LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 67, 12 November 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

To-day’s Anniversaries. —The 44th anniversary of fho fammm battle of Weraroa. fought near Waitotara, in 1868; scarcely a dozen men of the 60 that manned the redoubt are now living. The first House of Representatives was elected in 1855. The King of Italy was born in 1869.

The report of last night’s meeting of the local Borough Council appears on page 7, and the discussion regarding “Street Lighting,” pn page 2. “Broadway is the worst lighted, street in the Dominion,” said Councillor King at the meeting of the Borough Council last night. The eighth person declared of upsound mind in Whangarci in the past four months ha been committed to the Auckland Mental Hopital. E'ght women dressed in men’s attire tarred and feathered an eighteen-year-old girl on a lonely road near Newark, Ohio, in order to cure her of flirting. Dairymen in town to-day were discussing an offer stated to have been made to Mr. Caldwell, of Cardiff, to the effect that he refused £2O a head for a line of grade Jerseys.

The Mayor of a little town near Card, France, refused to allow a theatrical company to give a performance of “The Merry Widow” bn’the ground that it must be an immoral play, as widows have no right to he merry.' The new Chief Post Office at Auckland will be formally opened, on Monday, I,Bth November. The Government will he represented by the Prime Minister (Hon. W. F. Massey) and the Postmaster-General (Hon. R. H. Rhodes). “You are like those men who go our to look for work and pray to God they won’t find it,” said Mr. S. E. McCarthy, S.M., to a youth at the Napier Court who, when brought up for failing to attend Territorial parades, gave as his excuse that he had lost his book. The Era has obtained the votes of all the actors and actresses in Great Britain on the question of the Sunday closing of theatres and music-halls. The result is shown by the following figures:—For theatres and musichalls to be shut, 2834; for picture palaces to be shut, 2265; for theatres and musichalls to be open, 128; for picture palaces to be open, 678. North New Brighton is suffering from a plague of mosquitoes (states tno ‘Christchurch Press’), the lakes of stagnant water in and about the suburb having been the breeding ground of the insects.’ The walls and ceilings of some week-end cottages on Sunday were literally black with them, and the lot of the inhabitants was the reverse of pleasant.

Debate was long and lively at times at the Council’s meeting last evening. During the discussion on matters touching the Stratford Electrical Supply Company, Councillor Morison asked if Councillor King was in order iu seconding a motion, -to which the Councillor referred to replied: “That’s enough of that, Councillor Morison. I’ll take no more of it from yon or anyone else insinuations nothing else.”

An amusing postcard has appeared in Switzerland concerning the Kaiser’s visit to that country. It shows the Kaiser interrogating a Swiss militiaman as follows: “You have got 100,000 of these marksmen in Switzerland? Well, what would happen if 1 came with 200,000 Prussians?” “Then each of us would simply fire twice, your .Majesty,” replies the soldier. There appears to be a splendid demand for business premises in Central Broadway. At the Council’s meeting last night it was mentioned that several parties were keen on obtaining the lease of the shop occupied by Mr. A. Spence. The present occupier applied for the lease, hut was prepared only to take a three months’ ten ncy, and then monthly. It was decided, therefore, to give Mr. Spence a month to month tenancy from December Ist next.

Preferring death to passing the remainder of, his life with one leg, an actor named Bauer, who injured himself in a fall from his horse during a performance of “William Tell,” at Interlaken, refused to submit to the amputation that would save his life. A young woman friend, hearing of his decision, asked to be taken to him immediately. As he lay in agony she comforted him, and promised to lie his wife. M. Bauer then submitted courageously to the operation. A case in which a twelvo-ga’lcn keg of beer figured at a country dance came before the Magistrate at Oamaru. The police alleged that the beer was sold to those who consumed it, but the defence was that the affair was a “shilling in,” and the subscribers and their friends consumed the beer. The Magistrate dismissed the charge of selling, but lined the defendant £5 and costs for bringing liquor into a Xo-license district without going through the necessary legal formality.

