LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 96, 23 December 1914, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

In L ’Homme Enehaine M. Clemeneeau states that in Berlin on October 17th French bank notes for a hundred francs wore worth 110 francs.

The staff of "The Taihape Daily Times” desires to acknowledge and reciprocate season’s greeting’s from the local telegraph messengers and the New Zealand Times staff.

A resident of Auckland offered to present the City Council with a pair of Calcutta monkeys for exhibition at the Domain, but the Council declined to take responsibility for such tricky pnoteges, and declined the offer.

' While' J Belgian 1 refugees •; are still mourning' the destruction wrought by the ’ Kaiser ’s Huns, a German newspaper is callously advertising "five-day trips through devastated Belgium to view the ruined epics of Liege, Dinani, and Namur.

Since the war broke out the wearing of evening dress in the London theatres and restaurants is the exeption rather than the rule, and the hotels at which the managers made evening dress compulsory at dinner have abolished all hard and fast regulations.

A gale of unusual severity, says the “Settler,” swept over Mangaweka on Monday, intermixed with heavy showI. ers. Several chimney tops atul hoardings were blown down, and much damage to fruit trees in many orchards is reported. On Tuesday the elements are very unpvopitious—*l?or a time sunshine, hail, rain and high .wings—surely extraordinary for midsummer.

No method of blockade (says the Daily Mail) can prevent the exit of submarines from a hostile port, and no means ha s yet been devised by which submarine can fight submarine. Thus we have an extraordinary state of affairs such as has never before existed in naval war, in which the weaker navy is able -to send one particular type of vessel to sea and to threaten every surface 'shin within a certain limited radius. The power cf the German submarines Us, however, confined within narrow bounds.

The indiscriminate destruction of small birds in the country districts of Canterbury, where road boards purchase the heads and eggs of kll kinds of birds, was brought up at; the last meeting qf the, Accfiima'tisapon Society. A great number of birds which did no harm to the crops were killed, said a member, and he thought that the authorities should use some discretion in purchasing the heads and eggs of harmless birds, such ’as gold finches, chaffinches and fly-catchers. After some considerable discussion on the destructiveness of certain birds, it was decided to write to the Minister of Internal Affairs urging that the road boards should be asked to use more discrimination in the purchase of heads and eggs of small birds.

In the year 1840 the first pioneer settlers reached New Zealand 'from Great Britain. To-day the population is estimated to be 1,097,278. From the 41.000. acres of land being utilised, rural members of the community exported last year £22,775,877 worth of farm products. The total area of the country, counting mountain and lake, is 65,440,815 acres, and of the area in occupation 24,000,000 acres are still in native grasses or in their original state. At an outside estimate, the experts from this unimproved land will not exceed in value £4,000,000, so that in reality New Zealand last year exported £18,755,877 from an area of 17.000. acres of land, which represents an average of just over £1 2s an acre as a surplus production.

A sleeping-car of new design for use on the North Island Main Trunk line has just been bull:. m the Petone shops. It. is of the same size over all ag the ordinary express coach for the New Zealand railways, but. a, saving in spa.ee is made by the absorption into the covered part of the ear of the space usually taken up by the end platforms. The carriage will have to be entered always from the platform of an adjoining one. This lias made possible greater comfort in the accommodation for passengers. Instead of 4 berth cabins, this car has five twoberth and two four-berth cabins, and the two-berth cabins, which in the old-style coach are too narrow to allow full-grown persons to take easy postures wlr.n sitting up in the daytime, are qui'o a foot wider and of a very conifer table size. The carriage is lit thrr Jiout by electric light, for which 1 +1: :rrent is supplied from a dynamo n from an axle of one of the bogies, and storage batteries will suffice to keen the carriage lighted fnr

A first offending inebriate was convicted at the Police Court this morn-

ing. ••

A special train of 50 trucks, containing seme 3,500 fat wethers, consigned from Mataroa to the Gear Meat Works, Wellington, passed through Taihape last night.

Owing to a strenuous election campa ingn. .Sir James ■ Carroll, M.P. for Gisborne, has suffered a recurrence of an old complaint in a leg. Tills will necessitate rest for a few days, after which Sir James intends to g; to To Aroha for further treatment at the baths there.

An Auckland youth, of the tender age of six, deeming a Christmas spent with his granny in Wellington desirable, took French leave of his parents and boarded the south-bound express on Monday night. The young adventurer (was soon tliscov'ored by the guard who, on the arrival of the train at Taihape, handed him over to the care of the local police authorities. He was placed on board the next train for home, and returned to his wondering parents none the worse for his escapade.

One thing that had been noted in London, said Mr C. A. Ewen, general manager of the Commercial Union Assurance Company, who has just returned from England, was the remarkable decrease in crime since the outbreak of the war. The records of the Courts proved that there had been a striking diminution in all classes of crime since England went to war, and the fact had been quoted as one to prove how deeply all classes were affected, or rather influenced, by the natioaal situation.

It was decided by the Wellington City Council that £IO,OOO be loaned by the district fund account to the, tramway account, which will be used, together with the tramway surplus, in constructing another extension. Referring to this, the Mayor stated that at the present time the Council could not go on to the market for large sums of money. It should also be remembered that the rails had to come from the Old Country, and it was difficult to obtain transport. There was a tramway surplus of £4,000.

The Otago Daily Times has the following: —“Rumours are constantly receiving currency to the effect that the provisions of the Regulation of Trade and Comemrce Act are being evaded through the sale of wheat and flour at prices in excess of those fixed by' proclamation. Probably the sellers of these commodities are not aware of the risks they' incur in disposing of them at prices that exceed the proclaimed figures. The nature of these risks is indicated in section 21 of the Act, which reads: “ (1) Every contract of sale made by a seller or his agent in wilful breach of the foregoing provisions of this Act shall be wholly void as against the buyer, and the seller shall have no right of action either for the recovery of the price or value of the goods or for damages for breach of contract, hut the property in the goods so sold shall pass to tlie buyer at the same time and in the same manner as if the contract had been of full force and effect. (2) All money's paid by r the buyer to the seller as the price of goods under any contract shall be recoverable by the buyer from the seller as money had and received by' the seller for the buyer's use.’ ”