The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IN INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, MAY, 25, 1912. MAYORAL DUTIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 24, 25 May 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IN INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, MAY, 25, 1912. MAYORAL DUTIES.

If some of the gentlemen who aspire to the honour of the Mayoral chair knew all the trouble that awaited them, and all the duties the citizens expected of them, they would hardly consider the game worth the candle. New’ York’s Mayor, Mr C. Gaynor, probably has as big a task on his hands as most Mayors who sit in authority in the world’s big cities, but even he must have felt like getting his gun ready when the other day it was demanded of him by a nerve-stricken citizen that he devise some scheme to quieten the cats that infested his back-yard and robbed him of bis sleep. Mr. Gaynor, who must he- one of the most courteous of Mayors, replied politely, explaining that ho was, rather too busy just then to devote himself to the problem. For his own part, though there wore a few cats in his neighbourhood, he went to sleep and let them yowl. The advice was very good, no doubt, but it is not always easy to follow, and the night noises of philandering felines are, at times, truly maddening; and the Now’ Yorker will obtain much sympathy. One suggestion made is that if he cannot rid his neighbourhood of cats otherwise, he might trap them and send them to' the Oakland cat ranch, which it was alleged was to be stocked with a million cats, which would naturally increase largely in numbers and would provide furs for half America To feed the cats a “rat ranch” was to be started alongside. The cats were to eat the rats and the latter were to be fed on the bodies of the cats killed for their skins. The idea looks all right on paper, hut appears to ho a trifle outside the limits of practical polities.

THE SCOTTISH SOCIETY. If there ever existed the slightest doubt as to the success of the Taranaki Provincial Scottish Society when it was started, that doubt must have been entirely dispelled last night. It would be impossible to imagine a more enthusiastic gathering than that of last evening in the Stratford Town Hall, and to those there who were not of Scotland, it was a revelation. Tinexcellent speech of the worthy President, Mr W. L. Kennedy, was an appropriate- expression of Scottish loyalty and Scottish sentiment and it was good to again hoar Scottish song well sung. The Society is to be heartily congratulated for many tilings, and not least of all on the line work done by members of the committee and the very capable secretary, Mr Alec Henderson, whoso heart is really in the welfare of the Society. QUEER MESSAGES. The other day nearly every New Zealand newspaper printed a cable message to the effect that in order to meet its naval obligations the German Government was considering “the taxation of cats.” The Wellington “Dominion” says there is reason to believe that the fact was I that the Government was considering I “the taxation acts.” AYhat should have been “considering taxation acts” | bad become in the bands of the cable j people “considering taxation cats.

Cable errors of this kind cannot ho entirely avoided, hut, the Vv clinician paper thinks, there was no excuse for the statement in a Queensland paper not Ion;; ago tie ’ “the managers of sixteen An calm;: and New Zealand banks h.inqiielul 31 r Lloyd-George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in celebration of the jubilee of his birth.” The lam was that the George who had been honoured was A’r David George, the London manager of the Hank of New Smith Wales. The Queensland journal did not stop to reflect upon the impossibility of a bankers’ banquet to th° hero of Limehcuse, and indulged itself in some sharp remarks about the Chancellor, 'i he most famous of these mare’s nests was found by two Now Zealand newspapers in 1886. A cable message arrived in the following terms: “Dynamite found in. gladalone bag, Ludgate Hill Station.”

This was printed (it was during the dynamite scare in London): “A quan-

tity of dynamite was found m Mr Gladstones’ bag,” etc. So astounding a piece of news naturally called for comment. One editor wrote, so it is alleged: “While wc have, as our readers know, no kind of sympathy uitn Mr Gladstone’s politics, we cannot too strongly condemn the authors of this dastardly outrage upon a deservedly respected public servant.” But another editor saw something different, and he lot himself go with a will.

“The complicity,” lie wrote, “of Mr Gladstone with the Irish dynamiters, of which we were always convinced, lias now been placed beyond all dmiot. We await with an impatience which we are sure all of our readers share further information of the affair from London. Thank God, we say, that the efforts of this unscrupulous statesman to dismember the British Empire have brought him to a felon’s cell.”