LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 94, 20 April 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Thu an mini mooting of the ioko hraneli of the banners’ I nam 'vill no held in the Coronation Hall, ioko, on Tuesday evening, at 8 o’clock.

Mr. J. McAllister invites electors to meet him in the Town Hall on Monday evening, when he will address them on municipal matters, regarding the forthcoming Mayoral election. They are honest iolk in Carteiton. A few clays ago a working men lost £23, including four live-pound notes. An advertisement was inserted in the local paper and the owner _ him the pleasure of receiving the whole sum intact.

The result of the Gymkhana sheep guessing competition is that the thessed sheep weighs loGlb., anti tiiat Miss Flora- Lueena, of Toko, who guessed tlio correct weight, gets the first prize, and Miss Muriel Young, of Strati orti, who guessed 1561 lb, takes tlie second ’prize.

With this issue is circulated by Mr. F. P. Corkill, sharebroker, New Flymouth, the application form of the Taranaki (N.Z.) Oil Wells, Ltd. Cable advices from London indicate a sharp rise in all oil properties, consequent upon the recent coal strike, and it is anticipated that the Now Zealand Company will be strongly supported bj investor's -and probably considerably oversubscribed both at Home and in the Dominion.

The London Guardian renorts that the voluntary offerings of the Church of England in the Old Country lor tne year ending 1011, amounted to £8,167,338. This' is a large increase on’that of the previous year, which amounted to £8,060,389. This increase accrues from offertories, am ual subscriptions, donations, and legacies, partly from grants from the ecclesiastical commissioners, Queen’s Anne s bounty, etc. No less a sum tiian £674,463 is expended on distinctly philanthropic work. ( Notwithstanding the denials of the exuected engagement of the Kaiser s daughter, there is good reason to believe that the betrothal is as good as fixed The fiancee, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strchtz, is one of the richest young men in the world. In due course* he will not only become the ruler of a Sovereign State, but the sole owner of no less than 527 square miles! He is, in face, the largest private land owner m liuirops, outside Russia.

The fortunes of the ballot were poorly shared by Southern selectors who sought sections from the big aiea disposed oi in Auckland on Apni olli (says the Herald). Hungry for land, 512 persons from all parts of the Dominion made 1939 applications, and oJ of the men having boon rejected by the Land Board, there were 53 sections for distribution among the 432 selectors. Less than a dozen persons whose present residence is outside the Auckland province were successful m drawing sections, 45 being won by selectors from different parts ol the Auckland land district.

The Governor of Togoland,, Duke Adolf Frederick of Mccklenburg-bcnwe-riii lias made his mark as an Aliicau explorer. In 190 ( he headed an expedition which had for its aim a systematic investigation of German East Africa, the Central African riff valley between Lake Kiwu and Lake Albert, anl the north-eastern coniines cl the Congo Free State, thus crossing the continent. The Duke embodied the results of the expedition in an interesting volume which has appeared in English under the title “In the Heart of Africa.” At four o’clock on a recent morning, a man, aged twenty-one, was seen knocking at the Ashtord (Kent) 1 olice Station door. The policemen on nfidit duty asked what was the matter, and he replied: “I want to give myself up for murder.” _ One of the policemen noticed that liis eyes weie dosed, and it was afterwards found that he had walked from his home, one and a half miles away, while sound asleep. He was carrying a can of tea, and had not spilt a drop. The police took himviiome. Ho was put to bed, and is none tfie worse for bis adventure. No murder had been committed, the crime'being a delusion of the iruin’s brain in lus somnambulistic state.

It is rumoured that Queen Marghcrita of Italy, mother of the King, is about to renounce the world and join a convent. For many years past—in fact, since the tragic death of the late King Humbert—she may be said to have renounced society. “1 am so tired; so tired of everything,’ ’she recently said. After the assassination of King Humbert, Queen Margherita took up motoring, and for years was scarcely out of her “car,”..except when she slept. She is said to nave covered something like 100,01)0 miles, mostly on the Continent, repeating the same journeys again and again, and at a pace not always within the speed limit. “The wild race through distancehelps me to forget,” she was went to sav.

Great improvement has been made in recent years in the extraction and purification of oil from the eucalyptus or “blue gum” tree. A number ol distinct oils have been isolated that can be used as substitutes for oil of violet, citronolla, and attar of roses. On account of these improvements there has been adopted the standard of the British Pharmacopoeia of 50 per cent, eucalyptol for all oils sold under the name. As a consequence vast quantities of lower grade oils became unavailable and literally a drug on the market. Through the efforts of experts employed by the technical Museum of Sydney, however, it has been found that these low grade oils could lie utilised in the recovery of metals from low grade “tailings” at the mines. The concentrates can be economically worked now by the use ol half a pound of “phollandrene” oil to the ton of concentrates. With reference to a cablegram m a recent issue reporting that Pmfessor Payr, of Leipzig, lias cured an idiot Aiild by transferring a portion o ! the thyroid gland from a ueaUhy mother to' Iho child’s mouth, a prominent Auckland surgeon, in speaking to an Auckland Herald representative recently, said that the operation, though not common, was by no means a. new one. The cure would only io of a spe- : j;I c form of idiocy caused by congenital absence of the thyroid glands from tne throat cf the patient. The operation has hem', successfully pa formed both hi England and \meriea, with mdly goo:! results. Healthy glands, moreover, bad been restored to adult patients, when disease had necessitate the removed of their cwn. Neither llm euro allotted nor the operation or transplantation prei/mlrd any novel features, save that it was customary +•» pi. nit t''i> gli"d the ivt cut's abdomen and not in his mouth.

