LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 74, 18 March 1914, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

'The annual school committee ejections are to be held on April 27th.

The “Gentlewoman” remarks outlie fact that all Mr Asquith’s more important communications are typed by a woman, and that Mr Bonar Law has engaged a woman as Iris private secretary. A man of affairs once told me that, more and more, ladies will be engaged to occupy posts of trust in offices, galleries, and theatres.

The appointment of women as head of prisons bids lair to be an epoch in the woman movement (says the “Queen”), and the experiment is said to answer admirably, so we may expect to see women henceforth sharing largely in the work of prison reform, as well as proving themselves impartial authorities when placed in positions of trust.

Mr AY. Harris, of Toko Road, had a harrow escape from serious accident at the Toko railway yards yesterday. He was taking some pigs into the trucking yard in his dray, and as he turned into the yard the dray capsized and he was pinned underneath. Willing hands soon extricated him, and it is understood tiiat Air Harris sustained no serious injury.

During the month of February the Eltham Co-operative Dairy Company received 179,3<01bs of butterfat, manufacturing 56G3 cwt. cheese. r l he average test was 3.82. The company pays out, at the rate of Is per lb of butterfat, the sum of £8968. This is an increase of £233 compared with the corresponding period of last year, when the company paid out, at the same rate, viz., the sum of £8715.

Funerals on Sundays, it is said, are becoming very frequent in Dunedin, as elsewhere (says the Otago Daily Times), and the matter was alluded to at a meeting of the session of Knox Church on Thursday last, when the following motion was carried unanimously:—“That the session learns with regret .that the practice of having funerals on Sundays is increasing. It expresses its disapprobation of the practice, involving, as it does, a serious encroachment on the time and labour of ministers, and instructs its own minister to decline Sunday funerals except on occasions of necessity or extreme urgency.”

“I’m going to shoot yon, daddy,” was the childish warning a father received prior to a remarkable incident. Mr G. E. Humpress, of Randwiek (N.S.W.), who was taking a holiday ai Gingkin, 44 miles from Bathurst, with his wife and eight-year-old son, was accidentally shot by the latter at Gingkin, on Monday of last week. The boy was handling a rifle when, jokingly remarking to his father, “I’m going to shoot you, daddy,” he pulled the trigger. The bullet entered the father’s groin. He was taken to Bathurst for medical treatment. The injury s not regarded as serious. Mr Humpress had only arrived from Sydney the day previous to the accident.

The -visitors’ horse paddock at the Opunakc racecourse for many years was a sight to behold in the number and variety of equities used for the purpose of pulling, or carrying, the individuals who made up the big'crowd of people which annually has gathered at the coast town’s race meeting for thirty years past. Yesterday, however, the horse divided honors with the motor car, and “man’s noble friend”—with the smell of petrol in his nostrils—gazed sadly at as big and varied a collection of man’s most modern road transports as one could find anywhere ,in New Zealand. The ears were as assorted as the people who rode in them, and their colors were even as the colors of Joseph o! old.

Next to America, the Australian public as a whole—workers, middleclass and well-to-do consumes a greater quantity of reading matter per year than any other people under the sun. So says a writer in the March issue of Everylady’s Journal. Analysing further, the writer states that the Australian girl, compared with her English sister, has a remarkably wide knowledge, if not of literature, at least of hooks. And it is on the quality of these books and the question of whether or not the quantity should be limited, that this article turns. The question was put to a number of leading public men, and replies received are given.

Strangely enough, last night was the warmest recorded in Stratford even throughout the long dry summer. The minimum temperature recorded by tiro school instruments during the past twenty-four hours was oS degrees, while the maximum was 02 degrees. This morning the barometer showed 2!b‘lo. The rainfall for the past 21 hours was 1.01 inches. In sympathy with these conditions, Mount I'.'gmout shed much of Ids white coat.

The senior cadets challenge cup fund, inaugurated hy Mi's Godley, lias been closed at £'2049. The cups are now in the Dominion, and are being engraved with each company’s name, and it is hoped that Sir lan Hamilton will make the presentation to tlie winners at the big parades to be held in each district.

A Wellington P.A. telegram to-day states: Mr 11. Semple, organiser of the Federation of Labor, returned to Wellington from Australia to-day. Mr Semple stated that he liad been well received, and, had he wished, could have obtained £SOOO instead of £IOOO for organising the Social Democratic Party. He was. surprised at the knowledge displayed by the Australian public in the New Zealand labor movement. Broken Hill , was a stronghold of unionism, and the Australian Miners’ Association was Willing. if necessary, to assist the Social Democratic party with funds.