LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1, 6 May 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

.1 ho Oddfellows’ hold another of their euchre parties last evening, and the function was even more enjoyable than its predecessors, though the cold night considerably affected the attendance. Mrs Miscall and MiBalding won the prizes. The catering was in the capable hands of Mrs Brooking, and proved an entire success.

Captain A. C. C. Stevens, who was in Stratford yesterday, informed a press representative that a conference of Territorial officers will be held at Oringi on May 10, and a month later another conference will be held in Wellington. At both conferences Captain Stevens will represent the group of officers in the Wellington district.

Mr George Hickey, a well-known millionaire in Los Angeles, has been subpoenaed as a witness in the case of a woman who is under arrest on a charge arising out of the white slave traffic. This is the latest important development in a case which the police, declare will connect some 'of California’s' wealthiest and most influential men in the alleged ’enslavement f)f -11 girls.

Ouo of the remits to bo sent forward to the New Zealand Alliance Conference by the Wellington NoLicense League is: “That No-License Leagues be.urged to secure at least 1000 voters in each electorate- to pledge themselves regardless of party not to vote for any Parliamentary candidate who will not pledge himself to do his utmost to repeal the law which requires a three-fifths vote to abolish licenses ,which' is really a 10 per cent handicap.” Another remit is: “That the attention of the conference be drawn to the parsimonious attitude generally adopted by the press of the four chief cities respecting correspondence dealing with the nolicense movement.”

The New Plymouth Acclimatisation Society has had the good fortune to detect a couple of poachers right at the commencement of the season, and the fine of £2 and costs, inflicted by Mr A. Crook, SAL, at the New Plymouth Magistrate’s Court yesterday, should have a. salutary effect even in this district. Mr E. Wilson, lion, solicitor to the Acclimatisation Society, in his prosecution, stated that the matter of poaching was giving the Society much expense and trouble. The accused—William Henry Charles Barriball and Clarence Frank Barnball—had been caught by the secretary of the Society and bad given no trouble. They had since taken out licenses, but, if they had not been found out, would probably have gone on shooting without licenses. The minimum line was inflicted.

The casual picking up of ownerless and unprotected property is a risky proceeding near a city, where any old thing that lias the slightest money value is almost certain to have a jealous owner somewhere handy. An instance of this appeared at the Police Court, says the Auckland Star. A young yachtsman who had noticed an old cogwheel sticking in the mud on the foreshore at Chelsea had jacked the chunk of scrap-iron up and shipped it on his yacht as being useful for ballast, lie 1 was observed to do this by a man had been exasperated by finding that about 50s worth of scraj>-iron ballast which he had piled on the foreshore near this spot had geen getting obviously less with the passing of the days and acquisitive boat-owners. So it was a very much astonished young yachtsman that, half an hour later, was hailed by the water-police launch, and requested to hand over the cog-wheel he had stolen. In duo course he had to answer the charge in the Police Court of having stolen the scrap-iron, value os, and to make his explanation to the magistrate. The explanation bore the impress of truth, and the charge was dismissed, but the action serves as a general and particular warning to frequenters of the water-front.

Every article in the shop with the exception of Tobaccos and Cigarettes are reduced during sale for one monlb Charles E. James, Broadway.

The big picture benefit on Wednesday evening should prove a great success, for the tickets are selling well. Every,mo recognises that the Stratford fountain House road is a deserving "bjeet, consequently gentlemen who !110 disposing of the tickets meet with few rebuffs. -U a meeting of the Otago exhi'"tmn committee on Saturday it was decided, owing to the lack* of support from the counties, to take no further action in regard to setting up an Otago court at the Auckland Lxhibition. Of £6OO wanted, £357 was promised. “Return at once to your loving family, the piano has been sold” reads an advertisement in the agony column of the London Times lately. The tragic story underlying those words may best be left to the imagination of readers. I he official returns in correction of the first published rough returns of Wellington City Council election gives a place to Mr E. Tregear, formerly Secretary of the Labor Department, now retired on a pension. An old city councillor, Mr F. Cohen, was displaced by a few votes. The earliest use of the word “strike” in the sense of stopping work occurs in the London -Chronicle for September, 1765, in connection with a coal strike. This publication reports a great suspension of labour in the North. Cumberland coal fields, and the colliers are said to have “struck out” for a higher bounty before entering into their usual yearly “bond.” The time-honored illustration of profitless labour,/“carrying coals to Newcastle,” appears to have received its first slap in the face during this strike. The Chronicle reports that “several pokes of coal were brought from Durham to Newcastle by one of the common carriers, and sold on the sandhill for 9d a poke, by which he cleared 6d a poke.”

