LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8152, 9 July 1906, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Lancashire men resident m Wellington, of which county the late Pr mier w.is a native, have decided to endow a scholarship in perpetuation of the Premier's memory. In Hastings it is expected £2OOO will be raised to provide a permanent memorial. Rev. F. G. Evans, vicar ol St. Mary's, New Plymouth, purposes leaving on an cxtendod trip to England, via ike Holy Land, in April next. Mr Evans expects to be absent about nine months, and his locum tenons is expected to come from Australia. "I know very little of poultry farming," confessed Lord Carrington, the President of the Board of Agriculture, at a meeting of the National Poultry Organisation Society. England; "but," he added, "my education for the position in which it has pleased God and the Prime Minister to place mc has now begun." Members of the Equitable Building Society of New Plymouth (First and Second (croups), are notified that subscriptions will be due and payable today (Monday) at the Secretary's Office, Currie-strect, from 9 a.m. to 12.30. fro u 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. to !) p.m.—Advt.

A meeting of representatives (ineluding managers and secretaries) of dairy companies in the Taranaki provincial district is to be held in the Borough Council Chambers, Stratford, on July 19th, at the close of the meeting of the National Dairy Association, to discuss matters of mutual interest. As a result of his visit to the Parramalta and Liverpool Benevolent Asylums, the Premier of New South Wales (Mr Carruthers) has become convinced of the necessity of providing a home for incurables. He states that the suffering that he saw in these homes gave him a severe shock. The agitation recently started to secure an institution of tho kind will therefore have the cordial support of the Government.

Public safety required a revival of the old curfew law at San Francisco after the great tremor. " All night we are not allowed to have lights in our houses, except a runtile, and then only till it o'clock," wrote an ex-Zealander on 18th May, but this salutary order was subsequently rescinded. " There were lots of sm and vice here once," the letter proeeede,"but it is now a chastened city, and fTs people are rid of all the dens of infamy that once were so brazen."

Search is being made at Hangitikei, near the Waitomo Caves, f#r a valuable mere, buried there by a great Maori chief, who was killed in the war. Although the locality of the buried treasure is well known, ami search has been made for it all round and about, it has never yet been found. Strange to say, a bell, used formerly to call the Maoris to service, was also lost during the war, and it was dug up out of the mud during one of the searches for the buried mere. A settler used it one day to call the men to dinne - , and the Maoris all Hocked to the house, recognising the tone of their old call bell. It was restored to them, and now is used for its original purpose.

Amongst those who suffered serious loss in the San Francisco disaster were the friendly societies, and most of the lodges are practically ruined. The Independent Order of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity, had all their property, which included about ten lodge rooms, completely destroyed, and about So per cent, or the members were rendered homeless and penniless. All the lodge funds were use 1 to relieve the wants of the members anl their families, and an appeal is now being made to the colonial lodges for assistance. The "thousand navvies," who lii»rp loomed so largely on the horizon of England anil New Zealand, figured still more gigantically on the skylines of the United States.' This is a sample of (he paragraphs that flew from State

lo Stale:—" Labor is so scarce in New Zealand that the Government of that colony is asking the I full Commis-

sinner in London to tind in England and send out L>,ooo laborers for the construction of a new riilway in the North Island. Th-'y arc guaranteed three years' work, and inducements will he offered them to remain permanently." Other accounts of New Zealand's need represented that 1000 men would lie ren/iired. A cablegram received by the Crown Solicitor from Perth, West Australia. stales that an extradition order lias been granted in the ease of Maxwell, on a charge of having left New Zealand with more than £2O in property, which ought by law to have been d'vided amongst bis creditors Maxwell is also charged with falsifying a easli-book. wilh obtaining goods by falsely representing that lie had a sum of C7OOO to b'.s credit in Lloyd's Bank, in London, and with carrying on a business by means of fictitious capital. Maxwell left Auckland two years ago, and in the interim has served a sentence in West Australia for a breach of the Bankruptcy Act. Constable McNamara, of Cambridge, who went to Perth to take charge of Maxwell, leaves for Auckland with his prisoner to-day. For Children's Hacking Cough at night, Woods' Great Peppermint Cure Is 0d and 2s 6d pur botU»,

On Saturday a cabled application was received by the Taranaki Petro /cum Company for 100 shares for Shanghai. Messrs E. .T Carthew and Co. roport liimnj,' sold Mr Speck's farm at Tariki, containing 160 acres. The s.s. Ngapuhi was bar bound at Manakau yesterday owing to the southerly gale. She will probably leave this morning and sail again from Breakwater to-night as advertised. The Hockey match, Whakatika B against Hinemoa (Stratford), on the llncecour.se ground on Saturday, resulted in a win for the visitors by one goal (scored by Miss D. Cameron) to nil. On Wednesday afternoon Mr Newton King will hold an uuresci'ved sale at his mart of fruit trees, (lowering plants, etc., including a splendid assortment of roses from Messrs Jas, Laird and Sons' well known Wanganui nurserios As the planting season is now in full swing this sale should dot be missed by anyone wanting to improve their gardens. The increasing popularity of the electric light is shown by the fact that 78 connections have been made up to the end of June, and several further applications for light have been made. The electric light fitters have been doing a good deal ot canyassing, thereby helping the municipality in general and themselves in particular.

