LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 524, 20 April 1920, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

Owing to next Monday being a holiday no replace advertisements can be accepted for Tuesday's "Times." The woodworking classes at the Technical School will be in sess : on to-night, from 7 till 9 o'clock. A meeting of the Pukekohe West Tennis Club will be held in the Borough Council Chambers on Fridav night. A notice in reference to the imposed Koheroa-Kaiawa-Miranda IL ciat rating area is published to the ordei' of the Franklin Council. Monday next, April 20, will be a public holiday in Pukekohe in order to enable business people to attend the celebrations at Auckland in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales. Next Sunday will be observed by military men and others as being Anzac Day (April 25). A whole holiday will be observed in Pukekohe in honour of the Prince of Wales on Monday, 26th.

Daily papers are now raising their charges for contract advertising, even to their oldest customers. This step has become absolutely necessary oi! account of the increases in wages and material. The annual general meeting of the Lower Waikato Returned Soldiers" Association will take place to-mor-row night in the Masonic Hall. All members are earnestly requested to attend. Those people who hold reserve tickets for "Riders of the Purple Sage" are requested to call at The Bookory for a refund. The Lyceum management announces that this picture is not ex pet-ted here before June. General disappointment is felt

among local sportsmen on account of 1920 being a close season for duck shooting. Cock pheasants and pukekos may be shot, except in sanctuaries. A license is needed for pheasant shooting. Rev. Olphert successor to Rev J.

F. Martin, arrived in Pukekohe on Satin vlay, and conducted services at the Methodist Church on Sunday. A welcome will be tendered the new minister and his family in the Methodist Church this evening. Authority has been given by an Order-in-Council for the raising oi loans by the Pukekohe Borough Council, 184,000; and Franklin County Council, t:3000. These loans are to be i: sued at a rate of interest not exceeding 5 1 , per cent, per annum. The indiscriminate slaughter of wild ducks for selling purposes h.is led to that bird being protected, with the result that it will not be a ir.aik for the sportsman's eye during the season that opens on May 1. The native game that may be killed in the Auckland Acclimatisation District is confined to the pukeko and the black swan, while the imported game comprises cock pheasants and Califcrniao and Australian quail.

A system of proportional representation for Parliamentary elections jji Germany has been elaborated on the basis of each party seconding to its numerical strength obtaining one deputy for every 6i).()o't votes that <t is able to command at the polls.

Warnings to farmers are beingpublished in many newspapers against giving high prices for land. It is argued that farmers are giving high prices in anticipation of a continuation of the present prices of butter-fat. The farmers know what they are about. They know perfectly well that if the dried milk industry gets properly going in the Dominion the present high prices will seem ridiculously low in anticipation of future possibilities. Land is going higher yet.—Eltham Argus. A very striking example of business honesty, disclosing a highly developed degree of commercial morality on the part of a retailer of tobacco and cigarettes, was experienced by a young man in Dunedin the other clay, says the Otago Daily Times. On proffering the money for a packet of cigarettes, the customer was greatly surprised when the shopman handed him back the money with the nemark: "You don't owe me anything, because some weeks ago you went away without your change." "Children make misfortunes more bitter."—Bacon. The form and dimensions of the present group of spots on the sun's disc, as shown by the aid of an inch and a-half telescope, are unique. As observed in Dunedin recently, the group stretched in festoon shape for about 230.000 miles across the surface of the sun, resembling a pretty lace design. One <i the two largest spots measured quite 20,000 miles across. The extent of the disturbance that is now in progress in the sun may be gathered fnom the calculation «that the length of this group of spots measures almost the same distance as that separating *h« earth From - The moon.

There have been many Chinese caught leaving Australia with gold concealed on their persons, but the facts of a case given the Senate by Ihe Minister! of Repatriation (Senator Milieu) are unusual. Five Indians who were about to leave Sydney on the steamer Roggeveen for Java and Singapore denied that they had gold in their possession. On being searched, however, each man was found to be wealing crudely made armlets weighing lib and upwards. One man had a weight of 41b 6oz on the upper part of his arm. The gold seized by the Customs officers was valued at nearly £9OO. In view of the serious nature of the offence, and of the known effoits to take gold out of Australia illegally, the Minister for Customs ordered the confiscation of all the gold seized. It is believed that a considerable portion of the money used to purchase gold was earned by Indians outside Australia.

It is always pleasant to have one's opinion confirmed, especially by a man who is thoroughly conversant with the subject. We notice that at a recent meeting of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce one of the speakers quoted Mr. Ashley Hunter, the well-known consulting engineer, as being responsible for the statement that submerged groynes would do much to improve the Waikato River for navigation. Nearly four firs ago, in one of our leading arles, while condemning the high groynes built by the Waikato River Board as tending to bottle up the floods, we advocated a system of groynes built to summer level only, and allowing the freshes to sweep over them without hindrance, bin confining and training the summer flow. It is apparently something of the same, sort that Mr. Hunter had in his mind, and we are glad to lind his opinion coinciding with ours.