“My land, was there anything you didn’t win P” asked a Canadian Cadet at the Town Hall, Wellington, wbeij looking at the array of trophies brought back by the Now Zealand (bidet Contingent from the bi<x Dominion. “Yes,” admitted the Xew Zealander, “we only came fourth in the shooting!” The cups were on view a:

Colonel Allen’s reception, and were the centre of much interest. There are over a dozen of them, and all are of handsome design. The largest is over a foot iu height, and the six smaller mips for the tug-of-war are all of solid silver frosted.

The first potato planter which, it is understood, has been employed in

•Southland is to bo seen on the farm of Mr. Hugh Hunter, of Longbush, who intends to put(in a large crop this season with the machine. ' An old established firm in Dunedin has received through the mail an envelope containing ■ £3O in hank notes. I ho letter was unregistered and merely containing a typewritten slip containing the following words:—“To replace amount stolen years ago, with loss of interest on it.”

In connection with the attempt to refloat the Star of Canada, at Gisborne, word has been reccivagl to the effect that fitter night the water in the engine-room and .stokehold was reduced 14ft. The pump stopped working for three hours, during which time the water gained only 18 inches. The water in the enginerooin was stated to be now level with the first grating below the- cylinders. Among the nations of the world the seven famous Bibles are: The Scriptures, of the Christians; the Koran, of the Mohammedans; the Eddas, of the Scandinavians; the Tripi taka', of the Buddhists ; the Five Kings, cf the Chinese; the Three Vedas, of the Hindoos, and the Zendavesta, of the Persians.

Mr. Edward Mason, the well-known veterinary surgeon., of - Stratford, intends to show his horse, Zanzibar, at Wanganui. If he. is as fortunate at AVanganui as he was at Palmerston North (where - he obtained three firsts and two seconds) lie will have no cause to complain'. “ i he cost to us from AA r ellingtcn to yr,i\r yard lias been £SO, £lB more than from England to Wellington.” Kiis extra t from a letter by a Christchurch engineering firm" to tae Borough Council, and referring to the road roller, was greeted with laughter by Councillors, the facts it brings to light being well known .by them.

“Ho asked me to pay 5s to keep it out of the papers,” said Mrs. Annie Nicholson, referring to her son-in-law, Carl Gloi.sten, who was applying to the Magistrate’s Court, Christchurch, for the re-hearing of maintenance proceedings instituted by Ruth, his w;ie. “Five shillings won’t go very far amongst three reporters,” commented Magistrate Bishop pleasantly. A longer report than usual, appeared iu the papers.

fhe banana-eating record was broken on August 4, when George' Marshall, an employee of a freight house, devoured 46. According to the •New York Tribune, before breaking the world’s record, Marshall ate a hearty dinner, consisting of half a. dozen meat sandwiches, five doughnuts, several “pie triangles,” and so on. After dinner George began to throw shoe cases around, and complained to his friends that he felt a little faint. Willing’ hands held up

