LOCAL AND GENERAL

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 12, 4 January 1924, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Cambridge Co-op. Dairy Co., Ltd., paid out Is 8d per lb butter-fat for advance payments for the November supply for cheese. It is understood that this is a record for the present season.

Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M.. has been granted three months’ holiday from the beginning of January and will spend part of it in Sydney. Mr. J. G. L. Hewitt, S.M., will undertake the duties of the Thames Valley circuit during Mr. Salmon’s absence.

The holidays have passed more or less quietly at Putaruru. On Christmas Eve the shops were busy throughout the day, but the rain at night rather spoilt the evening business. One or two shopkeepers stated that as a result their returns had not come up to expectations, while others stated that they had done a very good volume of trade on the day as a whole. With the timber mills all closed, the contracting gangs on holiday, and the farmers busy with haymaking or the sowing- of turnip crops, the succeeding days were quiet in the town, though New Year’s Eve saw something of a revival in shopping. A feature of the holiday- has been t he large number of touring cars that have passed through the town, of which more than a few have made Arapuni an objective cn route.

Mr. A. Smith has agreed to act in the Putaruru district for the Rotorua A. and P. Association. Leslie H. and Frederick William Charlton, of Rotorua, have been adjudged bankrupt. A Maori named Matene te FJakae was arrested at Putaruru a few days ago on a charge of stealing a box of butter, addressed to a Mamaku firm. He was brought before the court at Putaruru and was remanded to appear at Rotorua on Friday. The digestive capacities of the ostrich are put badly into the shade by the performance of 11 bullock that has just been cut up by the Armidale (New South Wales) Butchering Company. This particular animal appeared to have baulked at nothing. The post-morten showed that it had absorbed 76 hails, a handful of rivets) an open safety-pin, and pieces of tin* glass', lead and stone. Externally the animal seemed perfectly normal, and was bought as perfectly healthy. Any claim by the former owner to his* erstwhile backyard property is likely to he met by a counter-action for compensation for artificial weight paid for ,i* " beef at the sale. To the Rotorua Chronicle’s reporter who made enquiries from the railway authorities as to oi tl^| - same time those in charge of $ traffic branch should proYi#e ingly and thereby avoid cluisliig tg*-: noyer.ee to numbers of peofijtey reiv upon the time-table. Oti -'ifpfei along the street, and as they looked exceptionally clean for such purpose he asked what they contained. “ Oil for a tractor on the swamp,” was the reply. Not satisfied with this the constable asked to be allowed to see the contents, and upon examination this was found to be the lubricant, not for a tractor, but of a kind more in demand by drivers of a tractor—beer from an hotel. As a sequel the native was charged with the theft of two gallons of beer. The-''thrush has been responsible for a great deal of mischief in his day, but his latest exploit is that of attacking the trout at the Pannervirke ihatcherv. Recently the curator notified that fry were lying on the concrete floor, and could not account tor this. A watch was set, and it was seen that thrushes preyed on the young fish as they swam along the top of the trays, ‘and dropped them on the floor, where they devoured them. Wire netting has since been erected across the roof to protect the fry. “ I -suppose ‘ damn ’ has ceased to be a swear word now ? ” said the magistrate at Wanganui the other day. Counsel: “Yes; it is a classic word now, and often used in the pulpits.” The magistrate: “It always was there,' but used with special license.’? Counsel went on to say that farcical comedy nowadays would be considered very tame without a few damns. He referred to the first time the word was used on the stage in England, and the audience were awfully disgusted, and the play had to he withdrawn. Thing’s are not always what tney seem. °On a recent afternoon one of the Wellington Gas Co.’s lorries with a load of coke was backing into the I kerbin-g in a street in Kelburn, the I driver aiming; for a telegraph pole as the most likely thing to stay his propress down a slight incline. Gently as the weight of the lorry was allowed to rest against the pole, it proved too much, and apparently the stout piece of timber snapped off, bringing a tangle of wires down across the footpath and the yard of an adjacent house. An examination revealed that the pole had rotted nearly right through at the ground line.

Oru- of the largest—if not the largest—of the Wellington City Council’s steam-rollers met with misfortune the other morning at the corner of Aitken street and Moles worth street. K had jo.st come Jit a good pace, and apparently ail right, up Moleswovth street from Lamb ton quay, when the driver, evidently realising that something had gone wrong, suddenly swerved it at full speed round the cornei’ on to the level in Aitken ( street. There the fork of the roller, carrying the axle on which the two knee front wheels revolve, suddenly : | o 1 l«nsed, the great piece of cast-iron V,-caVing diagonally across the horij omul upper part of the fork. Full ' -team was up, and the bystanders, bearing that the boiler might blow up, fled for their lives; but the driver stuck to his post and let off the -team, thus averting all danger. A number of mysterious cases addressed for Wanganui, which were deposited on the station platform about 7 o’clock last Monday morning, were the subject, of lively comment by a small band of onlookers who were obvious! v and perhaps painfully aware of the contents. Many of the eases, according to the inscriptions thereon, merely contained benzine, h*if perhaps the fact that a police officer was keeping* a shary eve on the aroused suspicions and fed them to believe that enclosed in -bn cases was a spirit more calculated “to make glad the heart of man.” As it happened, their suspicion was '■’ ire justified for the cases contained altnn-p.fhev some 250 odd bottles of " !,: 'kv which was hound for Wan- j e-p.nuL where it is to be put up for j sale by auction. “ Why" don’t you ■ •sell it here?” was the repeated call ! of several present. It is understood • that according to the labels the hoi- ■ ties of whisky are of several, well- 1 known brands. The Department, however, is not prepared to guarantee the 1 contents.—Taumarunui Press.

A lady, having unexpectedly come into a fortune, sot up a country house near a big city, where she lived in groat, style. One day she was showing some of her old friends about the place and they came to the poultry yard. “ What beautiful chickens!” ihe visitor- exclaimed. “ All prize fowls!” haughtily explained the hostess. “Do they lay every day?” one of the visitors asked. “ Oh, they could of course; but in our position it is not necessary for them to do so!” Two brothers had lived in a village near Aberdeen and had travelled to town to business every day by train. Not long ago one of them died, ana the other decided to have the coffin containing the body conveyed by train to the city. He sought the actvice of the stationmaster, and was told that lie would have to procure a special ticket. “ A special ticket!” he gasped in dismay. “ What would T do that for? His season ticket hasn’t expired yet.” As an indication of the conscientious desire of their assistants to give “ good measure” (relates the Manawatu Times), a local firm made a critical examination of 100 parcels of drapery material awaiting despatch in their mail order department. The goods ranged from calicoes through wool, silk, and satin, to the most expensive qualities of fancy mixtures. In no case was there short measure, and the extra lengths averaged one and a-haif inches per yard on one clay’s consignment of 400 yards, the average price of which was 7s per yard. This gave the day’s loss to the ftirm at £5 L7s 3d in over measurejllfcgv*- which was of no corresponding jpjjjktago to the purchaser, who vethe measurement asked Lor.