ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43092, 14 May 1907, Page 1

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

A big Mormon mission has freon in progress at at Maori pah near Taihape recently. About 500 natives were present. The Mormon brethren numbered about seventy, including converts. Crowded sendees were- conducted. Many parts of the veldt of Cape Colon- aire now over-run fry a yellowflowered plant, 3ft high, which makes its appearance only once in a, certain number of years, and is regarded as a harbinger of more prosperous times. Hedley Triffit, while attending' a threshing machine, near Hobart, ° got one of his feet caught, and, before be could be extricated, the leg was torn off up to the knee. The victim died a little later from the injuries and shock.

Mr Thomson, S.M., fined a. man <£lo, a,nd 14s costs, at Palmerston North last week on a charge of usinu indecent language in, a, railway caridag© in the presence of school children.

Dt. J. Mackintosh Roll, Director of the Geological 'Survey, has been appointed chairman, of the Board of Examiners under frhe,Minin<->' and Coal Mines Acts. The Hon. J . McGowan was entertained at a smoke social at Waihi by tha Mayor. Amongst those present was Mr. A. Burns, Mayor of Thames, who responded to the toast of the “Looa 1 Bodies.”

Regarding t.h,e -application of the Hospital Board to the local bodies regarding the proposed establishment of a sanatorium, at Thames 'for consumptives and those suffering' from miners’ complaint, the Countt' Council has decided .that if the Hospital Board will requisition • for permission to expend £SOO for the purpose stated the Conn oil he prepared to em I terrain the proposal. A' tniner, named Win. Henry, o p R ulutmw'aal, Victoria,, dreamed on Thursday night (April 25) that at ■: p.m,. on the next day (Friday), whil* at work' in his claim, he was injured by a fall of earth, and was unable t r extricate himself. The dream mad : such an .impression on him that after telling his wife of it he decided not tr go to- work. Later in the day, how ever, he changed his mind, and went b the claim. Precisely at 4 o’clock, hr tween four and five tons of earth fe 1 unon him, and he was unable to e r trient,o, himself. TTfs cries for bet were, beard bv and be was re* eepd with ji’«t ns !•’ wife was sondferr f n fI IG urine to in e, r ; rn ■'brrf bis welfare. Henrv lm nr five ribs broken, and is suffe i-ne- from shock. 'Hi us the Hawen-a. >3pir: ‘ ‘Whd ewaitlno- the a rival of the mail trai o-r. Thursdnv mo-ming, the crowd a the station became interested in wnto: ing a man man imi bring a, team of bid lodles. His immgement of the team ir the station vard was ai treat-. .Even*” thing wa.s done quietly and so we 1 were the animals under control tlia, mere wave of the hand sufficed r nlaice of the custom arv Inring on c the whip-. The incident served to cor wince manv. desoite the popular cm ception, that bullock driving can b successfully accomplished withoid forutalitv or profanity. Tn IST6 14S men out of erverr ]0° r who were married had to mark the-' marriage certificate with a cross. TV had drormed (o sixfe^ - J&F 1000, thanks to Parliament an' school master. Then, with reear' ro the wives—and in the-m daw when women were not on.lv knockin' at the doors of Parliament, hut trvrito get inside—this was -a, reniarkablfignre: Thirty years ago 200 wive' per 1000 marked their marriage cer tificate. with <a cross; to-dav onlv twenty per 1000 did so. Arid when ir seven tv four Cases both husband and Wife did the same thirty years aoo now only four per 1000 did it. There in a nutshell, was something that indicated the progress the people had made ini education.—Mr John Rums M.P.

In delivering' a political address at Timaru the other day, the 'ActingPremier (Hon'. HaH-Jones) spoke of the old age pensions as money to which the recipients were just as\nuch entitled as his relatives would be to his life insurance money supposing anything were to happen to him. The pensioners had paid for their pensions through the Customs tariff, and were entitled to all they were receivin'?. He •claimed that it would be wonlt on the part of the Government if they did not make provision, while it was possible to do so, for securing ai continuance of the pension. One of the most setroius matters affecting land in Taranaki is, in the opinion of Mr Symes, M.H.R., the spread of noxious weeds. The Maoris, he informed the Acting Premier, were not the greatest sinners, for there were Europeans, too, who were dodging all they could 1 , and it would pay the cOuntry to put more inspectors I on. Speaking of ragwort, he said, the only way to ,get rid of the weed’ was I bo. poison it. '-Ragwort,” he said “is ?oing to be one of the greatest curses in tills country, a(nd will mean, if net pboperlv ichecketd, the ruin ,of j nany a dairy farmer in Taranaki,” *

The other day an advertisement appeared in a Melbourne daily calling for navvies. 27 were required, and no fewer than 520 applied for the job. At a meeting at Perth (W.A.) a motion was canned affirming that the terrible evils of baby-fanning demanded the instant and strenuous" attention of the State Government. “Owing to famine and other caiuses the demand for flour lias outrun the capacity of steamers now running to the East,” writes Mr Montgomery, the representative of the New Zealand Tourist and Industries Departments at Sydney. Shippers have decided to make extra chartering' arrnmremonts.