NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2580, 15 May 1923, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

A wave of sobriety seems to have swept England during the post year. Not a single resident of Crewe (a town of 44,960 inhabitants) was charged with drunkenness, while the only ease of drunkenness reported at the Brewster Sessions at Maidenhead was that of a stranger who had been drinking methylated spirits. Shorter hours, less money, and dearer and lighter beer were said to be the causes of Crewe’s sobriety. The first man or woman to break the record will naturally bo looked upon as a disgrace. According to some of the New York newspapers a group of American capitalists headed by Mr James B. Duke, Mr Thomas Fortune Ryan and Mr George J. Whelan, have virtually completed negotiations with the tobacco industry (a State •monopoly). The syndicate is said to have acquired the exclusive right of manufacture and distribution, both wholesale and retail. The deal involves an amount of 300,060,000 dollars (about £60,000,000), and the establishment of a chain of tobacco stores throughout France. A story indicating the difficulty of instructing ordinarily intelligent

people in the manner of voting under the proportional representation system is told in connection with the recent election of city councillors, reports the Christ church Press. Before polling day husband and wife discussed how they would indicate their No. 1 and No. 2 preferences, and it was decided that the husband should give A his No. 1. preference and B his No. 2 and that his wife should give B her No. 1 preference and A her No. ‘2. The allocation of additional preferences was left to each to decide. A and B were candidates that would represent the locality in which husband and wife lived. After they had voted, husband and wife compared notes. “Yes,” replied the wife to the husband’s question, “I voted as you told me —1 pul a cross against each name!” Many prosperous people engaged in occupations which accord them opportunities of “making” money for their personal use and enjoyment are already talking of preparations for a world tour in 1921. says the Melbourne “Age.” The indications are that if the bounty of Providence decrees even an average season by timely rainfalls, all post-war travelling records will he broken next year. The present season’s exodus of affluent globe trotters lias been very large; ship after ship has left Australian shores carrying thousands of people intent upon enjoying themselves in England, America and Continental Europe. Mr Cherry Kearlon, the naturalist, has taken with him to England, from the Congo, a young chimpanzee for which he claims all the human virtues. It was decided to film the animal’s life story, and the chimpanzee rose to the occasion perfectly. It played all its “star turns” of pipe-smoking, newspaper reading, and whisky drinking with perfect coolness before ihe camera. If chased the natives with a stick and threatened the African lion with the butt end of a gun. It washed the clothes with a goodly supply of soap and hung them on a line lo dry. It can understand both English and French, Mr Kearlon says, and after living with him for a year, would fetch and carry just like a child.