LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 41, 24 June 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Cook County Council has unanimously decided to oppose the proposa for the taxing of motorists.

"It would take about swvedty-ove years' rates to make a road to youi section,"' was the encouraging replv that a settler received when he waited on the Moa Road Board on Satday, says the News, with a request that a track should be made to his property on the Derby Road!

The Consolidated Oilfields of Taranaki, Ltd., who are operating at Huiroa, have now completed tho derrick, and actual boring will commence in about ten days. The company is confident that they will strike oil at no very great depth.

Strange flotsam occasionally comes into the hands of the authorities (states a P.A. message from Wellington), and among the latest is a package found floating in the harbour near the wool wharf. This contained one hundred small bottles of extracts of whisky, brandy, and rum etc., and is in the hands of the Collector of Customs, awaiting an owner

In the course of an address, Dr. Yalintine, Inspector-General of mental hospitals, Said the statistics for tlie past year had just come to hand. showing the general death rate of New Zealand to be 8.8 per 1000, which was the lowest yet recorded. The same might be said with regard to the infantile death rate, which was 5.1 per 1000. These two death rates, and also the death rate from consumption (5 per 10,000), are the lowest recorded in any country. On the other hand, though there was an increase in the birth rate last year, New Zealand (South Australia excepted) had tho lowest birth rate in Australasia.

Mr D. Cuddie, Dairy Commissioner, in speaking at tlio Winter Show banquet in Palmerston, deprecated the cry that tho price of land was going too high. Ho pointed out that if a man secured the right class of land, and put the whole of his industry into developing it, ho Mould reap his just reward. He also referred to co-opera-tion, hut in doing so, said that there appeared to he a lack of that principle between dairy companies. They should combine to agree that they would not accept at one factory milk that had been rejected by another factory. Ho believed that the majority of them would be willing to join in such a movement.

The date for receiving entries for

the local Poultry Show has been extended from the 23rd to Saturday (28th inst).

It is reported from Winsted, Connecticut, U.S.A., that a oat led its kitten through three streets to a veterinary surgeon's house to have its sore evo treated.

Gisborne seems to be a good place to live out of just now, says the Neve A New Plymouth resident has just received a letter from a relative in Gisborne, in which lie states that there are now over'loo eases of typhoid under treatment. The hospital? are full, and the mortality i& heavy. Besides typhoid, a disease of a peculiarly virulent type had broken out amongst children, and many lives were being lost.

A photograph has been sent out from England showing the faulfs in cheese of which complaints have been received from England this year. A copy has been handed to the Hawera Star, and the section discloses a very unsatisfactory article full of cavities and openness strikingly in contrast to the close make, which is characteristic of the bulk of the cheese made in Ta ranaid.

A sad commentary on our Dominion as a "Workers' Paradise" was remarked upon in Stratford yesterday, when a little girl in a thin white dress (it wasn't a warm day by any means) went from door to door begging for "clothes for the baby." The little stranger had just arrived, and father was very old. "We didn't know what to do, so mummy sent me out to ask some kind people to give us clothes for the baby." It is some consolation to know that the little visitor was not turned empty-handed away. But it must be admitted that in the game of life the wee thing in the cradle doesn't get a fair start when the conditions are in any way like these.

Mr J. G. Beamish, who attended the recent reunion of Taranaki veterans in New Plymouth on the occasion of the visit of the battleship New Zealand speaks in g. owing terma of the reception given by the residents to the veterans by all (says the Patea Press). It is now some 45 years since Mr Beamish, then a young man in his teens, marchd out to Patea with a company of Volunteer Militia to take tip a position near Mokoia. Last week, at the re-union in New Plymouth, Mr Beamish had the happy experience of meeting two comrades who had taken part in the same march and whom he had lost sight of in the intervening space of time. | Needi i less to say, the party of three had a happy time together talking of their adventures during the exciting and troublous times experienced in the 'early days.

A lecture on a "Trip' from New'York to Egypt and Palestine" will be given in the St. Andrew's Hall this evening by the Rev. J. Pattison. The lecture is to be given at the request of the Ladies' Guild of the Church, and should prove instructive and interesting. It will include references to Gibraltar and JsTaples,, and Pompeii,, the buried city, which lias been uncovered in recent times, will be _, spoken of. Notice'will be' taken ; of a.'"*' visit to Alexandria and Cairo, and an account of tbe climbing of the Pyramids. Impressions of Palestine will be given, including Joppa, Jerusalem, Jericho, Bethlehem and other places of sacred interest. The lecture is to be interspersed with suitable music. Amongst those taking part will be Miss Field, Miss Rogers, Miss Mackay, and Mr Douglas.

At Louisville, Kentucky, says the New York correspondent of the Daily Citizen, a well-known airman, Gomez de Ribas, a Mexican, fell in love with the daughter of a very wealthy man, Miss Bianca Lainez de Aldegonda, but her parents refused to consent to the union, and made arrangements to send their daughter to Paris. The couple then decided to elope. Their plans, however, were discovered, and her brother, young Lainez de Aldegonda, resolved to stop the daring plot, but it was only when he heard the whirr of the propeller that he discovered that his sister was already in the air, piloted by the daring Mexican. He immediately set out in his motor-car to puruse them, and the nad race between . the car and the aeroplane lasted for about three hours. Suddenly the airman perceived that hiil petrol tank was empty, and he had to descend. Scarcely had he landed when a shot rang out, and the aviator fell from his seat. The young girl in despair seized the knife from her lover's belt and cut her throat before her brother had time to approach her. She died on the way to the hospital, and the airman was taken there in a critical condition.

Another example of the growing crime—cargo broaching—has just been brought under our notice, says the Wanganui Herald. A local merchant imported three large packages of their favourite delicacy, preserved ginger, from Sydney, and two of these came to hand a few days ago. On being opened up it was found that in one of the packages, several of the boxes of fruit had been tampered with, and in one the contents totally removed, leaving nothing but the paper wrapper. The third case came to hand to-day when it was found that here again a box of fruit had been removed and several boxes so tampered with as to make it unsuitable for sale. The loss from the pilfering is estimated on a very liberal basis at £25. The merchant has no clue as to the definite place where the ginger was stolen from but is confident it was not taken thus side of Wellington,

Those Stratford cadets who have entered for events at the Territorial Gymkhana at Hawera on Thursday should note that they must leave by the mail train in the morning.

At the World's Temperance Conven

tion, to be held in Milan in September, New Zealand will be represented by *the Hon. G. Fowlds, Mr W. B. Scan-

drett (former Mayor of Invercargill), Mr R. Milligan (former Mayor of Oamaru), Mr J. Watkinson (of Auckland) and the Rev. A. C. Lawry.

It was stated in a leading journal the other day, in answer to a quofttton that winter started on June 21st. The Waitara Mail says that although on |n astronomical basis the answer is no *libt correct, it appears tcAis absurd tJ 1 say that we tre m wmter when the buds are all breaking out, and all Nature is heralding the advent of the longer days.

The following will represent the Stratford Senior Cadets in the tug-of-war at Hawera on Thursday next: —Steer, Marchant, Wolfe, Guppy, Carley, Blair, Hamblyn, Perrett. In other events, the following will compete:—Orossan, O'Sullivan, Copestake, Ellis, Inch, McAloon, Payn'ter and Dodd. Post entries will be accepted on the ground. The Cadets will journey by the express train at 8.40 a.m.

In Melbourne the other day a man wafl arrested on a charge of stealing a ring. The detective's didn't find it, because it was in his mouth. In the course of his search he took it out of his mouth and put it in a pigeonhole in the detective office. He was convicted on another charge and went to goal, leaving the ring in the office Then he laughed fit to burst in his cell over the joke. When he felt he bursting he told the story in order to save hia life, and the ring was found.

An analysis of the revenue and expenditure returns in West Australia for the past 11 months shows that the

revenue from the State hotels was

£30,465, and expenditure £28i518, The expenditure on the State steamen was £62,020, and the revenue £4B,i 082. It appears from the returns that the only new State trading en terprise of the Labour Government which yields. a profit is that of the State hotels, which show a surplus of nearly £2OOO on the current expenditure. The expenditure on State stea'

mors for the 11 months shows a de.l' ficit of £12,204, inclusive of interest on the sinking fund.