JOTTINGS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 13, 2 September 1914, Page 7

JOTTINGS.

The Kaipara would iiave been a very valuable prize to the Germans if they had been able to retain her. She carried a cargo of 28,800 carcases of mutton, 25,500 carcases of lamb, and 3740 quarters and 148 bags of beef, besides 3233 bales of wool, 1314 casks of tallow, and a quantity of general merchandise. Such a cargo would have been a welcome addition to the food supply of any of the belligerent nations. It was, however, clearly impossible for the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse to take the Kaipara into any German port. The British control of the sea was too absolute to admit of this.

The “Wairoa Guardian” thus takes its readers into its confidence: ‘‘On Monday morning two of our staff left at the call of the Empire, and we were left with the manager and a young lady to set up the paper. Mr Christophers, of Dalgety’s, Ltd., kindly lent us the services of Mr G. W. Brown, an cx-compositor, the Rev. G. E. Kear, who understands the art, volunteered very kindly from Frastertown, and the town constable, also an ex-compositor, and one other official assisted in the folding, and thus the paper was fairly up to time. It is not every paper that can claim they were so generously assisted by the Church Militant, the Law, and the Police.”

‘ ‘During this period of national stress,” said the ilov. M. A. ilugby Pratt in his sermon at the Gore Methodist Church on Sunday, “it is a public and patriotic duty to sustain, so far as possible, all our ordinary activities.” He added that it was poor patriotism for a wealthy man to refrain from painting his house, for a well-to-do'woman to dismiss her maid, or for one of assured income to cancel a contract for digging his garden. To curtail the circulation of money was to create and aggravate the distress consequent upon unemployment. Judicious spending would afford work for the industrious and prevent the need for charity. It was better to spend 20 guineas in building a shed than to give two guineas to a relief fund.

France is laughing over the reply of a young diplomat to a challenge given by an ex-goveruor of the annexed provinces, Alsace-Lorraine. The two were neighbors at an official banquet recently, and the young Frenchman was talking of the skill of the French workman. “However ugly a thing may be, be seems able to turn it into a pretty object,” he'said. The old Prussian, with an impat:.- ;:

gesture, pulled a grey hair from his beard. “Let him make something pretty out of that,” he said gruffly, handing it to his companion. The Frenchman smiled, and carefully placed the hair in his pocket-book. A week later the German received a small box. In it was a gold tiepin, the head representing the Prussian eagle on a rock. The eagle held in its claws the grey hair, to each end of which a small gold ball was fixed, and on one ball was the word “Alsace,” on the other “Lorraine,” and inscribed in tiny letters on the rock was the legend, “You only hold them by a hair.”