THE OTAKI MAIL. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1923. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Otaki Mail, 3 January 1923, Page 2

THE OTAKI MAIL. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1923. LOCAL AND GENERAL.

I Headers of the "Mail” are notified that subscriptions in advance for the current quarter are due. By paying in advance a saving of Is may be made, and all who wish to secure this concession should do so at once. New Year passed off very quietly in Otaki, a number of townspeople spending the holiday in Wellington and other centres. Westland is one of the "wettest” electorates in New Zealand, in more ways thau one. The official figures for the recent licensing puli in that district are:—Continuance, 475i>; iState 32b; Prohibition, 2731. Good supplies of beef are available in Waikato although considerable purchases have been made of late by export companies. Values generally are steady at about 26s for prime ox and Ids to 16s for prime cow. A party of New Zealand miners left this country for Russia about four months ago, states the Grey River Ar- ! gus, and, it is believed, reached their ! destination safely. They will work in | the Siberian mines. The largely increased attendance at the Paraparaumu sports on New Year's J Day as compared with last year may be judged by the sale of sports programmes. Although the Athletic Club ; procured a larger number this year, the 1 ■{ supply was exhausted at 10 o'clock in i i the morning. ‘J A- sheep-guessing competition was j held at the Paraparaumu sports on ilon--1 i day, which created a lot of interest, j i The live weight, loOlbs, was correctly j I guessed by Master G. H. Howell and J. 1 Clarke, and the dead weight, l‘7lbs., . was correctly guessed by Mrs Kidd, of Paekakariki. $ Through falling from the wharf into Foxton Harbour, a boy, named George | Small, 15 years of age, was drowned at j about 6.15 p.m. on Monday evening. It j j appears that the boy was walking on the edge of the wharf- and wheeling a ] bicycle, when he stumbled and fell into 1 the water. * 1 A very thrilling spectacular event was provided at the Lyttelton regatta one day last week, when A. E. Enstwood made a triple parachute descent from an aeroplane, pilot"! by Capta;;: Euan Dickson. The machine came over , Lyttelton : : a height of 4900 feet, and , after it bad ...anouvred over the harbour lU purayh*”" tf'ZW? at ' " ” wing from wi;Wl» ns eiopped. r.n-a parachute op-ucd promptly, and !'• ( final drop was made on to an open pad do.ck just behind Lyttelton. , . New Year, resolutions are i!..id-. ’ of the day. Here is one •/<■, will - ~ vou pounds for 1923 if you <!e< ;d •, buy ell your footwear in Otaki at Jv- ; vise's ei.os store, —Adyt. i

As the result of tli'e defeat at the polls of recent loan proposals, six members of the Dargaville Borough Council have resigned their seats.

“I am a poliee station constubled at Auckland,” said a member of the force, after having been stvorn in the witness box.

The proposal to raise revenue by means of advertisements on the postmarks of leters has been abandoned by the Government.

It is reported, says a Wairarapa paper, that a Carterton resident, recently secured a large sum of money from a big sweepstake held in Australia. A Nelson lady met with a peculiar accident last week. While walking in her garden she slipped and fell, breaking both of her wrists.

For it wager a Heywood steeplejack, while on a bicycle, balanced a man on his shoulders at the top of the chimney at Calder Mills, Hebben bridge. The height of tlie chimney is 220 ft.

As a result of the financial difficulties iu which the Smart road freezing works are placed (says the Wanganui Chronicle) 12 directors have had to part up with £3UUU each.

A benefit entertainment is being given at the Lyric Pictures to-night in aid of the Otaki school prize and picnic fund. The object is a deserving one and there should bo a large attendance of the public.

The Paraparaumu Sports Club held a very successful dance on the evening of the sports on New Year 's Day. The attendance was large, the receipts amounting to £l4 (is. Excellent music was supplied by the Taliiwi orchestra of Otaki.

“If we are going to condemn every good thing of the world because the devil is mixed up with it, I don't know how far we shall go,” said His Grace Archbishop .lulius in his Christmas morning sermon at the Chritchurch Cathedral.

The foolishness of wearing valuable jewellery while bathing, says the Taranaki Herald, was emphasised the other day when two gold bangles were lost.

One of them was subsequently recovered by another bather, who felt something on her foot, which turned out to be a bangle lost by a bather some time before.

Two young men entered the Dunedin police station one night last week with their faces, hands and clothes badly burned. Prior to their removal to the hospital they made a statement to the effect that they had entered an office in the city and picked up a jar, but they let it fall, and an explosion occurred, resulting iu their being covered with some acid.

