LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taihape Daily Times, 15 December 1917, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A notice of alteration of the train service during the holidays appears in another column.

A special meeting of the Taihapc Borough Council is to be held on Friday, January 18th, to decide what day shall be observed as the statutory half-holiday.

Two Turkish diamond dealers, named Loen and Gaston Menasche, were each fined £IOOO at the Old Bailey, London, for an infringement of the Trading with the Enemy Act.

It was a Jew who said the other day of the Prussians: "It will take them tea years until they are again admitted into France, twenty into England, and fifty into 'Austria,''

Parents and friends of children attending the Taihape Convent School, and also the general public, are notfied that the annual entertainment given by pupils is to be held in the Town Hall on Wednesday, 19th December. 'An excellent programme is in course of rehearsal, and as the Sisters have already made themselves noteworthy for pleasing innovations a most enjoyable evening is assured.

One of the most remarkable instances of profit-earning by a cargo steamer has occurred at Liverpool. A short time ago there arrived in the port a vessel which carried a cargo of 45,000 cases of onions from Valencia. The rate of freight paid on arrival was 16s 66. per case, which works out to the extraordinary total of over £37,000 for the nine days' voyage from Valencia to Liverpool. The vessel is not British owned, Omt Sails under 'the flag of an Allied nation.

The Borough Council's office will be ) closed from noon on December 22nd till January 3rd.

A general help for private town house is adveritsed for; the wages are 25s per week.

The meeting of creditors in , the bankrupt, estate of C. E. Cuff, called for yesterday, lapsed for want of a quorum.

About 34,000 crates of cheese and 11,500 boxes of butter have been provided with space for shipment. This includes some new season's produce.

The British Commissioners asked the Shipping Board to furnish the British Navy monthly with 360,000 tons of oil fuel.

It is publicly notified that all solicitors' offices in Taihape will be closed for the Christmas holidays on Friday evening, 21st December, till 10th January.

Merchants and others are requested by the Eailway Department to so adjust their freights that they may not risk disappointment and delay during the pressure on traffic during the holidays.

Teachers who hold certificates from the Education Department, are noti tied that if they desire to be regraded, they must apply to the Senior Inspector of Schools for the district, not later than Ist February. An announcement from the Department in another column.

A remarkable case under the Use of Petrol Restriction Act came before the Police Court at Huntingdon, England. A taxi-cab driver was fined £SO for driving Sir Maurice Anderson, Lady Anderson and a coffin containing the body of a pet dog from London to the "dog cemetery" at Molesworth, near Huntingdon.

At a meeting of freezing works employees at Petone this week, the action of Australian slaughtermen in coming to New Zealand was discussed and the opinion was expressed by a three to one majority that the Australians should not have come to the Dominion under the present circumstances. It is reported that Tn some works the New Zealand slaughtermen are refusing to work with the Australians, and some companies have decided not to engage the latter.

A broad smile spread round Magistrate's Court in Wellington during the hearing of a case in which a man was charged with having erected a whare "without a permit. "Are you going to pull down the building or not?" asked counsel for the prosecution. "I don't mind one way or another, "answered the defendant, "Before the whare was put up I slept in a cowbail for months. How would you like to sleep in a cowbail, sir?"

Valuations of 12,000 bales of Canterbury new clip of wool have now been made. Many growers selling seedy wool are reported to be dissatisfied with the prices they are receiving. Seedy wools .that in 1914 fetched 5d to 6d per lb. are not now realising more than 4d to 5d and this with 55 per cent, on January (1914) prices for other wools. It has been pointed out by those in the export trade, however, that heavily seeded wool is realty not wanted, as facilities for carbonising it are not now available, this work being mainly done in France in pre-war times.

At the Borough Council meeting last night when the question of water supply was under discussion, the matter of leaky cisterns was brought up. A councillor appealed to his Worship to explain why cisterns so consistently leaked. His Worship disclaimed any responsiblity for this, and turned the interrogator over to Cr. Wrightson. The latter said people put in cisterns and expected them to keep tiglTt for ever. There was in every cistern a rubber washer which controlled the float, and after some six months this washer wore out and caused the cistern to leak. If people would "only renovate this washer occasionally there w-ould be fewer leaking cisterns and less cursing the plumber. These washers cost only a penny; but people expected them to last for ever.

According to a story which comes to us from Melbourne, there is at least one Australian who has had the hardest kind of luck in a very natural action he took to maintain the honour of his race. After doing his bit over in Prance, he was strolling along the the Thames, when he met up with a boastful American. After a little talk, the Yankee explained: "Bah! "Wait till we get at them. The Americans will do more to the Germans in three days than you British have been able to do in three years!" The retort discourteous of the Anzac was to pick up the blatant American —and heave him into the Thames. Unfortuaately the boaster could not save himself, He was drowned. And the hero of this hard-luck story has been sent back to Australia to serve a term for manslaughter.