LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 270, 18 August 1915, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Captain McLean, of Feilding, will be in Taihape this evening, and will present the prizes won by D Company while in camp. The weather in Gaillpoli is. said to be becoming colder, and warm socks and other winter comforts will soon be in demand by the soldiers.

Butchers in central markets in Paris arc selling frozen beef for the first time in history, at an average of sixpence per pound cheaper than home-killed meat.

John Dickson, tried at the Wellington Supreme Court, for manslaughter, in connection with the death of James Hamlyn, in the Menta? Hospital at Wellington . "through neglect to observe his legal duty as an attendant," was acquitted.

New Zealand took the initiative in sending dentists with the troops for the front, and their value has been proved over and over again. The Defence Minister, in his latest letters from the front, lias been advised that our dental officers are also attending the Australians.

When a battleship sinks with all hands it is a custom in the Navy :o hold a funeral; service over the spot where the vessel lies many fathoms deep. The burial service is conducted on an anchored cruiser, with her colours lowered half-mast. At the conclusion of the ceremony a firing party fire three volleys and the "Last Fost" is sounded by the ship's bugler.

"It is quite a farce to attempt to preserve the native pigeon." declared a delegate at the Aclimatisation Societies' Conference. Several other delegates agreed, stating that the pigeon, irrespective of season, was being shot out by Maoris and bnshmen. In one bush, indeed, a notice had been put up doclariug "All Maoris may shoot. No white man is allowed to." The only people who suffered were "the sports. ' T

In another column Mrs Strachan, of Bangiwaea, advertises for a good general; also a man, used to horses, to garden and milk. Fever is reported to be very prevalent in Wellington city and suburbs at present. The accommodation for such cases at the hospital is being taxed.

The Manuka was a very valuable ship on her latest trip from Sydney, for, on arrival at Wellington on Monday evening, she discharged £IOO.OOO in gold for the Bank of New South Wales.

An Australian soldier wrote his sweetheart a detailed account of the Dardanelles landing. The censor played havoc, with it, but t)ie young lady received the most important part:—"My Dear Ag Your Loving Bill." That was all.

A cablegram from Sydney to Auckland concerning the condition of Bishop Cleary, reads as follows: Patient very weak. Had several attacks since Sunday, but heart not affected. Doctor most hopeful, and says recovery matter of time.''

Mr Richmond Davies, who has sold his Winiata property, has instructed Mr D. J. McLennan to sell by auction the whole of his furniture, agricultural implements, dairy cow s and heifers, eight tons of Up-to-date seed potatoes, onjons, tools and numerous ether articles. The sale is to take p'ace on Friday, 3rd September, at 12 o'clock, noon.

A Southland trooper, writing from hospital, says: "Coming from GalKpoli we had a wounded parson on board. He had been wounded in the lower port of the «baek while attending to a wounded man. After being hit he lay flat on the ground, and while the bullets were raining all around him he prayed to the Lord to help him. Only one more bullet struck him, and that hit three sovereigns which he had in his belt, piercing them and going no further. He attributed his escape to the efficacy of prayer, whereas we put it down to luck.

. The Prime Minister mentioned on Monday that lie would be glad to be able to place his hand, officially, upon the person responsible for the rumour that the Fifth Reinforcements had suffered disaster in the Dardanelles. The rumour was entirely without foundation as far as the cablegrams which had reached the Dominion showed, and it had caused unnecessary suffering and anxiety to many people. The Haw already provided severe penalties for any persons found guilty of disseminating false reports regarding the troops.

Attention was drawn at a recent meeting of the council of the Wellington Central Chamber of Commerce to the fact that Chinese were leaving New .Zealand with 3arge sums of gold, in contravention of the war export regulation. Immediately afterwards it was intimated in the House of Representatives that the Customs authorities were aware of what was taking place, but it was not made clear whether e v tra precautions were being taken to block the venturesome "Celestials." As one member of the Chamber pointed out on Monday, the Chinese are up to all sorts of wily tricks, and some time ago it was found that the bones of deceased countrymen sent from Australia to China were well fillfel with gold. Seeing that the matter had come before Parliament, the council of the Chamber decided to take no further action, it being assumed that the Customs authorities would attend to their responsibilities.

Writing in the Weekly Despatch a naval officer says: It is now too late for Germany to try to make an effort to equal us in capital ships; and, although the fact is carefully concealed from the public, her chief now knows positively, that size for size, our guns and mountings are infinitely superior; and this is a bitter pill to swallow. Tins fact lias also been partly responsible for their almost complete falling back on torpedoes and mines, and the desperatelv hurried concentration on the building of under-water craft, rather than on super-Dreadnoughts; but we afford to smile, for the means to combat these early errors is already one of our secrets.''