One thing he noticed when abroad, stated Archbishop O’Shea, on his return to Wellington, was the almost entire lack of cable or wireless news from New Zealand or Australia. Whatever the cause, it was extremely unsatisfactory to New Zealanders or Australians who happened to he travelling in America or Europe.

Akapita Tahitaugata, ttu educated Maori of Awahuri, now seventy of age, states that he was the first Maori in Mfanawutu to open a post office savings bank account. He was prompted to do so by the fact that his name, Tahitaugata. means “the first man,” and iu the hope that his fellow Maoris would follow- him, and thus ac-

quire the savings bank habit for li peoplo.

1 ' A Christchurch motorist ami his wife have just returned from a five week-- ’ trip through the Xoith island I rout Wellington to Auckland and hack, ex , tending over nearly 1800 miles. During the whole time they never once slept in a hotel, camping in the car by the sides of Jakes and streams, or deep I in the heart of the bush. Although they encountered a great deal of rain in the early stages of the trip, they spent the nights comfortably inside the car. The camping utensils were packed on tlie running boards and the beddig was stowed away in a waterproof ! hug, while space was obtained for sleeping quarters by hinging the back of f the front seat in such a manner as to ' make it, when let down, fill up the j space between the two seats. j A witness belonging to the Bail way { Department made the amazing state- . went in the Poliee Gourt at Auckland . that the practice of destroying all old ! tarpaulins, which was caustically criticised some time ago. was stiil adhered to, and that iti no circumstances { were railway goods sold. This very naturally prompted Mr Poynion, j S.M., to observe that it was “a silly j thing,’' to which witness replied that no such goods were sold when they became second-hand, so that stolen j ; property could readily be identified, till j tarpaulins being numbered. '“lt is a; j silly thing,’’ repeated the magistrate— 1 - "one of those red tape businesses. It might save the department a little iron- , S ble to burn these tarpaulins, but nurn- 1 ' hers of farmers and others would find ! them very useful and be glad to buy ; them at a reasonable price. I should > . think. It seems ridiculous —and waste- ‘ ‘ ful —to burn such things.” | A sitting hen owned by Mrs E. Char- j t les, Coalgate (Canterbury), had a ; strange experience (reports the Press), i Mrs Charles set the hen in an inverted | butter box. and left her to her own de- j ices. A few days before the chicks wore expected the box su visited, and j Mrs Charles wa.s astonished and alarmed io find a swarm of bees in possession. She was stung by several of tv- . the hen had evidently gone through tin- noisy process of set-ring . ..hi:,'’! 1. lotion, though the mass . ; .... ... thin an inch or two of : . . "The bees were on. both sides - 1 -x. and to have turned her j ’ . > . ;vher way would have disturbed , : - The swans had evidently settled | time pterions to Mrs Charles’ vis- j ir, as pieces of comb were formed. Tue > hen brought an t ciM . ]

Let all birds take warning (says the ' Christchurch Sun). Electric transmis-j sion wires provide a line perch, but j there are certain drawbacks, to say the! least, associated with their use for this | | purpose. A little bird in Feiidalton ' found a resting place ou one, and it I was placidly enjoying the sunshine, when a liy settled on a parallel wire. Promptly it stretched'out its neck and pecked at the delectable morsel. Something happened! A bird, whose slight-ly-singed feathers toll the tale of a short-circuit, uow hangs, head downwards, from its original perch. When the Northern Steamship Company’s steamer Hawaii was.off Eawau, a mau named Borgia fell overboard. I'he steamer was immediately put about, and as it came up to tlie struggling man, a. steward, named Phillips, jumped overboard to tlie rescue. Bergin i sank just as Phillips came up to him. j . Thereupon Mr A. J. Munis, a member j , of the Koval Eife-saving Society, who 1 was a passenger, dived into the sea j and caught hold of the drawning man as he rose to the surface for tlie lirst time. Mr Morris brought Mr Bergin alongside the ship, and willing hands helped the two men on board, together with Mr Phillips. I The popular practice of young, men speaking in the city streets to ladies whom they do not know is receiving a check by police methods, says an Adelaide paper. A police-woman has been posted at likely spots, and while there is uu evidence that she-has been giving S (lie young Lotharios the ‘‘glad eye,” e some have been cauglit and fined about i- £5- with costs. The method lias been s to allow the young men to speak to the d official Eve, and probably to ask her “if she has missed the other bov,” and v then for a policeman who has been e j watching to arrive on the spot, and inlV j quire from the woman whether the unP suspecting youth knew her, and if his s conduct liad been offensive. One ], young man walked past the police-wo-man several times and made remarks such as “What about coming for a walk, with me/” The magistrate said 1 the practice was too common in Ade- ! laide, and would have to be stopped.