LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 68, 28 March 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The annual reunion of settlers am! veterans in connection with the anniversary of Taranaki Province took at the New Plymouth Recreation Grounds yesterday, between seventy and eighty old folk being entertained, at luncheon and at a special picture entertainment at night.

According to the Wellington Post’s London correspondent, no fewer than eighty-two replies have been received to the advertisement for a general manager for the New Zealand railways. Applications have come from all parts of the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand, and the task of selection will necessarily occupy some time.

■> Advice by cable has been received by the Government from the High Commissioner to the effect that the Friedmanm cultures for the cure of consumption are unobtainable at present. The High Commissioner intimated that he was forwarding fuller information by letter, and recommended that no further action be taken at present.

A suggestion was made to Mr Massey on his Hamner trip on Saturday that county councils should be allowed to purchase land compulsorily, if necessary, to build homes for their workmen. “I propose to ask Parliament,” said Mr Massey later, “to give them the chance they are asking for. I will request Parliament to place legislation on the Statute Book in the direction asked.”

A circular has been issued by the Inspector-General of Schools stating that the British and Foreign Sailors’ Society of London has offered to present annually to pupils in the schools of the dominion artistic copper plaques suitably inscribed and bearing the King’s initials, for the best essays upon a subject relating to maritime affairs. Some years ago, the circular states, the society received from the Lords of the Admiralty all the oak and copper removed from H.M.S. Victory in the process of repairing damages caused by her collision with the battleship Neptune. About the same time the society secured all the copper remaining from Nelson’s old flagship Foudroyant, which had been broken up, and from the material obtained from these two sources the .plaques and some other Nelson mementoes issued by the society are manufactured. For this year four plaque® are offered, the subject of the essay being, “The. Benefits Accruing to the United Kingdom and its Dominions on the one hand, and to the United States on the other, from the Treaty of Peace in 1811.” The plaques will 1)0 awarded to a boy or girl in both the North and South Islands, and the competitors must be under 1G years of age on May 31st of this year. As the essays have to be sent to London, the results will not be known before the end of the year.

The harvest festival meetings in connection with the local Salvation Army corps will be held in the S.A. Hall iu Fenton street on Sunday and Monday. Special addresses will he delivered and the children will render special songs. On Monday evening the Eltham S.A. Rand will be in attendance. This is a line combination of twenty-one musicians and should prove a draw. Refreshments will bo provided and a sale of produce by auction will be held at the conclusion of the meeting.

At the Magistrate’s Court this morning, before Mr W. G. Kenrick, S.M., judgment by default was entered in the following cases: Wickham and Mcßeth (Mr Stanford) v. Y. A. Stapleton, claim £3 2s 6d, N and costs 10s; T. C. Fookes v. R, J. Scott, claim £1 Os 8d and costs ss; H. G. Wake (Mr Wright) v. G. H. Thomas, claim £7 17s Cd and costs £1 9s 6d; A. Dean (Mr Macalister) v. H. W. Tocker, claim £l7 4s and costs £2 Os 6d; Smart Bros (Mr Wright) v. Frederick Gooch, claim £l6 9s 9d and costs £1 13s 6d.

In January la.>t, in Paris, the supercession of the horse-drawn ■ ’bus by the motor vehicle was completed, and under visible signs of mourning, there was no small amount of joviality on the occasion of a motor car “funeral” to the last horse-drawn ’bus. The Paris General Omnibus Company announced, that, on January 11th, the last journey by horse-drawn ’bus would take place at noon; and when the vehicle pulled .away from St. Sulpiee, it was followed by a .procession of elegant private motor cars, draped in black, and carrying a number of leading auotmobilo engineers and business men of the city, all wearing black hands, and having wreaths in their hands, in memory of the defmict. The sad procession slowly wended its way across the capital from historic St. Sulpiee to Villette, where the wreaths were deposited on the funeral coach, the horses dismissed to an unknown fate, and the last “whip” of the omnibus brigade drank to the repose of the soul of the departed, and to the (health of the victorious motor invader. Who could have foretold of such a proceeding a decade ago?