An Irish soldier, invalided from the | trenches in France, lamented the fact that whole brigades of germ special- I ists were allowed to pollute the clean J rivers of the earth. "At Nazarre," he declared, "every pool of water had you with a Mack Johnson.' One'rVTgilt Corporal' Donohue came into the trenches dragging a Bavarian engineer by the belt. Donohue had caught him tampering with the town water main. Later on, under the influence of a gun butt, the noble Bavarian owned up to having let loose fifty cages of plague rats in the sewers!" Think of it!—6o doses of "NAZOL" for 1/6, and every dose soothes and relieves. No wonder this honest remedy for coughs and colds is in greater demand every month. Prove its. efficacy to-day.

, There arc a few snakes r.t Malta, but '• they are hai'mlcss. The first one that appeared in a tent made the Maori soldiers who were under the canvas "a little off colour. : ' but they soon began to eatcli the snakes with their hands. The German soldier goes into battle equipped by the hand of the German woman, who has exerted, all her skill and energy in the careful preparation of his modern armour. His food is propared by her hands. Sue lias helped to make the shells that bring victory to German arms, and should lie be wounded the bandages and disinfectants have in all probability passed through her hands. Comment upon business of the speculative character was made by His Honour the Chief Justice in the Bank- ; ruptey Court. Wellington. 1c •■--:'

amazing to him, lie icmarked, t!.v: there were not more bankruptcies, rte had known eases hi which men had token over liabilities of three, four. and five thousands when they had not as marry pounds.

The ploughing bee is still a popular : method of giving a now settler a welcome in the Tokomariro district. The other day such a fixture was held in the Clarkesville district, when 2.°, teams turned out to give Mr. William Allison, who has purchased a farm in that neighbourhood, a good start. About <JS acres were turned ever as the result of the day's work. There were 101 horses at work (including some of the best Clydesdales in the district), and two experts assessed their value at £3.000.

The great bulk of our spelter—used in British cartridge cases—came, before the war, from Germany and Belgium. Since the war began the price of spelter has risen from £22 a ten to £lls. Antimony, used in bullets for its hardening quality, mostly reached us before the war from France. Now France herself absorbs most of her production, while the Fur East supplies England as well as Russia. Copper lias risen to '£B2 per ton, as against £OO before the war. At least one soldier in Wellington has a good word to say for some of the Turks. "At the commnncemnt of hostilities at the Dardanelles," he says, "many of our wounded were undoubtedly shot, and in sorfio cases refttilatrd. by the enemy. One day, seeing a Turkish soldier stooping over a wounded soldier. I, unfortunately, jumped to the too hasty conclusion that he was in the act of dispatching him. I immediately 'potted' him, to find later, to my everlasting regret, that I had killed a Turkish ambulance soldier who had been in the humane act of binding up the wound of a disabled colonel."

Germany has a system of wireless stations dotted at intervals right round, her laud and .sea frontiers. The whole country is fenced in with a wireless chain. At any rate, the plan of such a chain was worked out, and even begun, before the war. so that it is a hundred : to one that it has been completed since. The principal object was to keep in touch with the Zeppelin fleet. In the j first place, a wireless-equipped Zep- ! pelin could keep in touch with Ger- ' many when off to bombard undefended ' British seaports. And, in the second place, the existence of such a wireless chain wouM be a great help to a Zeppelin if the weather became too thick for it to ce.its way. By observing the strength of the signals from the different stations, it would be able to tell i where it was. The stations were also to be linked to one another by telephone.

One of the Wairarapa speakers at the. meeting in the Feilding Drill! Hall the other night advised the Feilding Committee not to enourage the anyony- ! mous donor, ami in support of his suggestion related an experience they had . ] had in the Wairarapa. They had approached one resident who thev knew I ' i was well able to give in hundreds, 'and ' . asked for a donation. "I have already given anonymously," replied the man. "All. glad yon told us that.' 7 said the canvasser. "We have examined the list given us by the secretary and treasurer, and it shows that the total amount received from all l anonymous s donors is £ls 10/. Your information I shows us that there is something wrong with our secretary and treasurer. We j must inquire into this at once!" The, anonymous "donor" then had to start! thinking up another excuse. With such j canvassers as these,'.it is no wonder I they do well in the Wairarapa district. ! A judgment debtor with' the name I of Humm caused Mr. 11. W. Bishop,! S.M., Christchurch, to prick up his ears as the name has something of a Teutonic sound. Humm, however, declared that he was born at Weedons, and his I father came out from Essex in the 'sixties. His Worship said a greater insult could not be offered a person at the present time than to say he was a German. That was his present opinion of the Germans. He offered congratulations to Humm that he was an Englishman, and not a German.

With Woods' Great Peppermint Cure Here's good advice beyond price! If you have a Cold, Cough, Sore Throat, Influenza, or* Bronchial Trouble, take "NAZOL" and get immediate relief. Sixty doses for 1/6. ■ - ■ "V :•