JOTTINGS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 11, 31 August 1914, Page 7

JOTTINGS.

In a Government Gazette Extraordinary issued last week, the judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand are constituted a Prize Court to deal with any prizes that may be taken in New Zealand waters. An Order-in-Council is also gazetted declaring that Great Britain is co-operating with the French and Russian naval forces, and that the provisions of the Declaration of London will be observed with some modifications, relating to contraband and the blockading of enemies’ ports. In Kawhia, as elsewhere, amongst Natives as well as amongst Europeans (states the Settler), there is a spirit abroad which impels people to forgive and forget past quarrels and differences, and to make friends again on account of the great national trouble threatening. To settle the ownership of a valuable horse two Maoris recently had a law case, which was not settled at last court day. The litigants have now decided the question by handing the horse to the Defence Department, to help to fight the country’s battle against the common enemy. There are few who nowadays remember the story of Castagnette, a French army captain who earned a name for himself in more ways than one during the Napoleonic wars. His case is brought to mind by an announcement in New York papers that Mr Jan van dor Blassbalk, whose anatomy includes a cork leg, a cork arm, a rubber ear, a glass eye, and a wig, contemplates matrimony very shortly. Captain Castagnette, who was a veteran at Waterloo, appeared in the fighting line with wooden arms and legs, a leather stomach, and a silver nose and cheek—eloquent tributes to his prowess on many a battlefield. There lie fought bravely, with a specially-constructed spike in his helmet, until a shell lodged in his back, where the doctors decided to leave it. Years after, sleeping fore a fire, his legs caught alight, but being of wood the captain felt nothng and slept on. The fire reached the leather stomach, and just as its owner began to feel some discomfort the forgotten shell exploded and ended the hero’s career.