LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 97, 28 August 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

I On pages 7 and 8 of tin’s issue will ho found reports of football matches played yesterday. I A team of Now Plymouth golfers arrived by this morning’s train to play a. match with the Stratford Club.

The Waliino beat the previous record from Lyttelton to Wellington on Tuesday night, doing the journey from heads to heads in Bhr Imin, and from wharf to wharf in Bhr 40min. Only (id to 70 per cent, of the boiler power was used.—P.A.

Telephone connection with the Strutlord Mountain House was completed to-day,' the Major (Mr W. P. Kirkwood), ringing up and giving the first public message over the line. The installation should be of considerable value to visitors, or intending visitors

to the Mountain. Mr E. H. •Clark, M.P. for Port Chalmers, stated in the House on Tuesday afternoon that recently the s.s, Suffolk failed to find entrance to Port

Chalmers in a log, and was only picked up by the pilot-boat after a wire-, loss message from the steamer to Wellington had been transmitted to Port Chalmers. He asked the, Post-master-General whether he will author-

ise tjie erection of a wireless tele- ■ graph station at that port. It is hardly necessary to remind readers of the military ball to be held

in the Town Hall this evening. An indelatigable committee has spared no pains to ensure the success of the junction. J.hat the floor will be in

excellent condition may be relied on, the best of music can be looked for

ii om Crozier’s orchestra (specially brought up from Marton), and the committee promises that the decorations will be more elaborate and effective than those at any previous ball in Stratford.

A curious deformity in animal life, that is at once interesting and extraoi dinary and which should give veterinary surgeons something to ponder over is at present to he seen on the farm of Mrs Johnson, “Brookfield,” A', averley. During Saturday night a

call was horn. The following morning (says the AVaverley correspondent of the Patea Press), the little stranger was noticed, but it was at once seen that it was at no ordinary calf. Suspended from its shoulder was a large hag of flesh, about the size of a football, and about seven or eight pounds in weight. AA 7 hen examined, it was

found to he joined to the .body by a thick tube, barely protected by the outer covering of skin. It will be

seen that this freak of nature finds some difficulty in moving about, otherwise, it is a singularly healthy calf. AVhat the deformity may represent is indeed hard to explain. An interesting display of relics of Captain Scott’s polar party are now being exhibited in the window of Mr

C. E. Boulston’s Strand News Agency on Lambton quay, Wellington! ’Lieut-'

enaut Campbell’s, party, who were lost for six months, and lived in a hollowed out. snowdrift throughout the dreary Antarctic winter, had little means of passing the time. Only two books

were with the party, “The Life of R. L- Stevenson” and Charles Dickens’s immortal “David Copperfi.old.” Mr C. Williams, a member of |£he party, has presented the identical copy of “David Copperfield” to Mr Eoulston for exhibit. The cover of

the book has 'been' torn off; and th'e pages are stained with seal oil. The Dickensian Fellowship of London is very desirous of securing the book in order to place it in the Guildhall, London, as a national possession, and have written to Mr Roulston accordingly. There are also included in the relics reindeer caps worn by. the party, the singlet and fur gloves worn by Lieutenant Evans and the furry snow boots worn by Williams in their sojourn in the Antarctic.

A Durban commercial man; writing to his brother, who resides in Wellington, says that so far as Durban is concerned trade is good, and there are signs of expansion. But, generally speaking, the state of unrest in South Africa is such as not to warrant at the present time a policy of emigration thither. The whole of

the Rand is a mass of discontent, and all wounds are being re-opened by General Hertzog, who is stumping the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in a campaign of .personal calumny against General Botha and the party of conciliation. “There is no country in the world to equal this,” the letter concludes, “Keep the agitator away. The country wants rest, and with its unsurpassed climate and vast resources it has every promise of ful-

filling the most sanguine expectations of Rhodes. There should be, in the natural course of events, great opportunities here before long for the plodding, resolute, steady fellow, hut 1 he must recollect that lie is not in

England, a temperate zone, and must therefore give , the ‘shikker’ a wide berth. Otherwise, he’s only got Hobson’s choice here.”

A meeting of members of the Scottish Society was held in Elder’s rooms last night for the purpose of forming the Stratford Branch of the Taranaki Provincial Scottish Society. There

was only a very moderate number present. Mr Campbell, as.convener of the meeting, explained the object for which the members had been called together, after which the following officials were duly elected :—Mr Geo.

Sangster, president; J. B. Campbell, secretary; J*. Petrie, assistant secretary; A. IT. Grant, treasurer; committee, Messrs H. Campbell, T. Smith, C. Jackson. A. Patrick, H. W. Douglas, W. Fergusson, A, Sangster, A. McGowan, J. Rutherford, and J. Simpson. After the conclusion of the business, the members spent a pleasant hour in a social manner.

• A missing hat-box, said by the stowi 1 ards of the Victoria to be tho largest t they bad ever seen, formed the subject of a claim lor £3O by Mrs Lionel, Clare against tho Huddart Parker Co., » yesterday in the Gisborne Magistrate’s Court. Mr Barton, S.M., held ■ that the loss was occasioned by negligence on the part of the defendants nob placing the luggage aboard the / tender at Gisborne. The plaintiff did not sign any contract and was not Y aware of clause 18, tho terms of which wore endorsed on the passage ticket, consequently she was not bound theie*by. Plaintiff was therefore entitled to ! ' recover the actual value of the trunk and contents. Judgment for £2G aud |%l(f entered up.