It is announced that a wise thing has been done in Paris. They have established a new profession; it is that of feminine adviser to men-nove-lists. Something of the kind is very much needed. It ought to be possible for novelists to hand over their heroine to he dressed, so to say, by this adviser. She would, . figuratively speaking, do the heroine’s hair, and thus save her from going through the volume with it “knotted in a loose coil,” which is the one masculine notion of a coiffure; she would put her into a real “confection,” and spare her that everlasting gown of “some soft white clinging material” ; and she would prevent her from doing many foolish tilings that the male novelist never dreams are wrong, while she, would most certainly be more careful than he about her baptismal name. All these are things which really matter. :

r J he London Daily Express is holding a novel competition among its readers, who are invited to set forth the reasons why they would like to settle in Australia. The prizes are to be ten free passages to the Commonwealth, five for young, men and five for young women, with guarantees of work on landing. “Every post' has brought a shoal of letters asking for information about Australia,” says the Daily Express, “and telling stories oi discontent with the conditions and the Jack of opportunity in this country. Many of the candidates for our Iree passages say they want to be able to save enough money to begin in fruit farming on their own account.” The competitors are to be strong, healthy, and unmarried, and the women must be qualified for domestic work.

What is an ideal husband? At a coming exhibition demonstrations are to be given of how this mythical person should behave on certain trying occasions, such as his very late arrival home for dinner, Iris discovery that an obnoxious relation of his wife has come to stay—a peculiarly aggravating attack of fractiousness on the part oi madame. To prophesy before one knows is never wise. At the same time, it is fairly certain that any presentiment of an “ideal” husband that will be given will be cordially loathed by women. Who wants a perfect husband or a perfect wife? (asks the Pictorial). Neither one nor the other exists. Jf men and women mate as true comrades, they accept each other’s faults and make no rules about them. Machine-made saints are unendurable.

Sir Alfred Dale, writing to The Times, says:—“Your correspondents, in their search for cases of hungerstrike, might have gone further hack than the Middle Ages. During the Avian persecution in the fourth century, Eusebius of Vercellae, with other orthodox bishops of the West, was exiled from his diocese and held in custody more or less close at Seythopohs, in Palestine. For a time he was allowed to live in the house and under the charge of Joseph, a Jewish convert of distinction. His friends were free to visit him, and to bring him food and other offerings. Their devotion enraged the Arians of the place. But Patrophilus, their bishop and leader, carried off the exiles—not without violence, if the story as told by Eusebius is true —and shut him in a cell, from which Ids friends were excluded. Eusebius then refused to take the food supplied by his gaolers, and said that he would neither eat nor drink (non panem maiidncatnrufn neque aqnam bibiturum) until his friends were admitted again and allowed to supply him with food (necessarian eseas) as before. Patrophilus, through fear of the scandal in which the death of a brother bishop would involve him, gave way, and set Eusebius free. Baronins gives the whole history in his Annals (A.I). 356.)”

A theft of money from a local resident’s dwelling is reported, and the matter is in the hands of the police.

The Court list for Friday’s sitting of the Magistrate’s Court includes twenty-three civil cases, one defended, three judgment summonses, and one application for maintenance.

The Invercargill branch of the South British Insurance Company has received the sum of £2OO conscience money, the payment being made by a Roman Catholic priest on behalf of so;;J person unknown. —P.A.

■ Thjfrpolice at Cambridge have received woffnation that a Maori child at "VVaotli was accidentally burned to death. There are no particulars, adds a Press Association wire.

The Stratford A. and P. Association is holding a “working bee” all day Thursday, commencing at eight o’clock. if members are so disposed. The work to be done is the removal of earth at the Flint Road—Broadway North corner to the Association’s grounds.

The StratPol'd Gymnastic Club’s

opening last evening suffered somethrough other attractions, and also through the absence of many members at the Oringi camp. However, the club has secured a very solid membership, and gives every prospect of being a decided success.

Sex and science are often at warfare (according to tan,, English exchange), but the latter sometimes upsets a great many old-fashioned theories’ concerning the former. We have been trained for to regard men as belonging to the superior sex- Nature evidently planned differently in creating animals; and what are we but animals of larger intelligence possessed of souls? One of the moot eminent biologists in the United States has been experimenting with a view to discovering which sox shows the greater alertness among animals, and he reports that in all cases it is the female who scores. Anyone who has had much to do with puppies will have observed that the females are always livelier, quicker to learn, though, one must confess, less obedient than dogs.

r Mr E. F. Benson is very hard on the middle-aged woman. He spares her nothing (says the Pictorial). B\ enrae means, which we feel sure must be unfair since they are not those usually shouted on the house-tops, he finds out oven the pitiful little toilette secrets of the woman “of a certain age.”' These were mercilessly revealed in “Mrs Ames.” In his latest book he gives us another study of middle-aged matronhobd in Mrs Earnsden, a parson’s wife of the type that one hoped was dyiitg oiit, a meddlesome, narow-minded, tyrannical, and hideously ehe’fgetib person of cht-lik* proclivities. ' For' this new onslaught on the hapless middle-aged one is somewhat consoled hy his presentment of a positive prig of a girl. His latest heroine makes the absolutely up-to-date modern girl shine by comparison, for Eleanor is an intolerable piece of self-satisfied perfection.