At the recent Australian Wattle Day celebration in London, Sir George Reid made an eloquent speech.) Said the High Commissioner: “Oar young navy is going to fly the white ensign. It is stationed in the South Seas and has the Australian flag at the jack staff, but the white ensign at the peak. I cannot help thinking that the anxieties of British statesmen will (,(,■» be vastly diminished when Australia, guards the Southern Seas, when Canadaxguards the North Pacific and North ~,. Atlantic, when India and South,Africa {j , guard the Eastern Seas,, and when ~, Great Britain guards the heart of the. , , Empire and adds largely to t|ie guard-,, ianship of the trade routes of the Empire. We have shown in the past, young as we are, that w© are ready to rally to the flag in the hour of danger. One of' the glorious thoughts I have is that as we get stronger we will get more and more attached and more and more loyal, and some day when the clouds are darkest over the British Isles the reward will come for ! air the generosity and all the care which was bestowed upon us in the ■ days of our youth.” ;

At a meeting of the Opunake Harbour Board on Wednesday one of the members suggested that an early history of the. harbour and the events leading up to the constitution of the present Board should he written and inserted as a preface to the official minute book. The chairman, however, said (according to the Star) that some of the ancient history would be better forgotten. When he first came to the 'locality, Opunake was doing more shipping than New Plymouth. They had two boats’ crews of young fellows, who received a shilling per toil for handling. Then the schoolmaster came along and said: “Give this work td the farmers who have children to send to school,” and the farmers took on the work. After a while, they found that they could not always leave their farms when the boats came in, and eventually the boats got tired of waiting for the farmers’ crews; in fact, they ceased in their regular visits and Opunake’s trade dwindled away. Yet when that schoolmaster went away from Opunake they presented him with a purse of sovereigns 1

At the Whangamomona County Council meeting on Wednesday, Cr. McOutchan said in regard to noxious weeds that a well known Toko settler has introduced to the district an efficacious and inexpensive destroyer of pennyroyal, a weed which, on account of its rapid spreading habit, qnd the impossibility hitherto of eradicating it by grubbing, pulling or other known mean®, has been a source of annoyance and Joss to the settlers in many districts. The cure is Cooper’s or Little’s powder dip. The means of application i® simply to place, say, a third of a packet of the powder in a sugar hag, fasten the bag to the end of a light pole six or eight feet in length, and shake over the patches affected with the weed until the yellow tinge of the powder is discernible upon the leaves. A single packet will cover a very considerable area, and a boy can do the work. In about a week the plants are quite brown and without life. It is to be hoped that the settlers affected by this weed will avail themselves of this simple and inexpensive remedy of ridding their properties of this pest. Both the Toko resident and Cr McCluggage have tried .the cure, arid recommend it as a positive destroyer. Cr. McCntchan, in bringing this remedy under notice deserves thanks. Warner’s Rust-proof Corsets. F.verv pair guaranteed not to rust, break, or tear. Your draper stocks “WarnerV*. *

:* ’Whangamomona County Council re- . port and article on Cow Testing appear on page 3, Whangamomona Notea on page S, and Sporting notes on page 2.

A judgment debtor who appeared in the Stratford Court to-day stated that was milking on shares, and had earned since October last, the sum of £6B 11s 6d. His disbursements were £29, and the solicitor asked what had become of the balance. “What else have I had to live on and keep nine,” was the reply of the debtor. V

The Stratford Mountain House was the subject of a conversation between a representative of this paper and a local solicitor this morning. The latter mentioned ftfiat he had driven a party up to the house on Easter Monday, and had found the whole place in a most neglected and dirty state. The doors of the house were-wide open, and the bedding was all thrown about. They foundw the track to Curtis Falls very much overgrown and difficult to follow. ‘The solicitor added that it seemed a very great pity that the buildings should be allowed to go to ruin for the want of a caretaker. '"V

The Clerk of the Court was reading over the evidence in the Stratford burglary case, and the spectators in the body of the Court were yawning. Thou came a portion of Mr J. K. Stone’s evidence: “I always keep a revolver; I keep it as an ornament.” It was too much for gravity and decorum, and an outburst of laughter followed this portion of the evidence. “Silence in the Court,” came from Sergeant McNeely, who, himself, had been guilty of smiling.

