LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taihape Daily Times, 6 February 1919, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Seven permits were issued in Palmerston last month for the erection of new buildings valued at £43,640.

The turnip fly has badly affected some of the turnip crops in the Masterton district. Potato crops are also badly affected with blight.

A Southern Cross brooch, set with rubies, lost between Birch Eoad and Capiil 's Temperance Hotel, is advertised for.

The Chinamen of Now Zealand seem to have been hoarding gold during the war. One of them produced 40 sovereigns in Mastcrton last week in payment of an account.

At tho Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, begore Mr J. G. L, Hewitt, S.M. William McCreanor ' and "William Cassidy, were charged with a breach of the railway regulations by getting on a train whilst in motion, and were each fined £l. For riding a motor cycle without a number Geo. Gibbs was fined £l, and Henry Harris, for being on licensed premises after hours was fined £l.

Nine hundred acres of freehold land

in the Manawatu, close to the railway, two sheep country, with house and other buildings, axe offered for sale at £9 10s per acre.

At the meeting of the Taihape Women's Working Club on Tuesday evening it was decided that as there was now no further need for the club, to close the ship, sell the goods in stock, and hand over the proceeds to the local Patriotic Society.

While the second troop train from Auckland was et the station (says Monday's Standard) a man attempted to board it with two bottles of beer sticking out of his coat pockets. He was prevented from going aboard by the the military authorities, and was handed over to the local police for an explanation.

There is not the slightest doubt that shags are playing great havoc with young trout in the Manawatu river, It was erport'cd at the meeting of the Acclimatisation Society that no less than 60 shags were seen in one day. close to Palmerston and it is pleasing to hear that active steps are to be taken to destroy these slayers of young trout.

A meeting of ratepayers of the Borough of Taihape will be held in the Town Hall to-morrow night to consider the town improvements proposals set out by Mr Williams, the borough's consulting engineer. For the information of ratepayers we reprint to-day on page six the schedule of works and the recommendations of the Special Committee set up by the Council .

"What do you think of me?" asked a well known punter at Takapuna on Saturday, as he held up a tattered and torn bit of linen that had once done duty as a handkerchief. "I must have at least fifty handkerchiefs in my drawer at home, yet in a hurry to get one I pick this Out. Then I come over here and try and pick winners. Marvellous, isn't it?" And still the great game goes on.

An E.A.M.C. man, one of the 500 released prisoners, who arrived at London recently ~ told a ghastly story At one camp, he said an English prisoner was ill with dysentery, and was put in a coffin before he was dead. "I protested that the man was not dead," be said, "but I was laughed ?.t and pushed away. The Germans pursued their gruesome task, and iSiilod the icoffin /down with '6i.n nails."

According to sailors from the barquentine Wanganui, the influenza regulations were being enforced with

the greatest severity by the authorities in San Francisco when the vessel

was there in November. One of the seamen on the ship inadvertently went ashore without a sterilised mask over his face. He was immediately arrested by masked police, and was sentenced by a masked magistrate to 10 days' imprisonment for what seemed a trivial offence.

A Scotch breeder of> prize cattle (says a Glasgow correspondent of the 'Sunday Chronicle") HCaded out of the auction ring a yearling calf, and received a price almost equalling the salary of a Cabinet Minister. He gleefully shouted: "Long may the war last!" Turning to his clerk, the auctioneer quickly said: "Cancel that sale and boycott for ever that creature's herd." The farmers present loudly cheered the auctioneer's decision.

An unusual case of conscientious objection cropped up in the Supreme Court at Timaru recently. A farmer, H. W. Mann, refused to take the oath or make an 'affirmation as a common juror, on the ground that he belonged to the faith of Israel, and the Bible forbade him to judge his fellow man. The Judge threatened to deal with him if he refuged, and eventually he made the affirmation. He was called for the first case, and was promptly challenged.

Speaking of the manner in which returned soldiers had been treated, Mr E. P. Andrews, stated at the meeting of the Returned Soldiers' Association ia.t Auckland oh" Tuesday night, that one man went to work for a patriotic farmer. He worked for thirteen weeks, milking sixteen cows, night and' morning.- dD 1- h*r little scrub-cutting in between. "At the end of the thirteen weeks the man." said Mr Andrews, "had the cheek to ask for his wages. The people for whom he was working were absolutely horrified, and told Mm he was already getting £1 per week from the Government. We sued that patriotic farmer and got judgment. The farmer's wife said the money would never be paid until there were two moons in the sky. We did not get the money direct,? e concluded amidst laughter, "but we sent in a bailiff who sold the cows, iand so we got the money."

The trial of Albert Victor Morine, of Nuike, for tlie murder of his thirteen months old daughter was eoneluded >at Auckland yesterday. This

was a case in which the accused gouged out the eyes" of his daughter, and it was from the injuries thus received she died. The jury, after a short retirement, returned a verdict of not guilty on the ground that accused was insane at the time. His Honour ordered that prisoner be kept in strict custody at the Avondale Mental Hospital during the pleasure of the Minister of Justice.

The London Mail, after saying that "the history of war may be searched in vain for such a defeat as has overtaken the' Germans," and that "neither Napoleon nor Moltke ever achieved such a triumph," continues: Wo are able to reveal the fact that if the German envoys had not signed the armistice. Marshal Foch had prepared a blow which must have brought utter catastrophe on their armies, H? stood ready to strike east of Metz, between that fortress and Saarbruck, to seize their main line of retreat, anil to capture, not some SO,OOO men as Moltke did at Sedan but 1,800,000

•'The Chief Justice hac decided that men called up for active service are not.- by that fact relieved of their obligations as territorials while they are in a position to perform those obligations.'' Such was the statement by which Mr J. E. Wilson, S.M. at Auckland recently impressed" on some young men that, even though they have been called up for service in the Expeditionary Force, and •are on indefinite leave, they are still rerniired to attend the territorial tTrills, and camps. In view of the fact that there hfls hiTTierto been some doubt about the position, the defendants were not fined.

A vast amount of cargo is in store at San Francisco awaiting shipment to -either New Zealand or. Australia, stated Captain P. Kasmussen, of the steamer AnDette _Bolph.,which recently arrived, from San ,\ -Francisco. With the suspensicn^.of,,.the regular cargo services American Atlantic ports and Australasia,, after the outbreak of war, San Francisco at once became the chief shipping port for goods for the Dominion, and the Commonwealth. As the larger steamers were withdrawn for war work the merchandise booked for export began steadily to mount up, and has not since been overtaken by the limited tonnage available