LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 14, 15 January 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The results of tlie Stratford and Midhiret Herd-testing Associations Mr the latest thirty-day periods are published on Page 8. 1 The milk cheques for the month art —Stratford Co-operative Dairy Com pony, £9,808; Ngaire, £4010; Cardiff £2344; and' Lowgarth, £2868.

A meeting of suppliers of the Car diff Dairy Factory is to be held a the Cardiff school on January 24th for the purpose of considering a pro posal to erect a new residence for tin manager, Mr D. Cameron. The Stratford County Council pu their now Aveling and Pprter rolle, through its paces yesterday’,' arid to morrow the machine will get to word on the North Mountain Road. Th< trials were perfectly satisfactory. Work started at Whangamomon: for the co-operative men about a weel ago, and the number at present em ployed there is in the neighbourhood of 250. When the line was at Huiroa 700 men were employed, while at one time there were 500 railway workers at Whangamomona. A wedding cake weighing 3001 b and standing 6ft high was presented to Miss Mamie Morganstein, of New York, by her father, on her wedding day. The ingredients included 1001 ) of raisns, 1001 b of currents, 30 dozen eggs, 751 b of sugjir, and 201 b of butter.

James Casey, a young man, ap peared at the Magistrate’s Court yes terday on a charge of alleged wife dcserton, and was remanded to appeal at Hawera to-day. Mr Jonas Masters, J.l ~ was on the Bench, and Sergeant McNeely appeared for the police.

A paragraph of which the majority of Taranaki newspapers, including ourselves, have been guilty, stated that the Ngaire factory was manufacturing casein from the skim milk. Midhirst is the factory which has gone in for the new by-product of the dairying business.

The New South AVales Government has now decided to follow New Zealand’s lead in the matter of testing the Sedgwick imperial Migration Scheme, and an initial batch of thirteen London lads left London by the Beltona in the first week of December. They ranged from 16 to 20, and were all given assisted passages undei the New South Wales nomination system .

A man who was apparently a casual workman in tlie employ of the Featherston County Council (says the Standard), thinking he would make higher money at shearing, gave up the roadwork and took a stand in a Tablelands shearing shed, in consequence of which the County Council was treated to a letter from an officious unionist demanding to know who had given tlie man a shearer’s permit. The Council did not think fit to comply with the demand.

No less than twenty-one of the successful candidates for Junior Scholarships at the December examinations are pupils of the Stratford School, including Ernest Coutts, who having gained first in the literary and athletic contests, wins the Bayly Scholarship this year. Stratford may well bo pleased that under Mr F. Tyrer’s excellent direction the school continues to hold the high place it gained some years ago. The staff, the scholars and the school are to be congratulated on the latest striking success. The results appear in another column, most of the Stratford pupils being indicated.

Mr R. G. Whetter, Inspector to the Taranaki Education Board, has forwarded his awards in the A. and P. Show Essay Competition to the Association’s secretary, as follows: Class A (1-1 years or under), J. I'. Mills, (“Pharaoh”), Midhirst (Stratford School), 1 ; A. Anderson (“Waterloo”) past Road, Stratford,' 2; G. McAllister (“Nelson”), Stratford 3. Class B (15 years or under), W. Rodder, (“Ferrett”), Marco, Whangamomona, 1; Mary Jamieson (“Preciosa”), Marco, ’Whangamomona, 2; Marion Saunders (“Weka”), Ngaere, 3. The prize essays wil bo published in our columns. The winners in section A will appear to-morrow.

It was stated at the Waitotara County Council on Monday_ that during the past five years £297 had been struck on native lauds in the county, but of this amount only £29 had been collected. The counties in this district (says the Herald) are at present taking united action to see if some amendment of the present Act cannot be made with a view of the better collection of rates from Maori lands. The annual camp at Oriugi is to he a big affair, and some seven thousand men will probably muster under canvas. Those men who are to do an extra four days in camp will go in on the 14th of April, hut the remainder will not moholise until the MU3th of April. Owing to the fact thaw the whole of the Infantry Brigade will go into camp, and the biggest possible muster is absolutely necessary, it will he exceedingly difficult for men to obtain leave to attend the casual camp, or camps.

