LOCAL AND GENERAL

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 100, 1 September 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

During August five marriages, two deaths and twenty-two births were registered.

At the Court this morning a first offending drunkard was lined ten shillings. Mr S. 13. Hunter, J.P., was on the bench.

Special train arrangements have been made by.the railway department in connection with the Taranaki-Auck-land Rugby fixture in New Plymouth on Tlmr.sdar.

The first consignment.of green peas to reach the Wellington market from Xelson brought 3s per peck of 71b. For stealing meat worth Is Kiel from a butcher’s cart, while it was standing in lho roadway, a Wellington woman was lined £1 and costs. According ( to the Australian, a party of Australian horse buyers purpose visiting .New Zealand shortly wit.i the intention of securing some of tin best that the Dominion inis to offer.

! At Savannah, Tennessee, on August 17, a woman was fined £lO for appear- • ing on the main street in a short skirt, I with a low-cut waist. Her escort was , ordered to pay half the fine. i ■ I The Bethnal Green detachment of 1 the London Fire Brigade have won the challenge cup presented by MV K. Smith, L.C.C., for the smartest turn- ] out. The _competition is decided by i test calls, and the winner’s time was ' the remarkable one of 6min 7sec. Mr W. J. Reeve put in a plea at Saturday’s meeting of the 'Bowling Club for competitions on Saturday afternoons. He said there were about nine members who attended at the green on Saturdays, but they came along very irregularly, which would not happen if there were competitions for them. Mr King thought nothing could he done in the matter until the universal Saturday half-holiday was in vogue. Finally it was decided to recommend the committee to go into the matter.

The Welington police received information late yeseterday that a launch had disappeared off Lyall Bay. The details are very vague. The police received the statement hy telephone, the informant refusing to give his name. It is stated that a launch, towing a dinghy, was seen approaching from the direction of Houghton Bay. It was observed to disappear and reappear several times, out finally disappeared altogether. One man was later seen on a rock, from v Inch

lu> was washed and winch lie regained several times. The police are unable to corroborate the story in any way.i i’.A. ' !

Pipes identical in form with some ;n use at present, mu' employed, it is believed, in lavender-leak smokjng, were unearthed during excavations made liv Professor He Los Bios among the ancient Boman ruins at Smajjf, Spain. T lie Hon. T. Mackenzie (states the London correspondent of tlie Otago Daily Times Under date July 2d), has returned from an extended tour of the north end of Scotland,winding up a visit to Birmingham, where lie attended the centenary celebrations of the Chamber.of Commerce. While in Scotland Mr Mackenzie was the guest at Sanchie Castle, in Stirlingshire, of Mr A. D. Steel-Maitland, the known Tnionist M.P. But the bondAß mutual interest, needless to say, AH •not a political one. It was Sanchie that the first trout ova scut out to New Zealand by Mr ABHj Maitland, who is a great A! r Mackenzie finds that in no great opinion is held of the trout, which is considered to beVK little use after its third year. AH Some striking results have obtained by .Mr A. M. tanner in the rich Coghills’ CrccWA? trict, near Ballarat, in selecting j and breeding ewes for fecundity. Having noticed that some of his ewes are much more fecund than others, the idea occurred to him of limiting his breeding | operations to the ewo lambs that were | twins. A careful examination of the | cases were twins were reared showed j that the ewe was able to nourish each j lamb just as well as if there had been j only one. Consequently, since the | rearing oi twins seemed to impose no uniair burden on the mother, or in j any way affect the development of the lambs, no hesitation was experienced in entering upon the experiment. The I result Jms been somewhat astonishing (states the Sydney .Daily Telegraph). Before the new departure was entered upon the percentage of lambs reared was 8;-). The next year it rose to 104. hi the third year there were 14.4 Jambs reared to every 100 ewes, and but for damage done by dogs similar returns would have been experienced last year. Now that the merit of tne experiment has been so well established, it is intended to selection on account of descent from fecund mothers to rams.

A dory is going the rounds in Dunedin. (.states tho Otago Daily Times of I'riday last) that one day tin's week a. young man, with a well-assumed air oi dejection, waited on tho senior ■members of a well-known .firm of undertakers. He stated that Ids little daughter had just died, and that he wished Tho firm to undertake 1 the funeral arrangements.- So also gave his name and address arid the name of the doctor who had attended his child in, its last illness. The undertaker was professionally sympathetic, and took a note of the information detailed to him. r ! ho young man thcnpunhnrdeni'd himself of the fact that lie had boon employed in the country, and as ho had had to leave his work in a hurry in come to town, and had not had time to collect his cheque for wages due, he did not suppose there would be any objection to tire undertaker waiting a week or two for his payment. The undertaker iiad no objection—he often had to wait for Ids money. Everything being thus arranged satisfactorily, the. young man made to depart, but witlJ baud on the handle of the door,

with fitting hesitation, remarked t

as ho "as a bit short of money, In’ji.i the undertaker could lend Jiim ID.s to tide him over a day or two, and this amount could be returned when the total amount came to bo paid. Seven shillings, however, were all the undertaker had on him, and this was at once handed over. The climax is that the people at the address given knew of no sick child, and the doctor named had likewise never heard of the case. The ingenuity and impudence of the confidence trick man are apparently unlimited.