LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 45, 28 January 1916, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Prime Minister stated yesterday that Mr Grey, of the Hansard staff, had been appointed temporary secretary to the Recruiting Board.

The past week's exports of New Zealand produce were valued at £l,420,707, including £796,000 worth of wool and £371,000 worth of dairy produce.

The Wellington Land Board yesterday' received thirteen applications by returned soldiers for land. One was granted, this being the first m New Zealand, and the others were held over for inquiry.

I The first alphabetical lists lowing men of military age in the various districts has been issued from the Government Printing Office, and the others are being completed as quickly as possible. The. Board have a new system to come into operation in time for the March draft of recruits.

1 A Wellington telegram says that jtlio. Woolbrokers' Association is adVised that the difficulty of getting shipping space for wool is becoming easier, and the Dnnedin sales will be held in February. The third Wellington sales will follow a week later, when the January catalogue of ,37,500 bales will be submitted. Xo new arrivals will be admitted, but it is hoped that thereafter there will be moro frequent sales, with smaller catalogues, which will enable the wool to be cleared.

A notable instance of a high-record transmitting daily quality through the mule liiie is given by the secretary of the American Jersey Cattle Club in some figures relating to a Jersey cow, Sophie 19th; and her progeny for two generations. This cow in six yearly tests lias produced 75,921,1b5. milk, containing 44331 b. butter-fat, and has given birth to six calves, one at commencement of each year's test. Her best figures are in 1914, when she has the record of 17,5571 b. milk, 9991 b. butter-fat. She calved last on August 21, 1914; started her test on September '2O, when nine years seven months old; was milked twice a day only, and, carrying a calf for 175 days of the test. -the. has completed her sixth yearly test with 11,9151 b. of milk, containing (5801 b. of fat. Only one of her calves is a female; and she gave a better result than her dam as'a two-year-old, with 77001 b. milk and 4691h5. fat, against 70501 b. milk and 3961 b. fat. As a three-year-old, her figures were almost as good as those of Sophie 19th, being 96951 b milk and 4511 b fat, which is 17] ib. over the butter average of 769 three-year-olds in' the register of merit. The oldest living son of Sophit, 19th has had 16 daughter* qualified tor the register of merit, and he is not yet six years old. His first three daughters as two-year-olds, averaged 87881 b. milk and 50011). fat; and 13 other daughters have averaged nearly as much butter-fat in nine months as Sophie 19th made in a full year at two veers old.

' The success of women workers on the English railways seems assured, according to the Weekly Times. At the end of October there were 1224 women' employed on the Great Central Railway. Most of these are taking the places of men who have gone to the front. I About 700 of these women are doing {office work, and the remainder are employed as porters, ticket collectors, |restaurant and dining-room attend'ants' messengers, and in the honking offices. Most interesting of all is the fact that they are at work as trainregisterers in the signal-boxes. An official at Marylebone declared that the women were working splendidly, and Ibhat some had been taken from the ordinary routine and given more important and better paid work, involving considerable initiative. "Some of them," he said, "are aspiring to the traffic manager's and general manager's "chairs, and we are quite-willing that this should he so; there need bo no limit to the posts they may fill >n the future if they show aptitude. In the accountant's department they are jdoing specially well, and are using the (calculating machines with the greatest ease. Besides ordinary business women we have University women working here. A woman supervisor of the line has been appointed, and her duties are to have her ear always at tlie girls' service, and to consider every complaint, whether of accommodation or of treatment. She is attached to the -reneral manager's department, and the "result is an absence of friction throughout the various offices. Many of the women are, however, admirably fitted to take care of themselves; a young giantess who is employed as a porter at Manchester, and whose proportions caused dismay to the contractor supplying uniforms, dealt promptly with a voung man who tried to be tlirmv . The report says touched him and be rolled over twice."