LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 31, 31 January 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Rev. Mr. Bates has sent word that to-morrow (Thursday) is to be a perfect day for Stratford’s great annual holiday, and everybody has made up their minds for a good time. Bellringer Bros, will bo open from 7 p.in. to 9 p.m. to-night for the sale of tickets.

To be adrift for eleven days in a motor boat was‘the experience of Miami .Mrs Fred Thomas and their family. Two days before Christmas they left Perth, West Australia, for a cruise round the islands off the coast. When fifteen miles out the engine of the launch broke down, and they drifted helplessly northwards. Eventually they found an exposed anchorage, about four miles from the mainland, but, though they signalled, the passing fishing boats day after day, none went to their asistance. It was not until January 5 that the pilot-boat Lady Forrest, noticing a light, went to then assistance. They had had a trying and perilous time, for the weather was boisterous; by good luck, however, they had provided themselves with plenty of provisions before starting so hunger was not added to their other sufferings.

Before M. Wilkinson, D.S.M., at the North Sydney Police Court the other day an application was made for the remand to New Zealand of a man who was charged riith having failed to iomply with an order for the support of his child there’. 1 ' ' The presiding magistrate said that, uacbordihg to the MViti-rant, the mail was. 'only/ 14s in 'arrears and a doubt arose-in his mino whether he was justified in putting the accused to the expense of going back to the Dominion, because as soon as he arrived there he could pay" theamount and be released. The procedure was very cumbersome; it was like using a huge steam crane to kill a fly. A case with a similar point involved had come before the Full Court of this State, uind itVwas'decided that an order could be satisfied bevehlU.i Some /time -had, however., elapsed since the issue of the warrant and the arrears had increased. Eventually. he said that on accused paying £4 10s. i the amount now due on the order, four guineas for New Zealand’s ' counsel’s fees, £2O for passage and travelling expenses incurred by the New Zealand police officer, and bis entering into sureties of £BO that he would pay the amount of the order every four weeks to the Sydney police accused would be released. Failing that, be would bo returned to New Zealand under escort.

A visit to the dentist may in the near future mean a test of the jaw power by means of a new instrument for testing the condition of the teeth and jaws. The instrument, which is the invention of Dr. G. -E. Black, oi Chicago, consists of two steel levers kept apart by a strong spring. When the lovers are forced together between the teeth, a pointer indicates on a dial the exact amount of strength exerted by the jaws. The “jaw meter showed in the case of a school girl that the front teeth were particularly powerful, and this development was thought to have boon brought about by continually biting pencils. In all ordinary cases the back teeth are capable of exerting much more force than the front. With his molars the average in fin can bite with a force equal to 150 pounds weight, the average wo man showing a force' of only 108 pounds. By means of a instrument the resistance of various foods to chewing lias been measured and their suitability for human cons.umption ascertained. Boiled tongue is the tenderest kind of meat, requiring a force of onlv three to five pounds to chew it. When cold the tongue requires fifteen to twenty pounds to chew it; pork chops come next in order. then mutton, then beef, and lastly, steak, which necessitates a biting force of sixty r to eighty pounds.

At a lunch given by the Commonwealth Government to some of the visiting State Ministers in Melbourne a. coimle of weeks ago, Mr. Griffith. New South Wales Minister for Works told a story that may or may not servo to point a moral (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph). “A little.’niece of mine asked mo the other day,” said Mr. Griffith, “to go through her exanimation papers, and tell her what T thought of her answers. One of these (railed the general information pap n r) consisted of a list of names of eminent people about whom the examinees "•ere asked to say what they knew. T n this list were the names of Mr. 'sonitb. Mr. Fd'son. Count Tolstoi. Mr. Andrew Fisher, and about twentr others. The little lady bad given fairly aeenmte descriptions of most of tbos' 1

oelebrities. but when she name to ‘An. drew Fisher’, she stopped. “What d ; d von cny about him?” sho in S asked “W«n uncle.” she replied, “I was not oni+o sure who was. so T put notorious .Australian bush’Tpirvo". Wat',,it rinrbto” “T told her” continued AT--. Griffith, “tl’at timpp wore om’te "’m'lwv r f peppia v-Pp would "TV + l '" rlosc’’p + iop was faivlv nCeU”e+o. Y"” cap. x did not wish ppm-wt, mrrdf n-l» wav or thp otheh pu +il pertain ■natters ponnepted with fho f"—ad properties” and +’va State Savings Banks are adjusted.”

TT ic Gun Club will open the season with a match at the racecourse tomorrow afternoon for Mr. Mercer’s trophy.

To-morrow being Stratford’s great annual picnic, to enable the members of our staff to take part in the outing, the “Stratford Evening Post” will not be published.

At a meeting of the Taranaki Agricultural Society at New Plymouth last night it was decided to hold an Autumn Show in place of the Spring Sh.ow, now obtaining.

Two young men were prosecuted at Gisborne to-day for failing attend parades of the Territorials. They were fined Is without costs, these being the first cases in this district under the Defence Act.

The Chairman of the School Committee will be at his office (Bellringer Bros) at 7.15 a.m. to-morrow morning, and will sell tickets, if any are left up to 7.45 a.m. Tickets cannot be obtained from the station, and all children over three years of age must pay.

The writer of a paper before a conference in England said that in many parts of the country no man under 50 years of age was to be found on tho farms who had any real skill in cutting a hedge, thatching a roof, using a scythe, shearing a sheep, or milking a cow.