A euchre parly am! dance will be held by the Loyal Toko Lodge in the Coronation Hail, Toko, on Friday evening next. Mr. .VI. J. Dowling, who has been employed a.s ganger on the local stall' of the Hallway Department, for the last thirteen years, lias received well deserved promotion to the position of clerk in the oliice of the Inspector of Termauent Way, at Aromoho. The members of the Stratford School Committee were very gratified to find last evening that the conversazione Jield in conjunction with the opening of the new school building has netted £l2 to the school funds. The actual profit was half this amount, but as it carries a £ for £ subsidy, this satisfactory total is reached... The entertainment was not i nn w.fn the intention of providing a profit, but for making an enjoyable evening. That it should have succeeded in doing both is all the more gratifying. The premises of Mr. H. Masters’ stationery and fancy goods emporium were apparently burglariously entered last night and money to the value of £5 stolen. The money was placed in a drawer in the showroom at the back of the shop last night, and was missing this morning. A piece of the lock of the back door was found on the floor, but it is not certain that this was a fresh break, as it may possibly have been broken some days ago. Isothing in the shop was disturbed, and the till, containing a considerable sum of money, was not broken into. There is an easy approach to the rear of the shop, by nay of the railway station platform. The police have the matter in hand.

In the course of his argument in the premium bond case, before the hull Court at Wellington, Sir John Findlay, K.C., remarked that £6,000,000 was an estimate of the gambling through the totalisator, and the bookmakers last year and the State got £50,000 a year from the machine, but nothing from the bookmaker except his income tax. It would be better if people invested their money with a company like the International Investment Company. Mr. Justice Edwards (doubtingly): “How does the State get the income tax out of him?” Mr. Justice Cooper: “It is based on his previous year’s estimate, 1 suppose.” Sir John Findlay: “I have seen the books of a large firm of bookmakers, and I would willingly exchange my income for theirs.” The local police had a thankless job last night when the mail train reached New Plymouth, they received a message to the effect that a man had fallen off, or jumped eif, the train about a mile past the Stratford station. They immediately carried out a search, and kept at it till somewhere near midnight. Presumably, the man had by this time got clear safely, and walked home to bed, for they found nothing. As one of the constables remarked this morning, it was “a. bit rough” to think the man was home in bed while they were tramping round in the dark looking for a corpse. One point, however, may be noted, the matter was not reported to Stratford till the train had reached. New Plymouth. Why was not a message sent down from Midhirst, Tank!, or Inglewood? A stop is made at at least one of these places. What causes the glacial period—or, rather, periods, as there were probably several—is still a subject of continual controversy ambng geologists. To the long list of suggested explanations the' latest addition has just been made % Dr. Rudolf Spitaler in a contribution to the Meteorologisclie Zeitschrift.” He sees a possible cause in the shifting of the earth’s position with respect to the Milky Way, incidental to the precession of the equinoxes. This hypothesis assumes that ‘the heat received from the stars is an important factor in terrestrial climate. Since the stars are crowned in the region of the galaxy, and the great majority of the hottest stars, i,e., those of the helium type are found in the same region, it would follow that the gradual change known to have occured in the angular position of these stars might modify the distribution of temperature over the earth’s surface. Further figures are available from the census showing the growth of Christianity in India, and The Times lias presented an analysis of the greatest interest and significance. In the ten years the Christian population has advanced from 2,923,241 to 3,876,19,0, of whom 3,574,000 are natives. In regard to the native Christians, it is shown that the Roman Catholics have advanced from 1,122,000 to 1.394,000, an increase which The Limes writer considers “surprisingly small” when Contrasted with the Protestant figures. The Syrian churches have now about three-quarters of a million adherents. Dealing with the 1,442,000 other native Christians, he shows that these constitute the sum of the tabulated numerical results of Protestant propagandism in the Dependency. The total Protestant figures in ROl was 970,000, so that the increase for the decennium docs not fall far short of half a million, and is much more than a moiety of the aggregate increase of 910,000 in the number of native Christians. the AngPeans, whose advance lias been from 306,000 to 322,000, lead the way, but the Baptists are only .a few hundreds behind. The Sydney City Council recently framed a by-law to protect inoffensive citizens from the dangers incidental to projecting hat-pin points . It was thought that the existence of such a by-law would have been sufficient to bring members of the fair sex to a sense of their responsibilities towards their fellow-citizens (says the Daily Telegraph), but as the daily average of wounds has not diminished, the municipal authorities.have decided that it must be enforced. Ladies must, therefore, protect all points extending beyond the brims of their hats, or else appear before a Magistrate at one of the Police Courts. No further warning will be given, and the civic fathers hope that after a few offenders have been dealt with no more cautions will he necessary. Unfortunately, the City Council has no purisdiction over tram-cars in wide lithe chief danger from the hat-pin lurks. The text of the by-law is as follows:—“No person shall whilst standing or walking upon a public way within the City of Sydney, wear a hat-pin which protrudes in such a way as to be a source of danger to any person. Any person offending against the above by-law shall for each offence, upon conviction, forfeit and pay a penalty or sura not exceeding ten pounds.”