GENERAL NEWS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 76, 1 April 1915, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

A curious coincidence • / uus in tire mayoral election for Dunedin this year—three candidates ill'eringj and each of the three having two ii itiais of the same letter repeated: S.s. Myers, J. J. Clark, and J. Ji Marlow.

A monster eel on view in the window of a shop in Napier a few days ago attracted considerable attention. The which was caught at Crissogue, turned the scale at .‘l2l b, measured 4ft llin in length, and had a girth of IGJin.

Benzine was put on a lire one day last week by a Ponsonby (Auckland) resident, wno had an idea that the liquid used was kerosene, in the explosion which followed no one was hurt, but the mantelpiece caught lire, and the lire brigade had to bo summoned.

The marine inquiry regarding the stranding of the steamer Marama near San Francisco on January 27th, fixed for to-day, was adjourned till May 20th, as Captain Crawford, late master of the Marama, was unable to be present.

The North Canterbury Education Board has decided to nominate C. H. Upie, an ex-chairman of the Board, for a seat on the Education Council as one of the South Island representatives.

The case of the police v. Bertram Bunn, was called at the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning. The chief detective asked lor a further remand, and Bunn was remanded to appear on April 9th.

Every trade, profession and industry is represeiueo in cue xorces, states tho Cairo correspondent ol a .Loudon journal. Recently in the street i met an Australian private. “1 am going to buy carpets to send home, ho said. “Let us get a dragoman and go into the bazaar.” The dragoman was found and he took us to a large shop. Carpets were spread out. This one cost £SO; so did another; a third was valued at £IOO. “But,” said the dragoman to the dealer, “this man is only a private soldier j he can only buy very cheap carpets.” Imagine the astonishment of the dragoman when the “private soldier” decided to take all three carpets and paid for them bn the spot! “Truly!” he muttered, “the English are marvellous people.” The soldier was an Australian barrister who had given up a practice worth £SOOO a year to shoulder a rifle.

A Melbourne paper says:—Two residents of Upper Plenty, Mr and Mrs Prenzel, narrowly escaped being killed by the first division of the Sydney express on Saturday week. They were driving to their home in a buggy and reached the crossing at the south end of the Wallan station yard just as the express dashed by.' The engine struck the horse, carrying it away with the shafts, and cutting it to pieces. The buggy and its occupants were untouched.

“In addition to the Belgians we have also our soldiers billetted on us,” states a resident of Aylesford, Kent, England, in a letter to a relative in Manaia. “There is no choice about this billettiug, nor indeed about anything just now. An officer comes along, walks through the house, asks the number of the family and just chalks up on the door the number of men to be billetted. If you begin to argue he just gives you an extra one or two, and that’s all about it. You have just to chance the kind of men you get. Some of them are decent enough, but others of them drink and swear and sing and fill the house with tobacco fumes and turn the place into a barrack-room. But after all, how much better it is than to have a squacl of the Kaiser’s soldiers in the house. I often wonder how its all going to end and when.”

An old Native tohunga living afc Wailii, beyond Waitara, had a dream llio other night, (reports the Taranaki Herald) and as a consequence of .his dream three car-loads of natives arrived at daylight a morning or two later at Mr (ieorge Hob’s farm at Bell Block, and, proceeding straight to an old karaka tree standing near the boundary lino between Mr Hoby’s and Mr 1). Bishop’s farms commenced to dig on the latter’s farm. About 2ft. below the surface they came upon a stone, the object of their search, which they took possession of and took back home with them, together with other stones found on Mr. Hoby’s land. These stopes have, of course, a history, and great value in the Natives’ eyes. They are said to be charmed fish stones stolen very many years ago from the rivers in the Patea district from the Native owners and brought up by another tribe. They were believed by the Natives to have the power of attracting fish in the rivers where they were placed. The spot were the first .stone was found on Mr. Bishop’s land is the site of an old pa, and the ground did not appear to have been disturbed for many years. That the Natives valued it highly is evident from the fact that they afterwards sent Mr. Bishop a present of two handsome mats. Whether the tohunga was possessed in his sleep of a sort of second sight, or whether he had known at some time, and suddenly remembered, the spot where the stones were buried, we are unable to say, but we give the story as wo have received it.