“Our rating power is a third bigger than last year’s,” remarked the Chairman of the Stratford County Council referring to the North Hiding this morning. “Yes,” replied Cr Walter, “but when the 31st of March comes you will find you are in a worse position than ever.” To which Cr Hathaway rejoined; “I hope not. At any rate, our roads will be in a better condition.” Or Walter: “Y r es, but it’s well to have something to show for money spent. It’s no use disguising the fact, your riding is in a had way financially.”

In a recent issue appeared a cablegram showing how bookmakers blocked the telegraph wires to safeguard the odds. The Dunedin Star recalls that the same thing happened in Otago about twenty years ago. A bookmaker had a big bet on a horse that was to run at Oamaru, and to prevent his fellow knights of the pencil from unloading on to the totalisator, and thereby shortening the price he hoped to obtain from that branch of his investment, he handed in one hundred “urgents” at such a well-calculated moment as to block the wire. Unluckily for him, his horse lost. An incident reminiscent of the good old days when pioneers in Dunedin were threatened with being locked out if they did not return in time occurred on Saturday night (says the Times). A prisoner under reformative sentence had been in the Dunedin Hospital for some time under medical treatment. At dusk on Saturday he eluded the nurses, and proceeded to do a round of the hotels. Wardens searched the grounds and surrounding streets without avail, and one of them, on gc*ng into the ward at midnight, found the prisoner safely under the blankets, sound asleep. Sunday morning saw the prisoner hack in his cell. Judging from their conduct some people apparently think that the distance of six paces observed between companies when a battalion is on the march is left in order to allow a free passage way through the column. Probably none of those who freely crossed the space between companies on Saturday afternoon in Dunedin were aware (states the Times) that they were committing an offence- for which they might be summarily called to account, hut this is a fact which the officers desire to have more widely known. 1 1

Like our own soldiers, the most coveted decoration the Jap desires is the gift of the Mikado, the Japanese “Victoria Cross.” It is, to give it its proper title, called “The Distinguished Service Order of the Golden Kite,” and takes the shape of a small, indented oval of a beautiful tgawu enamel.v The medal is suspended from the breast by. a green ribbon, and its gift is as rare as that of the much-coveted Victoria Cross of Great Britain. There are seven classes of the order, and each grade signifies some more valorous act of the recipient. Its bestowal generally raises the fortunate wearer to the peerage, if he is not already there, and often carries a pension. An American visitor (Mr E. A. Howe, editor of the Atchison Globe, Kansas), who arrived in Sydney by i the Sonoma, referred incidentally to the racial problem in the United States, which, he said, was becoming keener every day, especially in the Southern portions and in the Mississippi. He had been told by one of Die authorities prominently associated with the coloured people that the struggle for supremacy was far more dangerous and keener now than in the very early days of the Eastern 'States. The coloured races had been practically disfranchised in this portion, and, although they were allowed to vote in the northern parts, the general policy seemed to be to disfranchise them everywhere.

One of the leading medical journals states that the very best thing people can do is to eat apples just before retiring for the night. Persons uninitiated in the mysteries of tiie fruit are liable to throw up their hands in horror at the visions of dyspepsia which such a suggestion may summon up, but no harm can be done even to a delicate system by the eating of ripe and juicy apples before going to bed. The apple is excellent brain food, because it has more phosphoric acid in easily digested shape than any other fruit. It excites the action of the liver, promotes sound and healthy sleep, and thoroughly disinfects the mouth. This is not all —the apple prevents indigestion and throat diseases.

In the Carillon-Grenville line of Quebec, Canada, the Railway Magazine points out, possesses the smallest railway in America. It is a quaint independent public track of broad gauge and of wood burners, and the old engine, the “Ottawa,” is claimed to be the oldest in America. Built in 1849, it once had the honor of conveying the late King Edward. Although still in good working older, it is so great a curiosity that American and English locomotive builders and railway men have made special trips to see and ride on this quaint railway built to the old broad gauge of sft Gin. There are thirteen miles of road in connection with the line. Carnillon, from which the quaint train starts, is a delightful riverside resort, at the head of the Lake of Two Mountains, 45 miles from Montreal.

