ITEMS OF INTEREST

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4320, 3 August 1907, Page 4

ITEMS OF INTEREST

On March 31st, 1882, there were 116 telephone connections in New Zeahud. On March 31st last, the number was 17,403. The diseases thjalb claused the most deaths in the four oities of the colony last month were (which accounted for 23), cancer (18), and consumption (15). Exhibition organ is to the front again. The Customs Department has demanded the. duty from the Chris tchiurch Council and members of the latter - are up in arms. The fact came out in evidence ini a; case atfithe Magistrate’s Court that 18 j persons were living in a four-roomed j house in Napier. There is a great demand on the j West Coast for hardwood timber for j railway work® and other purposes, and! there are orders in hand for upwards of two thousand piles and a large quantity of hewn timber. A peculiar and serious accident happened to a young lad named Angus Furness, at Greymouth. He was watching the progress of a football match and had his back, turned to the hockey ground. He had his hands behind his 'back, and the hockey ball flew out. and strulcik him on the hand, breaking his wrist. A Kafcanui farmer has written, to the Oanraru Mail advocating the discharge of dynamite from the hilltops in the North Otago district with the oibtject of artificially inducing the rain whioh nature is denying to that parched u-' district. Poultry fanning, said the chief expert (Mr D'. D. Hyde) at. Hamilton, was not a business, a® was generally supposed, “for old women,” but was a.n important adjunct to. farming, which should be taken up by every- j [one interested in agricultural pursuits. We (Otago Times) are informed! that, tbe abolition of the duty on imported British motor cars will make a difference of ovler £4O in. the price of even ai small car. It. seetms that the day when the use of the automobile will be general is not, after all, so very far off. A boar which was running with i horses in a haddock on a farm, at Woodford Island, New South Wales, suddenly (became ferocious. He ripped the lower part, of the bodies of the horses with his / tusks. Three of the animals died, and six others were badly injured. How grave a national risk defective teeth may become Was sufficiently evidenced by the enormous wastage during the South African war owing to the number of men who lacked sufficient teeth to masticate ordinary food, and to the same cause is due a largo proportion, if not the majority, of the rejections-at the present time.—British Medicts! Journal.

One important. feature of the new land proposals of the Government which seems to have escaped the notice that it! deserves isi that! contained ini the clauses relating to the compulsory taking of lands under the Land for Settlement Act; Section 66 of the Land Laws Amendment. Bill provides that “when any land is taken compulsorily under the provisions of the principal Act, the value thereof, for the purpose of assessing compensation, shall be the capital value of that land as assesssed in: the. valuation roll in force, under the provisions of the Government Valuation of Land Act, 1806, at the time when the requisition is gazetted for the taking of that land; provided, that if the owner proves that the value of the land so to (be taken has increased, since the date of the said valuation.” The following suib-olause -provides that there shall be payable, by way of compensation, in addition to the Government assessment, a sum ranging from 2| per cent to J 0 per cent, of such valuation, the 10 per cent being payable when, the amount of the assessment does not. exceed £25,000. Under present conditions arbitrators deal with disputes as to values bf estates.