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Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 43, 26 June 1913, Page 4

An .Auckland accountant took Tonking's Linseed Emulsion for sore, ulcerated throat. He says: "The pleasure of being back to my duties seemed to startle the office staff, who thought T was booked for a week at least. The very serious condition I \va« in and my rapid recovery has made me write to you." Tonking's Linseed Emulsion, of chemists and stores. Is 63. 2s GJ, 1 3 6d.

Parliament was formally opened by Commission to-day, but the Governors Speech will not be delivered until tomorrow. A team of lady members from the » Stratford Golf Club was to have played Hawera to-day, but at the latter's request the match is postponed.

It may be news to many people to hear that the Bank of New Zealand has now no fewer than one hundred-and-ninety-four branches and agencies.

Those interested are reminded of the meeting to be held in St. Andrew's i Hall this evening to arrange for the opening of Lodge Triumph, American Constitution of Oddfellows.

The Public Service Commissioner has notified the heads of Departments that the period of employment of persons at present temporarily engaged as committee clerks, and whose services are actually required, liar, been extended from June 30 to September 30. This extension is not to apply to clerks who have been engaged since April 1, 1913, for specified periods.

The German newspapers publish t statistics showing that German arma- , toents in 1912 cost 21s per head of population, as compared with 32s in England and 27s in France. Germany's estimated "national fortune" of £13,500,000,000 is said to exceed that of France by £5,000,000,000, and to be only slightly below that of Great Britain and Ireland, which is estimated at £13,000,000,000 to £15,000,000,000. The German National Debt is said to amount to only £ls 10s per head,, compared with £l6 10s in the United! Kingdom, and £33 6s. 8d in France.

A very interesting poll has been taken in Denmark on the question of the Gothenberg system of State qr Municipal Control of the Liquor Trade or the total prohibition of the liquor in the country. All'persons over the age of 18 years were entitled to vote, and the result was 156,000 votes for total prohibition and 34,000 votes only for State control. A curious coincidence (continues our informant) was that the figures were about the same proportion for the West Virginian Staet prohibition poll, which was carried by an overwhelming majority about the same time.

A special series of postal stamps will soon be issued by the .United States Post Office Department. The new series will include stamps of the one, two, five and ten cent, denominations. The one-cent stamp is green, And in the centre appears within a circle a bust of Balboa, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. The two-cent stamp is red, and represents the Oatun locks of the Panama Canal,- with a merchant steamer emerging from one lock and a warship in the other. The five-cent stamp is blue, and represents the Golden Gate of.. . San Franclscd Harbor. The ten-cent, stamp is dark yellow. l The subject is ' [Discover^'of Sati FririciscO Bay."

Thos.e'with, a, taste for. statistics and 4 partiality for, things meteorological will be doubtless, interested to learn that there was exactly one second's, difference? between the length of the day on 21st, 22nd, and 23rd inst. Sunday last was in reality the shortest day in the year, its- total of daylight being 9 hours 12min 16see, This is, the winter solstice, when the hours of daylight do not vary to any appreciable extent. Prior to Sunday the daily period of light had been decreasing, but the climax is now passed, and from.now onwards it will go on increasing 'until 22nd December, when .the.opposite climax will be reached. ,jTha rat© of increase will be about one second per day, later on increasing to half a minute. According to meteorological statistics, mid-winter will be reached iq July., ~

Judgment was given by Mr Cruicksank, S.M., at Wyndham, on Tuesday, in a case in which a youth named Caird appealed for exemption from l military training on the ground that it was contrary to his religious belief. Caird said that he was a rationalist and humanist, and that he neither affirmed nor denied the existence of a Supreme Being. The magistrate said that he took religion to be a belief binding the spiritual nature of a man to a supernatural being on whom he is conscious he is dependent. Although some might hold that rationalism, atheism and agnosticism were religions, he coiild not think that any of these negative anti-theistic views were the kind of religion meant by the Act. Ho could not hold, as a matter of law, that applicant had any religious belie! and the application was refused.

Tn addition, to the "planks" of the Unity Congress platform announced yesterday, a later message gives : Land Tax—an addition of twopence being provided for unimproved land without exception, and the unimproved land value tax to be increased each year by the amount added to the unimproved value of the land, the revenue so raised to be used to reduce the cost of living by reduction Of customs on the necessaries of life not produced in the Dominion. It is also proposed that it be used to reduce railway freights and fares, and to make provision for home-farms as going concerns, the estate to clear the land. Education to be free and secular from kindergarten to University, with compulsory attendance from the primarv grades right to work. A Bill is required to ensure against unemployment, and a minimum, wage is to be provided for six hours per day, with a weekly day rest and a Saturday half-holiday. And after all those things, what then?

An interesting historic memento of old New Zealand is in the possession of Mr Walter Rutherford, of New Lynn, late of the 43rd Regiment and the Armed Constahulary. This is a union jack over a hundred years old, and its history, given to tho present owner by the late Judge E. M. Williams, son of Archdeacon Williams, is that it was the first British flag flown in the Maori war of 1845, when it was carried by Patmore's men in a skirmish against Heke's party. The flag previously belonged to the missionaries. Mr Rutherford comes of a fighting stock, his ancestors having fought at both Trafalgar and Waterloo, and he is anxious that the time-worn bit of bunting should find a fitting rest-ing-nbiee. He suggests either the Art Gallery or the Veterans' Home a? suitable places. When the authori ties know of the existence of such ar old' relic of the introduction of Britis 1 rule, no doubt some steps will be made to take advantage of Mr Rutherford's proposal.