There has been received in Duncdin from a Home regiment what the "Star" r'mitly speaks of as a " note of brotherhood." It begins as follows : —" It has occured to the Prince of Wales, as Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Colonial Regiment of Imperial Yeomaniy, that it would be a mutual convenience if a closer connection could be established between the mounted regiments in New Zealand and the King's Colonials." Tho communication then mentions that one squadron of the regiment is composed entirely of New Zealanders, and offers the use of regimental quarters and institutions to New Zealand officers visiting the Old Country. It also permits them to put in any necessary drill with the regiment if officers so desire. The proposal was sanctioned by the late Mr Seddon and embodied in general orders —his last a"t as Minister of Defence.

Rather amusing to the people of this country must be the story which appeared in a Kansas paper recently. There is a staring heading, " Where Human Hogs Do Not Rule," and then comes the following news :—" New Zealand is an anachronism among the nations," said a tourist from the city of Duuedin, in that Island. "Its politics are as radical as most Utopian theories, and its populatien is drawn from the strictest of Scotch Presbterians and evangelical English. It has broken every axiom of political economy, and prospered exceedingly. Twenty years ago it was beggared and bankrupt. The Premier then was Sir Julius Yogel, a Freetrader, who spent most of his time writing dull novels and bad verse." Mr John Ballance is then praised for coming to tho rescue. " When Ballance died," the narrative proceeds, "he was succeeded by Seddon, another Scotchman.

Tho School Committee visited Mount Roskill (Auckland) school just at closing time on Wednesday. Mr Love, the chairman, delivered an interesting address on the life and work of the late Mr Seddon, emphasising his efforts in the cause of education, and pointing out to the pupils what they owed to the Premier in the way of extending the scholarship system. He then presented to the school (to be hung in the large room) a beautiful enlarged photograph of the late Mr Seddon, enclosed in a handsome frame. To each of tho teachers a similar enlargement, unframed, was also given Tho children who accompanied the. headmaster to the memorial service were ulso presented with a souvenir, the boys receiving a rolled-gold scarf-pin, and the girls a brooch of similar material, each containing a miniature of Mr Seddon.

In the course of an article on " How Prohibition came to Invercargill," the ''Timarii Herald" reports:—■" The consternation of it traveller just out from England, and confident that he could obtain a drink in a prohibition country by a simple demand where he was boarding, when informed that such was impossible, created almost as much amusement as his remarks about the " beaitly legislation " of this colony, Arriving in Invercargill just 65 minutes too late to legally purchase a whisky, those expectant of scones of revelry and disorder were somewhat disappointment. " Drunks " there were in considerable numbers, but an augmented police force in an almost sympathetic manner shepherded these bibulous ones, gave them sound advice, and prevented the occurrance of a dist irbance of any magnitude, and the most southerly town of any size in the world passed to three years of nolicense in an almost decorous manner. Holders of wholesale licenses have transferred to tho Bluff (17 miles by rail) ami haye advertised that orders for liquor sent thero will receive prompt attention. They look forward to a large increase in business, and even if ho does not patronise one of these firms, the person blessed or afflicted with thirst has but about six mile; from the town to journey to reach the nearest pitblichouse in the Awmia electorate. This hostelry, by the way, has recently changed hands at a remarkable figure.

A thrlling account of the capping of a llmiiiug gas volcano in the Cancy field, Kansas, is given in the "Petroleum World." The fire was caused .by lightning. As the electric fluid came into contact with the gas there Wis a blinding flask, and the earth shook with the roar tliat followed. The lightning had transformed the six-inch stream of yapour ir ;o a raging volcano. The gas well is known as the Vander-p.-md No. 1, and belongs to the New York Oil and Gas Company. It is one one of the greatest Rushers over discovered. Its shaft leads into a vast depository of gas, whose force, pent up for ages, exerts a terrific pressure. A manifestation of the power that lay underneath the flame was seen when an iron hood weighing 73,0001b was dropped on the hole. It was flipped off ns a hoy shoots a paper wad with his thumb. A few days later tho hool was repaired, its weight was increased, and it was again clapped over the hole. The mass of iron stuck, but within 12 hours the sand-blast tliat poured out of the shaft had riddled the great iron cap till it was full of holes. Out of every hole shot a flame, and tho whole looked like an infernal bciquet of fire spray. So fierce was the heat that an inch steel cable was burned into two directly it touched the flames. The task of removing the wrckel hood from the well to make ww for another was a difficult problem. A cannon was taken to the scene, anil solid shot wis fired into the white hot mass. Only part of the obstruction was removed in this way, when the workers, becoming impatient, lifted the remainder with :i specially rigged derrick. The (limes shot out of the earth with such tremendous pressure that the roar could ho heard at Independence, K nsas, twenty miles away. Conversation was mpossible within 300 ft. The light if; shed at night was such that a newspaper could lie read a mile away, and a brook running close to the fire was converted into steam. After the failure with the first hood a new and heavier one was obtained, with which the well was finally capped and the flames subdued.

When all's said and done there's no place like (he Melbourne Clothing Co. for genuine bargains. If you ha-'o any question about anything t> wear ask us. We will show you the right things in clothing, mercery, hats and boots. