LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 56, 7 February 1885, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The secretary of the Road BoaJ has been in-;fcrujte.l to communicate with the Government ra Act m reference to taking polls and the expenditure of Govemniunt grunts. The Act as at present read by the Boai'd is to tho effect that a poll must bo taken for every sum received from Government, no matter how small. Warden Alters believes that if a poll v once taken for an amount to bo spent m a district, that it is sufficient without further having to repeat such procedure for every small sum received subsequently. The usual farce and consequently useless expenditure of public money m connection with the election of a Licensing Committee has to be gone through again this year for the Taonui district. Mr Hoe was instructed yesterday by the Road Board to ascertain what penalty Avas the result of non-compliance with the Act. The expense of holding an election was stated to be some ,£7 10s. There are 511 Acts and Ordinances at present m force m this colony. Mr Joseph Elliot, father of the American sporting pressjias been presented by the proprietor of the New York Herald on which paper he worked for mauy years, with a retiring salary of SOOOdols. a year. The engagement is announced of Mr G. E. Buckle, the editor of the Times, to Miss, Alice Payn, the third daughter of the distinguished novelist and editor of the Cornhill Magazine.. Writes the Napier Telegraph : — " The Salvation Army parade round town last night not being effectual m drawing a crowd, a second march round was indulged m. How long are those ribald proceedings to be tolerated m the town?" We can re-echo our contemporary's inquiry, and also ask, How long? The Napier Telegraph understands that the railway bridge over the Waitangi has cost more to keep it m repair than what it cost to build it. With such works as this on our railway line, the present seems a most opportune time to get rid of our Besident District Engineer ! We should imagine many bridges on the Foxton-New Plymouth Line-cost considerably more to keep m repair than to build them. The ltangitikei railway bridge for instance. Ther are over fourteen hundren dustwomen m England and Wales, who spent] their time m raking over dust heaps for what gain they may find. And they like the work. Truth is stranger than fiction! says the Wairarapa Daily. Some forty years ago two boys were schoolfellows m a remote inland, an " Ultima Thule," lying to the North of Scotland. When these two boys grew up they migrated to this colony and became New Zealand schoolmasters. One of them is yet a teacher of the standards m an obscure up-coun-try Wairarapa school, the other is the Premier of New Zealand and Minister of Education. A middle-aged man named Charles Bardolph, a rabbitor, was smoking out mosquitos with lighted brown paper yesterday, aud (says a Wairarapa paper) to keep the paper alight ho sprinkled some gunpowder on it from a flask. The ilame ignited the powder m the flask, which exploded and shattered his hand severely, tearing it open between the lingers right down to the wrist. Dr Beard was immediately telegraphed : c :an'l quickly arrived at the scene. He dressed tho wound, and left him with overy prospect of a lory holiday.