ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43221, 29 August 1907, Page 1

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Our Waihi correspondent tele graphs: “W. .Cunningham, the wellknown lock, of the “All Blacks,” is retiring for good.” The Minister of Public Health, in View of the startling statements regarding infants’ foods made in the report of 'Mir Beale (the Commissioner who ■was appointed' by the New South Wales Government to visit Europe and make investigations respecting patent medicines), has given instructions to the Chief -Health Officer to report upon the soothing, syrups and infants’ foods sold in the colony. A young man named Alfred Marshall met with a painful accident at the Marion railway, station. He was employed'shifting coal and was standing’near the -coal bunker when an engine oame suddenly out of the shed, emitting dense volumes of steam which obscured the view of the driver, so that he was not able to see Marshall, with the result, that the unfortunate man was -crushed between the bunker and the- engine. The - “Australasian Bandsman” (August) has the following re Mr A. F. Lithgow, late of Woolston and Invercargill. “Veteran (Launceston) Air A. F. Lithgow 1 , conductor of St.’ Joseph’s Band, has resigned. It- was 14 years on July 10t-h since Mr Lithgow first jointed the -band, having been engaged to come from) New Zealand, where at that time he Was champion cornetist.” . Mr Lithgow has accepted the conductor ship of the Twelfth Infantry Band. His many acquaintances both here and Invercargill will be glad to know that Mr Lithgow is doing well in Tasmania,, and Lieutenant Siddall’s brilliant pupil is voted a credit to Maoriland.

“I want to deprecate the tendency towards the splitting up of the hospital and charitable aid districts,” said the Hbm G. Fowlds. “If this tendency is not cheeked, we'will have a condition of affairs similar to that which has arisen in the Old Country, where Wealthy districts that require little charitable aid expenditure have- beer separated) from the poorer districts that require a great deal of such expenditure. As a result, the people who are best able to nay escape liability I think it is quite -compatible with large districts to have some degree of local management in the way ot“ distribution. The people in country districts should! remember that meiand women gravitate into the towns from the country when they require charitable aid. I don’t propose to den, 1 with the whole question of charitable aid this year.”

Dunns' last month 5261 men were employed . .on cooperative works throughout the colony. Of the total 3045 (including 125 artisans) were encased on railway works, the North Island Main Trunk works absorbing 65 artisans and 1846 labourers. Between the terminus of the Kaihu Taller railway and Bokianga Harbour lies almost the last area of absolutely untouched kauri forest. The Minister for Lands has asked Dr. Cockayne to survey the forest and make a •botanical report upon it on the same lines as that on Kaipiti Island. Hitherto no exhaustive account of a kauri forest has ever been published. The area in question is about 25,000 acres in extent, and the report is* expected to be.,of an exceptionally interesting character, as it wall deal with the rejuvenation of the denuded areas. New 1 Zealand still seems to be a profitable field for the Continental lottery promoter... At monthly intervals! (says the Wellington Post) one German fiim. of lottery promoters sends its circulars to thousands of citizens i# some of whom apparently forward the necessaiy money for tickets. Otherwise, perhaps, the flood; of circulars and list of winners (who generally reside in America, or on the would cease. The Parisian has for many past begged New Zealanders to permit it to supply them with a free photo enlargement, still persists in: its work of philanthrophy, although it seems apparent that the enormous amount of correspondence indulged in, by the Parisian firm details an expenditure that is hard to meet out of profits that ate alleged by the firm to be non-existent.

'Colamenting on a recent article in the Post on child slavery in the daily districts, the Taranaki Herald of the 13-th instant asserts that the “child slavery” 'business is grossly exaggerated 1 , and further, that high land values have not much to do with the employment of children in the milking sheds. Ai correspondent (“AntiSlavery”), writing from! New Plymouth, states +h- i '-*■ is nevertheless a fact that children of tender -ears are compelled' to toil • long hours upon daily , farms'to assist their parents to meet the exorbitant; demands of morbwhich reach 10 per cent, for dSfcffi&ces, and 24 per cent upon all renewals. (Mortgage interest, and interest qharged on working olant, make it impossible for the dairyman to pay labour, ience the child slavery that exists. Ofoe person, says the writer, who suirsolied information on this subject, wag summarily dismissed by his