The War Department of the United States announces that Captain Amundsen, the explorer, has been invited to send his ship, the Fram, through the Panama. Canal next autumn. The Fram will be the first vessel to pass through the canal. Taotain Amundsen has accepted the invitation. He expresses gratitude that the Fram will avoid the voyage round Cape Horn. Hawera had more than her complement of visitors last night. So great was the influx owing to the Show and the football match that the hotels and accommodation houses were full to overflowing. The surplus found its way to Eltham and Stratford, in most cases cheerfully putting up with the slight inconvenience, and being content to journey back by the morning trains. A lusty-lunged young Maori at the Wellington-Taranaki match at Hawera yesterday brought prominently under the notice of spectators on the "stand" the suitability and appropriateness—for tho purposes of the "barracker" —of the short name of the butter-province representatives as derived from their colors. Try "Yell-ows!" long drawn out, till the voice is positively hoarse and the crowd begin to frown! Thirty applicants for eleven sections in the Tariki block were examined at the New Plymouth Land Office yesterday, six being rejected. The tenure of the land is on the renewable lease system, with right of purchase at any time. A block of 12,334 acres in the Omara and Taurakawa districts was offered, but no applicants came forward. This- is the second block offered during the past six weeks for which there have been no applicants.

The Pharmacy Board of New Zealand, in a letter to the President of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association', asks that the names of poisons used in suicidal poisoning cases should not be published in newspaper reports, but that instead a general term should be employed such as "disinfectant" or coal tar products. Mr P. Selig, President of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association, in reply, promises to take steps to bring the matter before the Association, seeing that the issue is narrower than when the Association was asked to suppress the names of persons in 1911.

Th© Royal Crown of Roumania '« certainly the grimmest in the world. It was made by command of King Charles from the steel of a Turkish gun captured at Plevna. On May 10. 1881, after this and the simple golden crown, without jewels or ornaments, made for the Queen, had been consecrated bj» the Metropolitan, King Charles took his crown into his hands with the words: "i assume with pride this crown, wrought from a cannon sprinkled with the blood of our heroes and consecrated by the Church; 1 accept it as a symbol of the independence and power of Roumania."

In a short time—probably early next month—thei Auckland Harbour Board will take over the control of Manukau Harbour. Some months ago the Railway Department agreed to sell the Onehunga Wharf to the Board, but it was Only within the past few days that the money was paid. Captain R. H. Gibbons, Harbourmaster for the Manukati, who since his appointment has been an officer of the Marine Department, will enter the Auckland Board's service when that body takes over the wharf immediately the Order in Council is gazetted.

'Councillor T. Dent moved at' the last meeting of the Christchurch City Council that the Council should consider the advisability of promoting legislation to enable the Mayor to be elected at the same time as councillors and for the same term. He said that it would be for the better government of the city. It was no argument against his proposal that it would compel ambitious councillors to wait too long for their chance of occupying the mayoral -chair. The Act-ing-Mayor (Councillor H. B. Sorensen) said that the motion woidd be a retrograde one, as it would defer the hopes of too many councillors. The motion was rejected by a large majority. The "whistle" at the interpro. match at Hawera yesterday was weak, literally and figuratively. Had the referee been armed with a specimen of more commanding individuality, it is quite certain that he would not have had to run the gauntlet of criticism to the extent that he did. And in this connection, a spectator somewhat unkindly suggested that a pair of field-glasses would have been a decided acquisition in the performance of his duties; while another marvelled at a body like the local Union leaving itself open to a charge of parsimony in not procuring an outside man, not to mention the unfair and invidious position that a local referee is placed in on such an occasion. From time to time Ministers of the Crown enlighten audiences by lifting the veil of the daily Ministerial routine. Mr Rhodes, Postmaster-Gen-eral, told a number of his Halswell constituents the other day that a fewdays ago he had opened a new post office in the backblocks, on the following day had been called on to preside over a meeting of the Ambulance Association, and talk of bandages, and fractures, and first aid, and then bad found himself presiding over a convention of bee-keepers, and talking honeyed words. That day he was ofticially.opening a public hall, and on the following day he would be officially winding up or releasing the new chimes at the Timaru Tost Office. Then he would have a day of deputations to cap it all. An excursion of the Sydney Naturalists' Society was made recently to the site of some aboriginal catving?at Marouba Bay. The chief of those is a carving representing a wJixle, and is wonderfully lifelike The carvings must have invol/<xl a tvcu i-i/i•<»•■:< amount of work on the part of the dark artist, as the figure is sixteen feet in length, and nearly half as broad, and is cut out of the pandstone to a depth of half an inch. The only tools that the aborigine? had capable of executing this work were knives made of chipped ja<pai, which could only make a very small scratch at one stroke. The materia! out of which the knives nnl arrowheads of the blacks were t ulc is quite unobtainable locally, and Mie nearest point from which it could be brought is near Bathurst. Apparent!-/ the jasoer Vis brought down froth the wist in lumps, as numbers of the halfmade arrowheads and knives are found near the carvings, and the chips that were flaked away in the manufacture of the tool* are plentiful nil about.