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Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 17 January 1917, Page 4

The Taiiiapo vital statistics for the year ending December 31st are: Births 182. deaths 35, and marriages

Lady readers will be glad to know that mid-summer’s money-saving event, Collinson and Cunninghame’s sale, starts Thursday of this week. It is Palmerston’s bargain event. An advertisement appears on page S of this issue.

A car owned by Mr. Kelly, of Taihape, came into violent collision with a horse whilst journeying from Moawhango at a late hour on Saturday night. It appears that the horse was lying on the road at a corner and the driver was unable to dodge the animal. The injuries suffered by the horse were somewhat severe, and the car suffered damage to the extent of £ 50.

The Hon. J. MacDonald, of Canada, whose death was recently announced, was an uncle of the Hon. W. D. S. MacDonald, Minister of Agriculture in New Zealand. His career covered almost the whole history of British Columbia as a province. Altogether a splendid type of the whole-hearted Canadian, he did much towards the upbuilding of the great Dominion of his adoption.

A Palmerston North builder informed a Standard representative that since the commencement, of the war the cost of building material had doubled and trebled in price. On being asked for details he mentioned that galvanised iron, which before the war was quoted at £lB to £2O, was now £4l, and slates have gone up from £l7 to £3O per thousand. Bricks of course, are made locally, and they have only gone up a few shillings a thousand. Nails, however, have gone up to three times their value. What was the originally 12/6 cwt keg, now costs 28/. Serovs have gone up from 10/ to 20/. but, in regard to housebuilding, they practically don’t count. Mails for Expeditionary Forces, America, the Continent of Europe, and the United Kingdom will be despatched by the next available steamer.

Owing to his inability to procure harvesters, a Masterton farmer has tunied sheep into a 60-acre paddock of oats. Good progress has been made recently at the Blenheim oil well, Moturoa, and the depth is now 4660 ft. Promising indications have been met with, and the manager is hopeful of success in the near future. While on the promenade at Devonport Monday afternoon, a pram with a baby passenger took to its wheels and over the bank into the water. The child fell into several feet of water, but was rescued by Mr. Ben Goldwatcr, of Devonport. Those who witnessed the incident say that the baby was not xxxuch the worse for the ducking.

“Bad language is very common in all the cities of the Dominion. Men seem to think that they can use filthy language in the streets, no matter how many people are present,” said Mr. S. E. McCarthy, S.M, at the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington, when sentencing a returned soldier to a month’s imprisonment for obscenity.

Mr. Will Hope, an artist-journalist well known in the colonial newspaper world, who went to the United States some years ago, in the course of a letter to a Wellington friend, says: “The high cost of printing materials is a serious matter with the newspapers here. It threatens to eliminate 2000 daily papers. Nearly every paper has cut down the size of their publications and doubled the price.”

Quite a unique style of hirsute adornment has been hit upon by a number of Trentham soldiers, who have relieved the monotony of closecropped heads by executing diagrams of various descriptions on their pates. This has been effected by a very close application of the hair-cutting machine. The lines cut thus leave bare the skin of the head, and the curves and angles ploughed in iti’icate design are apparently the pride of their owners. Other typos of adornment are effected by shaving close the head with the exception of one or two plots, which are allowed to grow in the fashion of the Celestial queue.

According to Mr Granville Pollock, avlio for over a year had charge of the Pierce-Arrow lorries used to carry antiaircraft guns during the early stages of the war, the late Captain Wilding, New Zealand’s greatest tennis player, was responsible for many innovations which proved to be of groat value. Among those may be mentioned the idea of mounting the guns on a motor-car axle with wire wheels and having double pneumatic tyres, and towed behind the armoured cars. It worked so well that the efficiency of these guns became so annoying to the Germans that they made special efforts to "get him” using their heaviest artillery lavishly, which is quite a compliment in its way. They finally succeeded in dropping a “coal box” —a 42 cm. shell—on the top of the dug-out in which Captain Wilding and some others had taken shelter when they had first started to shell them.

Aniong people in Wellington who are interested in politics there is a good deal of speculation just- at present relative to the possibility of an important change in connection with one of the Wellington seats. Quite 'recently a Gazette announced the appointment of a new returning officer for Wellington North, and among well-informed people the impression prevails that this is preliminary to a by-election in that constituency. The present representative in Parliament of Wellington North is the Hon. A. L. Herdman, the Attor-ney-General, who, it is very generally expected, will be appointed to a judgeship. The official announcement to this effect is looked for almost immediately. It is freely stated that Mr Herdman is eager to exchange his portfolio for a seat on the Supreme Court Bench, a position he has coveted for a considerable time.

Writing on November 19, a New Zealander now in France says: “It was in the dim collar of a shell-wrecked house temporarily in use as a billet that I received your letter one wet evening in Armenticrcs. At present I am having a spell in hospital, as the result of a fall while carrying supplies along a narrow sap to the front line. I am very lame, and won't be likely to see the firing line again this side of Christmas, which 'is not altogether a misfortune in weather such as wo are having. I grumbled at the Dunedin climate when I was there, but it was heavenly compared with this. Here .it is one continual blizzard, accompanied by a cold that searches into the bones and makes one sick with misery. W i"ter seems to last for some eight months in Northern France, and what a winter! I’m in a big marquee, lying on my bunk with the blankets around me if or warmth, and 'Outside it is raining bitterly cold. Here we are healthy and well fed, and get plenty of rest, and it's heaven after the trenches. Lem ember me to all the good folks at the Antipodes for Christmas, and I '"'ill drink 'To New Zealand and to H with all this’ ’ and if the toast lias to be honoured in weak, tepid tea, it will be none the less sincere.”

lii speaking of the necessity ot teaching children to swim a master of a Taranaki school stated that he had inspected the river, but had found no suitable place for teaching swimming, and added. ‘‘That was before the flood.” The quiet voice of a committeeman interrogated; “Noah's?” Ashburton district was visited by a thunderstorm cn Monday afternoon, together with a violent hailstorm. Several hundred pieces of glass were broken in verandahs. The storm did not cover a wide area, but did considerable damage to fruit crops and stripped the leaves off the trees.

A notification is inserted in this issue by Mr. J. H. Cunninghame, chemist and optician, Taihape, relative to eyesight troubles, which should bo pondered over carefully by all those whose eyesight is not quite what it used or ought to be. The advertisement appears on page 6.

The probability of an early increase in the retail prices of meat in Auckland was mentioned last week by the secretary of the Master Butchers’ Association, Mr. C. Grosvenor. He explained that the current prices in the wholesale markets are now so high that the butchers cannot continue their business under the current price list.

Sydney Huguenot Fournier, was charged at the Wellington Magistrate’s Court yesterday with making a seditious utterance at a public meeting on Clyde Quay cu Sunday. January 7. Evidence was given that accused made a violent speech, urging refusal to obey the Military Service law. ' On searching accused’s house the police discovered a quantity of cartridges, a blank membership card of 1.W.W.,' anti-conscription manifestoes, and a number of anarchists pamphlets. Accused, speaking in his own defence, said the articles found in his house were a legacy from a deceased room-mate. He denied that he had any seditions intention. The Magistrate imposed a sentence of 12 months.