LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 56, 3 October 1916, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The return of criminal offences in the Stratford district for the quarter endec\ 30th September last shows : Arrests 19, summonses 47. Total 6(5Tho number of juveniles included in the above was 16.

Cardiff lias secured a good price for cheese. The price assured foi tne half of the Cardiff output is under-! stood to be over 9fd per lb. Wih’ is believed, to be the best offer that has been made.

Dog fanciers will be interested to learn that Mr Percy Smith, of Wellington, lias been appointed the judge of all the dog classes at the Stratford A. and P. Show. He is_ wellknown as an exhibitor of Pointers and Setters and bis appointment -S likely to give general satisfaction.

KPCMF' ■ In' addition to the names mentioned as representing local bodies at the conference relating to the Model Dairy Farm to be bold in Stratford next Saturday, it is expected that Messrs R. Dingle (Board of Agriculture) and F. Hanford (Stratford Coop. Dairy Co., Ltd.) will be present.

The rainfall at “Riversdale,” Inglewood, as icported by the Miss’N. Trimble, for the month of September totalled 8.14 inches, not withstanding that there were eighteen dry days. Rain fell as follows: On the 7th .25, 9th 1.34, 10th .33, lUn 04, 13th .70, 14th .20, 16th 1.61, 17th .43, 27th .15, 28th 1.97, 29th 1.10. 30th ;02.—Total 8.14.

ffl A concert is advertised to be held in’St] Andrew’s Hall on Wednesday evening next. This is the last of the serifes of concerts arranged by the choir. Previous concerts have been highly successful, and, the object for which they have been arranged being such a deserving one, the hall will no doubt bo well filled on Wednesday evening. A good and varied programme has been arranged, and supper is to be provided.

As showing the severity of the test through which applicants for service as motor mechanics in the Armoured Motor Launch Fleet ha re to pass before-being accepted, it mayj be mentioned that only two out of twenty-three applicants passed the ■engineering examination held by the Admiralty at Wellington. Mr J. Batey, Stratford, was one of the successful candidates, and he expects to leave shortly for training at Portsmouth.

1 For the September quarter, the number of civil cases dealt with was 40. The aggregate. sum sued for was £1321 12s 3d, and of this £631 14s 5d was recovered. The number of plaints entered was 79 and those applications heard in Court or Chambers was 7. The number of orders made was 7, distress warrants issued 6, judgment summonses issued 9, orders made on judgment summonses o, number of summonses served within two miles 55, over two miles 31, dis tress warrants executed 10. The hue and fees paid amounted to £26 4s. Eleven old-age pensions were granted during the quarter.

Speaking in favour of herd testing at Midhirst last season, Mr N. Fid ton, Dairy Instructor, said New Zealand was a good country for dairy cattle, and we had as good dairy cattle as could be got in the world. There was now a good demand for those cattle, more particularly in America. We had started on the lines of "fataming good authentic stock and if wo continued on the lines of authentic records for our dairy cattle people would turn their attention more ana more to our cattle, and we would be able to supply the world’s markets. He further stressed the importance of farmers obtaining pedigree bul’s with authentic parentage records. In this connection it behoves Taranaki dairymen to take special note of big list of pedigree Holstein-Friesians which will be offered at Mr Newton King’s dispersal sale at Bell Block on Friday next.

New Zealand so rarely heads a column of international statistics that when it does so tile occasion should not ho passed unnoticed. It does so in a very striking fashion in an article by the Countess of Selbourue in the June “National Review. The text of her articles in the Registrar General’s statistics is concerning infant deaths. Figures for eighteen countries are given, showing the death rate of infants in the firs! year of their lives. New Zealand has eas fy the best record, with an average of only 58 deaths per 1000 over the triennium 1910-12. Norway comes next with GO, then Australia with 71, and Sweden with 72. The remainder of the list is : Denmark 100, France 102, Switzerland 1.07, United King dom 10S, Netherlands 110, Finland 113, Ontario 116, Belgium 110, Italy 141, Spain 101, Germany 107, Austria 192, Hungary 195, Russia 244.

A Press Association telegram from Hawera states: L. Philip Arthur Jane, married, aged 38, was to-day found suspended by a rope from a bedstead. A doctor pronounced lifo extinct. I'hrough overheating, Mr Lopdell’s motor car caught on lire yesterday when on the East Road, but willing bauds saved it from destruction and it was brought in to Stratford. The ear, which is the property of the Stratford County Council, is insured in the Ocoan Accident Company (local agent, Mr A. D. Stanley.)

Cardiff Notes. —Private Laurie Marcliant, son of Mr G. A. Marchant, wlio is on final leave, and is shortly to be married to Miss Savage, of Te Popo, is to be given a send-off by his many friends in Cardiff.—At a meeting of the School Committee last evening, Mr W. Rogers presiding, it was reported that there was a decided increase in the attendance, which was very encouraging to Mr Bicheno, the new headmaster. The question of the insanitary state of the lavatories! wn s brought before the committee, and it was decided to report to the Board.

