference of the log was feet. The log lias come to light as a result of the lowering of the bed of the -treani, presumably a- a result of the steady removal of shingle j which lias proceeded during the last few years, Ii is impossible to -ay how long the log has been in its present position, but ihe period niusi have been at least twenty years. Mr Laing Moa-on reports ; that there has been a steady lowering of ihe channel of the river during the last seven or eight years. Whereas the tide once reached only j to Ihe head of the Gear Island, it | now comes right up to the Iluti bridge. ** Mr Fierce Cotter, in giving evi- | deuce in the Compensation Court in IWnsl'ertnn, produced an interesting balance-sheet of the operations on his dairy farm on the bpaki in a recent year. The area of the farm wa- 130 acres, and the milking was done on the -hare system. The bal-anco--heei was as follows ;• —Receipts from milk of 70 cows, £B7O 1.0-: from pigs and calve-. £l(iS IS- 2d; lotal, £1,030 17- 3d. Expenditure; Wage- and expense-. £-120 0- 3d: interest on land, £105; interest on cows, £5.1; depreciation of plant, £3O; total expenses, £705 Os' 3d. The net profit on the year's work was £351 17s. The net return per cow was £5 0s (id, Mr Cotter added that he valued his land at £3O per acre. The blackberry pest was discussed at the meeting of the Manawatu Land Drainage Board at Palmerston this week, when, ns the result of many complaints received as to llie prevalence of this noxioii- weed in the Board’- district, Mr Fleming, ilie Agricultural Department'- inspector, was invited to wait on the Board. “The blackberries have got us about bested in some parts of our district,” remarked the chairman (Mr E. Wood). —Mr •!. Collinsaid he knew of thirty acres of land, worth from £OO to £IOO per acre, which was covered solidly with blackberry. —Members generally agreed that the pest was spreading, and the opinion was given that people Had ceased to care about it. —Mr Fleming disagreed with this. He said the biggest part of the blackberry country had been cleared out this season, about 200 acres having been attended to. — The chairman said it was “no false . alarm,” as they could see when people brought bushels of blackberries borne. from different parts. He pointed out that when the blackberry got a bold in the swamps or busk country it was almost impossible to eradicate it, and that every effort should therefore be made to keep it down.—Mr Fleming assured the Board that the Department were taking all possible measures to have the weed kept down, and he asked members to report to him any instances of neglect which might come under their notice.

Edinburg police are inquiring l info the death of a young sajlor whose body was found in a plantation near Midlothian. He was identified as Thomas Mitchell, 23 years, an engine-room artificer on H.M.S. Columbine. When found he was lying on his face with a bullet wound in the right temple, and an auto-

malic pistol beside him. It is believed that Mitchell had been dead for several days. During the height of the snowstorm a resident in the neighbourhood lfeard two revolver shots from the vicinity of the plantation in which the bodv was found.