a fruit pedlar for 20 bananas. About o’clock, George started in. In a >oiit an hour the bananas were all gone. More were obtained. Just as Die clock struck 4 lie finished his 46th. Xo more were at hand, or he would have eaten them, he said. He felt fine after the feast. The Globe Tavern, at Dumfries, a famous haunt of the poet Burns, is in the market, says an English paper. Many “a richt guid willy wacht , was quaffed by the poet and his friends in this old hostelry, which contains many relics of the poet, including a window, on a pane of which, by means of a diamond, he wrote two versos, There is- also a punch .howl, a jug, a cup, hi Prince Charlie wineglass, Burns’ favourite chair, Mrs. . Hurts’ wofkbox, and other articles. An American visitor to Dumfries recently endeavoured to find 'out if it was likely that the pane of glass would ho cut from the window, and sold separately, as he was prepared to put down as many dollars as was necessary. He was immensely disappointed when informed that such an action would be looked upon as sacrilege. The theft of the tie-pins has recently become a London speciality, and a recent mail brought this item: An unusual method of robbery in a music-hall is described by the London correspondent of the Sheffield ‘Daily telegraph.’ A visitor standing at the tfie back of the stalls saw the diamond pin in the cravat of, a man in toe stalls suddenly begin to climb, apparently of its own accord, in a series of jerks. The man who owned it had his hands in his pockets, and on each side a man in evening dress was smoking a cigarette. “The next jerk came just at the moment when these two men, with wonderful precision, put their cigarettes to their mouths. A word to an attendant was enough. .! ho two gentlemen J in evening clothes went quietly. My friend later picked up the long horse hair that had stretched from the little finger of one to the little finger of the other.” What is claimed to, be the “safest”' ship afloat was launched from the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company’s, yards on the Clyde a few weeks ago. The vessel has been named Empress of Russia, and was built for the Canadian Pacific Railwav ’s service between Vancouver and Japan and China. She will be the largest ship in the Pacific, and is 590 feet long. 68 feet .broad, and 46 feet deep, and her gross tonnage will lie 15,000. Sjie will be fitted with four Parsons’ turbines, and will have a speed of about 20 knots. There will lie accommodation for 200 first-class, 100 second-class, and 800 third-class Asiatic passengers. The vessel is so constructed that .she can lie transformed at short notice'into a crujser. It was at the luncheon subsequent to the launch that the claim for safety was made. It was pointed out by Mr. Gracie, chairman of the Fairfield Company, who declared she would float with four of her compartments full of water, which was practically double what the Board of Trade required of any vessel, that body?s.mandate in this respect laying down that only sufficient buoyancy was necessary to overcome the flooding of two compartments.

Over 30 years ago Mr A. J.. Balfour bought a block of land in the Pahiatua district. He has since sold

some of that land. Xo doubt (says the X.Z. Times) he made a handsome profit, on the transaction, for the are t. that he retained in 1908 3355 acres) was valued for rating purposes at £lO 7s 3d per acre, as compared with £2 2s 9d per acre 29 years ago. These figures, however, represent the capital value. The unimproved value when Mr Balfour purchased wasfcrobably about £1 an acre, whereas tid'd e

wars ago it was £7 8s Td. To-day it is not less than £B—probably £lO or :jl2. During the whole of the period during which Xew Zealanders have worked to increase the value of this property Mr Balfour has beep an absentee, very well known as Prime Minister of England or as Leader of the Opposition, as a writer on the interesting subject of philosophic doubt,

-,s a speaker on tariff reform, and as e; plain of a golf club, but a stranger nevertheless to the land he has monopolised in a district that is becoming steadily depopulated through land 'monopoly. Xo cold will stay if driven away by Tonkiug’s Linseed Emulsion. Is 6d, 2$ Gel. 4s Gd. s

In celebrating; Guy Fawkes Day at Napier a small boy set off a bunch’of Chinese crackers just before the express came in, and one of these happened to find a lodgment on the back of a horse attached to one of the waiting cabs. Not unnaturally, the horse decided not to wait for any more, and made off, cannoning into another cab, which in turn collided with a lorry and another cab. When things were straightened out a bit, it was found that from a very simple beginning—a Chinese • cracker—damage amounting to many pounds had been done, wheels being dislodged, poles (Woken, and harness suffering.’ A.u unusual spectacle at a coronid itl/ptwas witnessed in Auckland UisttPnesday when two blind men were led into the Coroner’s Court to give evidence in connection with the Khyber Pass fatality. Both seemed to be between 30 and 40 years of age, and they were of respectable appearances, a member of tire police force informing the Coroner that they resided at the Jubilee Institute for the Blind, Parnell. “I certify to 6s and expenses for each of these witnesses,” the Coroner remarked at the conclusion of their evidence, and, perhaps not unnaturally, smiles of undisguised pleasure overspread the faces of the sightless ones.