After the close of the shops in Oamaru on Saturday night, a very large and enthusiastic meeting was held, at which the following resolution, moved by the Mayor, w T as carried unanimously, amid cheers:— “That this meeting of Oamaru and North Otago citizens and resident 1 ? hereby cordially and sincerely desires to congratulate Mr Lloyd George on his great manifesto r.s reported today, and. in common with the whole British Empire endorses to the letter his sentiments and aspirations, and that the Government be requested to transmit this resolution to the British War Minister.”

The peculiar fact is recorded by Major-general M'Munn, C. 8., in a xtcent article in Cornhill. Writing of Egypt and the lands adjacent, he states : “War has brought many surprises and troubles to the desert and its denizens. In Sinia, where the Bedquin lives by the date palm, there has come starvation, and why ? because the female date must be fertilised by hand, and the male dates are few and far between. The, date fertiliser is a professional, and lives in Egypt,* and the fact that the Turks are in Sinai at war has meant that the date trees go unwed.”

The heathen Chinese is not the only person whose ways are pec|haK One of the Australian transports ftl fi in at Madeira. Portuguese g«“boat Jt men crowded alongside. and impecunious soldiers cut off tho top of some of the Y.M.C.A. letter paper, which has a large van-colored letter head, and wrote a big 5 on each, and passed them off as Australian 5s notes. The Portuguese accepted them with avidity. But one noblest Australian of them all passed down a genuine pound note, for a bottle of wine costing 4s. As change, he received three of the newly created 5s notes and one good shilling, together with the precious bottle. Tha change made him glower. The wine when tasted turned’out to be. rea water. The Portugese was still smiling. .

An interesting letter has been received from a Dunedin resident at present on a visit to the Home Connirry. War topics naturally occupy a prominent place, (states the i; , Daily Times) and the following oxcejr- v , lent story is told;—“A young man,., earning between £4 and £5 a week... complained that he was not making enough wages, and followed this by sending in his resignation. It was promptly accepted, but when he lifted the money due to him four soldiers appeared and took him with his money, to the nearest barracks. His wages are now 7s per week. An interesting point in connection with war service at Home is that no man engaged in a factory is permitted to change his employment without the sanction of the manager.”

“America is the land of the motor car, and California is the motorist’s paradise,” says Mr C. L. Thomson, of Dannevirke, who has just returned from an interesting trip to the United States (reports the News). In California it is estimated that one out of every 13 inhabitants owns a motor car, while in Passenena, a aire suburb of Sau Francisco, the proportion is one car to every six persons. Some rich people appear to demand the attention of an entire garage. The roads are magnificent, one highway constructed in concrete and asphalt running the length of California from the north to the south Pacific coast. The Lincoln highway—a concrete and asphalt road from New York to San Francisco, 4000 miles—promises, when completed, to be one of the greatest motor runs in the world.

The Anzac Minstrels at the request of Ngaero residents will give a performance in the Ngaero Hall on Thursday next, in aid of .the Wounded Soldiers’ Fund. The object is such a worthy one and the performance given by the Minstrels is full of merit, that a crowded house should be the result. x

Missionaries from foreign lands always have interesting stones to recount, and the opportunity of hearing something'out of the ordinary will be presented to local residents to-morrow evening, when Rev. R. B. Gosnell will give a lecture entitled i “The Romance of .the Fijian Isles.” j A collection "will be taken up at the j close in aid of the foreign mission. j The Whangamomona Patriotic Com- i »mittee have through their secretary (Mr A. F. Sharpe) forwarded to M v | McMillan, secretary of the Stratford . Committee, the sum of £139 12s 3d, LjfX-divided as follows; Wounded Sol-

P ‘ diers, £l2B Is; Widows and Orphans of Britain’s ftavy, £5 10s 3d; Belgians, £l lis; Servians, £1 10s. It is gratifying to learn that the Whangamomona Ladies’ Bazaar contributed no less, than £l2B Is for the Wounded Soldiers’ Fund. Their .united efforts are much appreciated

An Auckland lady, in not very affluent circumstances, who has two sons at the front, recently sent two war loan certificates to the Minister of Defence, with a request that they should be cancelled (says the Star). In the accompanying letter she stated: “Those who by force of circumstances could not go the front, might do their •little hit here by giving one war loan certificate back to the Government ia the interests of our boys and Country. If it was £IOOO loan certificates I could not give them with more sincerity than is entwined around the pmall matter of two.” Mr Allen, in an appreciative!letter, stated that he had ■. forwarded; the certificates to the Treasury' Department for cancellation, and added: “If each member of tie community contributed his or her • mite to the war loan on the >ame conVditions as yourself the country would be in a stronger position than it enjoys at present. As you say, there is little if anything, that we in New - Zealand can do to compare with the hardships which have to bo endured by those who are fighting for us in the trenches.”