NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2572, 26 April 1923, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

The Levin Borough Council is considering a loan proposal of £24,000 to be spent in five years to provide permanent roads. The birth of twins appears to be a common occurrence in Morrinsville. During; the: past four weeks thrice has such an event been recorded.

Mr Martin Elgar, who is on a tour abroad in writing to the Wairarapa A. and P. Association, concludes thus: “One farewell message and that is—The little place called New Zealand is second to none I have seen.”

A party of gold prospectors are at present devoting their attention to an out-cropping vein on the Manawatu Gorge. Passing travellers have traced the vein at the roadside, but whether the gold will prove to be in payable quantities remains to be discovered by the seekers.

“He’s one of that sort that can coax a ‘spud’ away from a pig,” said a member of the Okoia Farmers’ Union at a meeting of that body held recently, when proposing that Mr David Strachan be re-elected to the position of secretary. The proposal was carried unanimously and with acclamation.

The exceptional return of 19 tons of onions to the acre has been secured by Mr Hector Goodwin Halswell, from a five-acre field (says the Marlborough Express). The crop was free from blight, and presented a good illustration of what intensive farming will do where the soil permits it. The present price of onions is low —£3 2/fi tier ton but even at this figure the five acres have yielded a value of £344, or over £fiS per acre. There was a. brief discussion on the “cost, of dying” at a meeting of the Wanganui Hospital Board held last- week at the outcome of a protest from the Hunterville Town Board, that £5 was insufficient to fix a.s a minimum charge of a pauper’s funeral. It was stated that the actual cost of a pauper’s funeral in Wanganui was fifteen shillings and one of the members thought that the cost at Taihape should be twelve shillings seeing “that it was nearer to the bush.”

Prior to the departure of the P. and 0. steamer Peshawur for Wan- ' gamii from Wellington the other day, one of the Indian crew suddenly ran amok and tore of): the vessel ■on to the wharf, where he. created a mild stampede amongst Ihe waterside workers. He was followed by about a dozen of his fellow country■men, who bore him to the ground and secured him before any harm could be done. The man presented a formidable sight with eyes staring from his head and frothing at the mouth. The complaint is stated to be common in India. The work of the travelling lecturer is not all that it is sometimes said to be (says the Mat aura Ensign). An itinerant orator came to Gore last week. He chose as his subject a question of tropical interest, booked a hall, informed the people of his mission, and awaited the hour of oratorical effort. At the conclusion of a two hours’ discourse he paid his bills. The net result for the star performer was 4d ini hard cash. Being of a philanthropic turn of mind and not wishing to carry such a large sum •away from the town, he disbursed it among some of the inevitable •small boys who lingered about the Shall.

That the child’s conception of God is not in the least that which the parent would instil is known to all who have studied children, and one ■has heard scores of stories bearing •upon the point. Here is on that as far is known has never been published. A mother hearing her little boy say his prayers was surprised by “And oil! God! bless Thy dear little pig.” “Pig!” said the mother, “what do you mean? What pig?” “Me, mummie,” said the boy, “I’se tired of being a little lamb, so I thought I would be a pig to-night. And I’m going to be a lion to-mor-row.”

An unusual incident occurred at an early hour in the morning at a farm-house near Moninsville a few days ago. A farmer went to waken his young Maori farmhand, but there was no response to repeated calls and shaking the Maori laying stretched out like a corpse, and as far as he could make out his employee was dead. A doctor, a shrewd ex-military man, was hastily called, and after feeling the Maori’s pulse stood back with a grim smile. “Bring me a needle,”' he said. The effect was electrical. Hardly were the words out of the doctor’s mouth before the “corpse” jumped from the bed. The Maori was only malingering. An instance of the strange effects of lightning occurred in a thunderstorm at l'Temantle recently. A boy was riding a horse between carney’s Mill and Yetna, when the animal was struck by lightning on the head and killed instantly. The boy was thrown on to soft sand, escaping unhurt, ft was on the horse that the strange effects of the electrical discharge were lo be observed. Both its ear's were burned off, its nose tip was severed as if by a sharp knife and down the forelegs were furrows about an inch, deep, as if they had been deeply scared with branding irons. When the carcase was being lifted into a cart to be removed for burial, all the teeth fell out of the mouth.