Untitled

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 27 February 1917, Page 4

11 the list of defaulters published in t.\e" Gazette we are pleased to notice thcro are no representatives from Talhare •'.i (''strict.

The first section of the Twentieth Reinforcements to sail has arrives safely at its destination.

One pound reward will be paid at Kelly's Stables to anyone returning a handbag, bearing the address "Hirako Terango," lost between Taihape and Wainui Junction.

The Commissioner of Taxes draws attention of taxpayers to thlHnbtification appearing in to-day's issue that the due date of payment of the Additional Income-tax afifl Excess Priats Duty is on Thursday, the Ist day of March, 1917.

The local crop of Cape barley this year has been very disapointing (says the Gisborne Times). Some of the farmers have got their crops in, but others have been caught in the heavy rain this week, and they do not expect to save much of the crop. The season altogether has been a bad one so as cropping is concerned.

During the course of a chat at the opening of the new suspension bridge over the Hutt river, Mr. Joseph Dawson ,the veteran bridge designer and contractor, informed a Post reporter that he had been building bridges withe past 36 years, and during that time has built in the North Island no fewer than fifty. ,

Owing to the war, the Methodist Conference decided to close the theological training college at Auckland for the present year. The principal, the Rev. C. H. Garland, is to be appointed to an Auckland Circuit, arid students unfit for military service ara to be employed in ordinary church work.

The cheese purchase has now been satisfactorily fixxed up, and the dairy farmers are wearing a very contented smile, says the Eketahuna Express. In two days recently Government money to the amount approximately of £IO,OOO has come to the secretary for several factories in the Ekatahuna district. Factory pay-outs are now being made as usual, about is per lb. of butter fat.

Some of the discharged soldiers w r ho •have taken up land are doing fairly well in several settlements visited by Mr. W. T. Jennings, M.P. for Taumarunui. At Mahoenui a party of eight ex-soldiers, all of whom are Anzacs, have been milking cows this season, and they hav e an average holding of 70 acres. One of the men was a very serious cot case when he returned by the Willochra on her first trip.

An Auckland paper states that the two Government shops opened in that city for the sale of meat are doing r. roaring trade. The police have to stand at the doors to keel) the premises from being overcrowded, and long lines of people form on the footpath outside the shops. The meat is being sold below the prices charged by the Master Butchers' Association, and also below the prices of the country butchers -who have not even the excuse of high rents and high wages and other expenses..

While endeavouring to free the Mararoa's propeller from the hawser wnica fouied it on Sunday, a Union Company's uiver, .Named Smith, met with a peculiar mishap. He was working all tiie afternoon, and at about five o'clock no response to signals indicated something was wrong. Two other divers were secured, and went down. They found Smith entangled and held tightly in a loop of the hawser. Nearly two hours' work was necessary to free him. Smith was uninjured, though rather exhausted by his long immersion in trying circumstances.

The Foxton paper says the recent uax swamp at Waitaunui Will represent a loss in the Dominion reveiTue or anything from £14,000 to £l(s,uov. About 100 acres of mumble leaf was destroyed, and it is estimated tha„ would cut at least 30 tons to the acre, so that the quantity burnt would not be less than 3000 tons. If this were nulled it would produce upwards of 350 tons of hemp, and some where in the vicinity of 50 tons of tow, which at the prices at present ruling would represent a sum as mentioned above.

The circumstances under which Private Maurice Ford, o£ Pukekohe Auckland, Avon the Military Medal, are thus related in a letter which ne has written to his relatives in France: •'One night a mate and I were on the 'Listening Post.* At 9.30 about 40 of the Germans came over. The night was very dark and they came very close before we saw them. My mate went to give the report to the machine guns. One of the Germans came close to me and I shot him. I was in a little dug-out and they couldn't see me. Then I got out of the hole and threw my bombs and I held them bacK until our machine guns got at them. I got about three of them —one shot and two bombed. The 'Lis'tening Post' is out on No-Man's Land, outsioe our barbed wire." Some Sauce that; which, why, Lotus Brand of course.

A second offender for drunkenness, at the Court this morning, was fined 10/ and a prohibition order issued against him. There will be an extra film shown at the Three Stars to-night, entitled "Ginty's Elopement," featuring Charlie Chaplin. This picture is described as an extraordinarily funny one, and quite the best of his recent productions. Rev. J. E. Parsons, who was in charge of the Methodist Church in Taihape some three years ago, is at present visiting the town. In April last Mr. Parsons sailed for England, and after spending a few weeks in the Homeland returned to New Zealand via the Panama Canal. Taking advantage of Mr. Parson's visit, his friends have desired him to give them a talk on -his experiences during those eventful months. This he has consented to do, and the address will be delivered in the Presbyterian Hall on Thursday night, next, at 8 o'clock. The Rev Mr McDonald will take the chair, and during the evening seme musical items will be rendered.