LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 147, 26 August 1926, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Matamata branch Of the' Farmers’ Union has decided to act in. conjunction with other bodies in giving some token of. appreciation.. to Mr. Robert Alexander, retiring chief stock inspector. ' ■ . ; •

The Waikato Lawn Tennis Association’s handsome banner is now on view at Mr. T. F. Snell’s, Putaruru. The banner was won last year bv the Waikato East Association, to Which the Putaruru club is. affiliated, and of which Mr. A. C. Thompson is honorary secretary, and members of its team were drawn from the Putaruru, Richmond Downs, Wardville, Matamata, Hinuera, Arapuni and Mokai clubs. The association won everv match, beating Hamilton, Cambridge and Lower Waikato.

“The figures relating to free places disclose the fact that more than 95 per cent of high school education is free, and this fact is accepted by public opinion,” remarked Mr. H. D. Acland, chairman of the Canterbury College Board of Governors, at the annual meeting of the board. “In England 150 years ago it was the prevailing doctrine that the education of the people was entirely foreign to the duties 'of the Government, and it was a very common belief that education would only unfit the poor for the life that was allotted to them, although as .early as 1717 education was compulsory in Prussia, and to an extent in Austria.”—Christchurch Press.

“ Dried milk is the greatest thing ever introduced into New Zealand,” said Pastor Clark, a director of the N.Z.C.D.C. Ltd., at the annual meeting of suppliers at Waharoa. The speaker got no further, for he was greeted with roars of laughter, which continued for some time, and rather put the speaker off the track. Asked afterwards by a representative of the Matamata Recc'd what he had intended to follow up with, Pastor Clark said he was going on to say that people at Home were now going in for dried milk , instead of beer, and they could have it hot in winter and" cold in summer, as they chose. The reception of the first part of the joke, however, put him off the thread of his discourse, and he did not finish his little outbreak of humour. An instance of the profitable work which can be done by a live public body was mentioned by Mr. G. W. Andrews, a visitor to Putaruru from the South Island, last week. Speaking to a representative of the Putaruru Press in regard to sanitary systems, Mr. Andrews mentioned that after very considerable difficulties in regard to the matter the New Brighton authorities decided to hanfile their own system. A tract of sand 'lunc was secured and used as a niL»ry farm. By careful methods, what v; ' :s a few years ago pure sand was : ch soil \’ h n ry high ma 1 kei- ; • ' ••' f. wherca ; if: had bran im- [ possible to secure* the co-operation of | termers before the experiment, there would he no difficulty now were it necessary.

There was a marked increase of about 5s per 1001 b in the values of beef animals sold at the Morrinsville stock sale on Friday, steer beef reaching 38s per 1001 b. In the opinion of one of the Morrinsville buyers the market will rise to a good figure within about a month, but of course it would not reach the phenomenal values of last season, when some beef sold in the Morrinsville yards nearly reached £3 per 1001 b. In his opinion the values will be near 45s for steer beef in a month’s time.—Morrinsville Star. Something that will take the public’s eye usually happens at a Rugby football match. It happened at Rugby Park, Hamilton, on Saturday. Two little coming champions got into a heated argument over the respective merits of the teams. “ Bob Fitzsimmons ” said that Waikato were the better team, and “ Jack Dempsey ” would have it that North Auckland could not get licked. And so they proceded to have it out in the good old British way. Caring nothing for the onlookers the two laddies got to work in real earnest and the crowd, who forgot all about the football match, declared a win'for “Ruby Robert.” “ Convulsed with laughter ” is an expression that may be applied to the amusement caused at one stage of the meeting of dried milk suppliers to the N.Z.C.D.C. Ltd. Waharoa factory on Friday. One of the directors, the fluent Pastor Clark, had been eloquently extolling the virtues of co-operation ; he treated the subject historically, commercially and socially, and finished off gracefully with an appealing peroration. After he had resumed his seat, and the applause had died down, the matter-of-fact chairman got up, and, with delightfully - unconscious humour, said, “ Now, gentlemen, we will get down to solid business ! ” His meaning was quite different from the construction instantly put upon the face of it by the audience, but it was some minutes before the roars of laughter subsided and the “ solid business '* could be proceeded with.— Mata mat a Record. When it was suggested, at a meeting of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society at Morrinsville on Friday evening, that a remit should be sent to the Dominion Conference urging j that concession tickets should be issued to anglers travelling on rail- 1 ways, Mr. Mackenzie said he was against the proposal for several reasons. Just because footballers and others got the concessions it was no

argument why anglers also should obtain them. Also, if such a concession were granted the system would be open to abuse, as anyone holding a fishing license and travelling on business could obtain the concession. “Do individual footballers obtain the concession ?” asked a member.: “No, only as a team,” replied another. Mr. G. Bateman suggested that a number of anglers could travel together as a team:' “ But we do ’not go to fight anybody, we do not fish in fifteens,” put in Mr. N. Johnson. <• . Some remarkable figures in connection with value of fish destroyed by shags was given by. Mr. Whitney,; president of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society, at the monthly meeting held at Morrinsville on Friday evening. Mr. Whitney said that, estimat-: ing the number of shags on the Scottish coast as 200,000 (there would most likely be many thousands more), the amount of fish eaten by them was £5.000.000 worth. In New Zealand he estimated the number of shags at 2 000,000, and, calculating on the English value of fish (fish in New Zealand was dearer than in England), the shags in New Zealand consumed £102,000,000 worth of fish each year. The members present treated these figures as being incredulous and they asked if Mr. Whitney meant pounds weight, but Mr. Whitney was. emphatic that the figures he gave were in pounds sterling.—Morrinsville Star. “ Hold Your Breath,” the star picture to be shown next Saturday, is a. fine mixture of excitement and laughter. The story, which is a comic one. has some hair-raising situations, and should appeal to all.*