Thus Mr W. G. Kenrick, S.M., summed up the position of a judgment debtor (a share milker) at the Stratford Court this morning: “He has £5 a month on whicli to keep himself, his wife, and nine children, to three of whom he pays an additional £1 a month each. I can’t give an order’, you know.” Mr Thomson, for the judgment creditor, replied that he understood this, but the objectionable part was that the debtor had promised to pay so much per month. To which Mr Kenrick replied: “They will promise anything, when they’re --pressed. That stands to reason.”

It transpired at the conference of 1 the New Zealand Poultry men’s Association at Auckland that comparatively few people n the Dominion make their living solely by poultryrearing—probably only about 100. Most of the poultry-raisers, it was pointed out, rim the industry in conjunction with Other Occupations. It was further stated (s'ays the Star) that the last census of poultry showed that the heh and rooster population of the Dominion was’about three and a-half million, an increase of half a million on the previous cehsils. 1 Of this number pfobhhly l&ss thati a million were in lots of'over a hundred, and the balance were held by householders in small 'numbers.

The remarks made by a delegate at the Poultry Breeders’ Conference at Auckland tend to show that some people are reiparkably careless as to the condition and quality of the eggs they place on the market. The speaker, who had had largo dealings in poultry and eggs, stated that he has known of cases in which fifteen dozen , out of thirty dozen eggs were “nest ’“eggs of long standing/’ and bore the brand of such clearly and unmistakably. He was, he said, entirely at a loss to understand why dealers should send bad eggs to the market when they must be aware that they were had. It means a loss to themselves, as railage and wliarfage had often to be paid on eggs which the would-be purchased could tell were bad, and refused to buy.

A Te Kuiti visitor to Manaia uuring the Easter holidays says that an active man as “dropper” can make | three pounds a day in the King Country (states the Witness). The business certainly has its risks, but | then so hast every business enterprise, and very little capital is required. Quite a number are engaged in the industry, he states, but it is not overdone, and the demand keeps well ahead of the supply. The contents of the “dropped” bottles, he explains, usually consist of three concoctions, and is known as “spots.” The first layer consists of whisky, the second of kerosene, ’ and there is a top dressing of methylated spirits. j.t is a vile compound and its effects are deadly. A bottle costs 12s 6d, but when there is a Maori tangi on, prices go up to 15s,

The meaning of the word “Canberra,” which is the name of the Federal capital is, according to Mr A. Meston, “young jackass.” Mr Meston is a director of the Queensland Bureau, and has had many years’ experience as a protector of aborigines, concerning whose customs and language he is a recognised authority. In the course of an interview, Mr Meston said: “In naming the capital city the Federal Government apparently entirely ignored the eesen- ; tial preliminary precaution of ascer- ■ taining the aboriginal meaning of Canberra, which ought to be spelt Kanburra, as no Australian philologist spells an aboriginal word with the letter “c,” there being no “c,” “f,” “v,” “x,” or “z” in the language. Kanberra was not the name of the district, the aboroginals having no name for a district, naming only every hill, lagoon, creek, and var(y* ions parts of the creek. The word ’if'-' Kanberra in four different dialects— Kamilroi, Wiradjerie, Wailwun, and Awabakal—being the name of the young jackass, the full-grown bird be-

ing Kokoburra, Kukuburra, and KukuU gahka. This naming of the capital without first ascertaining the meaning will leave room for the irreverent to * refer to it as the city.”