Following on the news that the 11th Regiment Taranaki Rifles had been affiliated with the 57th Regiment, “Die Hards,” which fact was chronicled in our columns some days ago, Cup.tain Dampen this morning received a hand-, some card conveying season’s greetings from the Ist Battalion of this famous regiment, which, in the Taranaki war, fought side by side with our own Taranaki Rifles. The card bears a portrait of the senior officer of the 57tb, Colonel Lord Sinclair, who was present at the battle of Inkerman, and was severely wounded whilst leading the Light Company at the storming of the Redan. On the inside pages of the card is shown a photograph of tho_ medals of SergeantMajor John Bergin. of whom., history records that he killed eleven Russians in defending Captain Bland, 57th v Foot, ■ who lay mortally wounded on n the field of battle.

Extract from debate at the County' 1 Council’s meeting this morning; €r Smith (from his scat): “Mr Chairman, just let me speak for one moment.” Cr Thomson (standing): “Yon wait till I’m done.” Tickets for the Smith Benefit picture performance are selling very readily, the majority of the public recognising that the case is a deserving one. Unfortunately a rumour is abroad that the widow will be m receipt of a pension. This is certainly, not the case at present. For a number of weeks past repre-, sentatives of the various benefit lodges in Hawera have been considering the advisableness of forming a Friendly, ticieties’ Council, with the object oh in gin g the institutions together, mainlv for the purpose of holding an annual gathering. The proposal has taken definite shape (says the Star), and the Council has been formed, with a representative, on it from the Hawera Band and Fire Brigade. About nine bodies are on the Council, each having three representatives. Fond parents who have boys under j'g years of ago should take note that; an air-gun is a firearm within the) meaning of the law, and is, tapu to small boys. A Northcote re-, eident, Win. H. de Luen, who had, recently made his son a present ot a rather powerful pneumatic gun, ap-, peared at the Auckland Police Court in company with the son and the gun to sav why. He mentioned that he had not looked on an air-gun as a firearm. A constable intimated that, a pellet from the weapon had marked, a boy’s leg at a distance of /oyds, and. the Magistrate commented that it was evidently a dangerous toy for a! thoughtless lad. The father was fin-, ed 20» and costs, the son was convict-, ed and discharged, and the gun was forfeited. i A kindly act by Methodists towards Roman Catholics is reported by the; Hobart Mercury. The Rev. bather Goodman was conducting a mission ■ on King Island, in Bass Straits, be-! tween Victoria and Tasmania, and at Currie Harbour a difficulty arose, as Father Goodman had no Catholic Church, or een a hall, in which to conduct his mission. inquiries and found that a Methodist community owned a fair-sized church in the township. He approached the| Methodist authorities there, and to, his great surprise was allowed the use of the church for the purposes ot his mission for both morning and evening on the date named. It so happened that the Methodists had lately procured a new bell for their church, and bj a strange coincidence the bell was used for i the first time to call the Catholic community to the mission and to mass in the Methodist Church. The action of the Methodist hotly at King Island was very highly appreciated by Father Goodman and his corelgionists

The Dunedin Expansion League sets out in emphatic terms the many climatic advantages possessed by Dunedin and the whole of the province of Otago as against the climate experienced in other parts of the Dominion. “Far from the tropical dankness of Auckland, the windy bluster of Wellington, the parching nor-west- ; era’ of Canterbury,” it states. New 1 Zealand’s climate is found at its best in Dunedin, the capital of Otago. Tabulated figures are given showing the number of days on which rain fell during 1911 at the four mam centres (Auckland 220, Wellington 161, Christchurch 122, Dunedin 118). the highest temperature recorded anc the date, and also the average rain fall for a period of three years to 1902, extracted from the TransaC; tions of the New Zealand Institute. The leaflet is part of a quantity o ; printed information to be distributee outside the Dominion in accordance with the league’s programme, says the Otago Daily Times.