A Paris merchant has been fined 300 francs for raising a dust. Scandalised by the dirty condition of the cushions on the seat of a second-class railway carriage, he remonstrated with an official, and* meeting with no sympathy, he hurled one of the offending cushions out at each of the six stations his train drew up at. The fine works out at 50 francs per cloud of dust raised.

In reference to the seaside picnic, a slight error crept into our issue re the sale of tickets. It might have been thought that the tickets were all sold, but that is not so. According to the Railway Regulations it is not allowable to sell more adult tickets than children’s—if the sale of adult tickets exceeds that of the children’s, then the committee must pay full ordinary fares on all oversold tickets. , ;

A burglary at the Hackney Picture Palace, Mare Street, Hackney, in the early hours of a recent morning was frustrated in an extraordinary manner, About 1.30 a telephone operator in the local exchange received a signal from the instrument which connects with the' picture theatre, and on attending to it received no reply, but heard strange noises in the theatre. He informed the police who proceeded to the spot, and on gaining admission found the box office in great confusion. A heavy iron safe had been dislodged and round it were strewn burglars’ tools, but there was no sigh of any person on the premises. It is supposed that burglars had secreted themselves in the building after the performance on Sunday night, and when all was quiet they had attempted to remove the safe into the theatre, for a roller for effecting this purpose was found in the box office. It is’ supposd that in doing this they knocked off the telephone receiver and the call was thus given to the exchange, The burglars left very hurriedly for the safe whph contained £6O, had not been borken , into. v ft. u- i

There is a reformer in Cincinnati, states a writer in the London VDaily Telegraph, a reformer if one may say So without offence who has a weak head. The weakness of his head consists in its suscepbivility to “colds influenza, 'neuralgia, and tic dolour-- - by the simple expedient of raising the bat. “The sudden exposure to extreme weather conditions” it finds extremely dangerous. So its owner suggests that bistead of raising the ? hat a. <• man ba. should salute by “gracefully,; raising -o one’s hand to one’s, hat with a nod'/bn > Tins may , be easy in Cincinnati,' but dt bounds hard. The mere raising of the - hand has, of course, military custom • to commend it. But the- military salute 1 blended with, a nod Hoes not strike one as likely to be a graceful ’performance. It may be said that the raising of hats as they are raised now-a-days is not ■ particularly graceful either. Which is hardly to be contested •but the absence of grace makes at least for safety. The modern hat is not removed from the modern head, with enough of a flourish, or for time enough to cause any exposure of importance. The male head takes no risks in 1911.

Mr. Kerr, S.M., had something to say on the matter of publicans supplying men with liquor when they nave already had enough, during the Court proceedings in Wanganui recently'. The accused, a young man, was in a state that the arresting r.stable termed “mad drunk,” and Mr Kerr asked if it was not possible to ascertain if the man had been givi n drink at an hotel when he was not in a fit position to receive it. Ser-geant-Detective Siddels replied that it was very difficult for the police to find out who had supplied the liquor, ias the persons prosecuted often -tatcd positively that they were sure that the person supplied was not drunk when they' served him. Mr. Kerr said that, although he did not know all the facts of the case before him, he thought that an explanation should lie asked from some publican. Some of them were very careful about supplying men who had already had enough, but others were perhaps not quite so careful. It was a very' onesided arrangement that the man who got the drink was always punished, and the publican who supplied the liquor got off scot free.

Mr Bates’ experience has revealed a new use for wireless telegraphy, which, he says, opens up great possibilities in weather forecasting. As the telegraphic system made synoptic charts, on which weather forecasts are based, so we may expect still further advances from wireless. “The weather,” said the Dominion Meteorologist, “depends upon the movements of low and high pressure areas or departures from the normal. For instance, if I get a barometrical reading of 30.50 at Wellington and 29.00 from a ship at sea coming towards New Zealand from the west I should know that we woidd have a severe cyclone with northerly gales. A knowledge of what is happening on the sea where storms travel, develop, and dissipate, would be of the utmost value to meteorologists and add materially in the value of the daily predictions. We are 1200 miles from the nearest observatories, and estimation of the course, development, and duration of storms is a most important desideratum in our work. I have no doubt that' the steamship companies will gladly fall into an arrangement to supply

rv.ieh information daily to the various bureaux, and the secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department, Mr Donald Robertson, has already given me great encouragement to develco the activities in this direction, while the Marine denartment has allowed' me to supply a few reliable, barometers of our own standard to steamers equipped with wireless.”

"We have to thank Mr. McAllister, photographer, of Broadway, for a handy pocket calendar for 1912. The Rev. A. H. Colvile, M.A., preached his first sermon as vicar of St. Mary’s, New Plymouth, on Sunday last.

The vital statistics for January are:—Births 24, deaths 4, marriages 2. For the corresponding month last year the figures were:—Births 24, deaths 4, marriages 3. All those travelling to Moturoa for the seaside picnic to-morrow are notified that the excursion tickets are not available for travel on the 8.40 a.m train, but can be used on the 8.10 and 9.5 trains.

The Court list for Friday includes eleven civil summonses (one defended), four breaches of the Borough bylaws, and one information for obtaining liquor during the currency of a prohibition order.

A swarm of bees threatened to alight on a butcher’s cart in Fenton Street this morning, and theii displayed a desire to explore the Empire Hotel. Eventually they thought better, and swarmed on a bunch of thistles in the Railway Department’s property. A match is being played this afternoon between the Ukaiawa and Stratford Cricket Clubs on the Show Grounds. The following are representing the local club: —Messrs. Dunlop, Oardale, Jackson, Brown, Jones, Gilbert, Richmond, Jennings, Samson, Dampen, and Hunter.