LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 319, 23 October 1915, Page 4

LOCAL & GENERAL NEWS.

On Monday (Labour Day) "Tlie Taihape Daily Times" will be published as usual'. In another column Mrs. Denness notifies that at her refreshment and afternoon tea rooms a danty cup of tea may be had at all reasonable hours. The very best of everything is supplied and. the proprotress hopes to receive a fair share of the public patronage.

A Wairarapa station-owner came to Masterton on Monday and offered to enlist for service abroad on condition that he could find somebody to look sifter his property in his absence. A neighbour promptly offered to arrange matters for him, and he pocecded forthwith to the recruiting office. —Age.

Next Tuesday all the Maoris who have registered in the Wellington Military District for the Maori Reinforcements will be concentrated in Palmerston North, prior to being seut forward to the training camp at Auckland. Every Maori who lias been passed as medically fit is .being accepted for immediate training.

A branch of the Public Trustee Office has been established in Trentluim Camp. The office will be open for business from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays, and soldiers' wills made out free of charge. Applications may be made to the chaplains of the various denominations, or left in the letter box at their respective offices.

At a meeting of combined sports bodies in Wellington, Captain Donald Simson, of the Xew Zealand Engineers, who was wounded at the Dardanelles, advocated the institution of weekly route marches by all sports bodies in the Dominion as an ineentitve to recruiting. It was decided to write, to all sports bodies and associations urging that this suggestion be adopted.

An Otaki soldier, now on duty at Alexandria,'complains bitterly of treatment as meted out by some of the English officers. In the first place he says it's stew—of a sort —to eat every morning, ana once a week currie—or an apology therefor. For dinner there is cold meat, bread, and jam, the latter being commonly known as "Egyptian gum." The only thing it was good for was for catching flies. Potatoes are a luxury. The officers keep the men at work, polishing stirrup irons, bitts, etc., and expect them to look brand new, despite the fact that the sale air affects them. "You should see the officers on horseback," says the letter "It is better than all the comic pictures screened, and the wonder is hoy: they stick on." There are, however, a few decent officers —but very few.

The never-ceasing" wonder of coincidence were never perhaps so remarkably illustrated as was the case in connection with a New Zealand soldier, with Wellington relatives, serving Ms country abroad. Feeling the need of something outside the fare provided by his country, he entered into the canteen and bought a cake "that looked like mother's." On cutting it open he found a silver matchbox witli his own name inscribed thereon, and inside the matchbox was a sovereign. The cake had been made by his mother's own hands, and the tokens of love inei'nded in the ingredients were placed there in the fond belief, that there could be no miscarriage. Hoy.- it found its w::y to the canteen was never explained, but the marvel that it should have been pivrehased by the one to whom it had been, forwarded seems almost incredible. .

Mr. Roy Jones, telegraphist, and Mr. Hubert Henderson, of the Taihape School staff, have received notice to proceed to camp as X.C.O.'s for the 11th Reinforcements. From the beginning of the war up to the end of August the French police I had arrested 1,900 persons on susprCion of espionage. At St. Margaret's Church to-morrow the preacher will be. the Rev. W. G. Weller, Vicar of Ohakune. There will also be a children \s service in the afternoon. Two splendid parcels are advertised by Collinson and Cunninglmme of Palmerston North on page 8. Their hours of business for Show Week are also given. The secretary of the Taihape Tradesmen V. Association notifies in another column that all shops will be closed on Monday next, October 25th, it being Labour Day. Shops will remain open all day on tiie following Thursday. 28th hist. ' !

Exports of New Zealand products during the week ended Tuesday were valued as follows:—Butter £.''.46M. cheese £1,425, fro/en lamb £41,099, frozen mutton £69,987, frozen beef, etc., £99,852, gold £IO,OOO, grain and pulse £228, hides and skins £26,746, kauri gum £11,109, flax and tow £7.479, tallow £845, timber £7,084. wool! £38,746.

Trooper J. W. McKain, a wellknown Wairarapa runner, writes to the secretay of the Wairarapa Caledonian Society from Egypt as follows: "Please nominate 'Billy' White, who T mot horo the other day, and myself fo all sprint events up to 440yds at the New Year's Day meeting. We are both maiden runners, and expect to get a good start, though we have had plenty of practice of late beating the Turks."

It was .'hi years ago on Thursday that Edison, then a struggling young inventor, produced the first incandescent electric lamp that the world had ever known. Various other electric lights have since been evolved, but. it says much for Edison's genius and forethought that the electric lamp in use ail over the civilised world at the preout time is almost identical, except for minor improvements, with the original lamp invented by him on October 2\, .1879.

At the New Zealand laying competition, with six months of the period *of the test completed, the records show the Black Orpingtons still in the lead, being 5S eggs ahead of the next highest pen, and with an average per pen of 6.18, as against. 539 for all other breeds. The average per pen of ducks (only Indian Runners are competing) is 490. The numbers of eggs laid by all birds in the contest to date reaches the huge total of 30,492. During the period under review, the value of the eggs laid would be as follows: Orpingtons £4 6/ per pen, other breeds £3 15/, and the total value of the aggregate about £155, these figures being based on the average prices per month from April to November.