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Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4418, 1 June 1909, Page 4

According to the advance sheets of the New Zealand Year Book there are 236 newspapers in the Domin on. Of + tiig number 66 are daily publications, 35 three times a week. 25 twice a week. 6 i once a week, 3 fortnightly, 1 threeweekly, 1 four-weekly and 37 monthly.

There are hundreds of men now looking fir farms (says the Lyttelton Times), and if they could be settled on the land they jwould not only make room for workers at present unemployed, but they would also themselves become emp’oyers of labour. The vigorous prosecution of land settlement is the most obvious method of providing permanent employment for the workers.

Should swa’lows be introduced into New Zealand ? Those who have seen them skimming the surface of rivers in other lands would, no doubt, like to see firm established here. The swallow is insectivorous, and, therefore, would, it is argued by its friends, pay for its keep. Black swallows have been seen in New Zealand. They have come from Airs'ralia and Tasmania, but they do not appear to be able to settle in this country.

A cricketing clergyman who, after hiving preached a telling sermon on the fitewhichbefel 111* Cities of the Plains, was somewhat startled when a member of his team said at the dinner table soon after, “ You opened my eyes a great deal to-day by your fine sermon Why, I always thought Sodom was a man. and Gomorrah was his wife, aud they were both Rtruck do ,j d for telling St. Peter a lie about Homeland sale transaction they /had worked a ' cross ’ over !”

An alteration ha? just b~en made by the Education Department in ti e regulations for payments of capitation to Educition Boards The system in vogue until a recent date had been to pry capitation upon the mean of the four quarters’ average attendance during the previous year. This method did not provide a sufficiently prompt recognili n of the financial needs following inc eased attendances, and education districts in “•he North Island were, in particular, 1 ible to be prejudiced. The latest alteration of the regulations, however, reverts to a former method of assessing capitation grants quarter by quaitei, upon the average attendance of the pre- . vious quarter. \ -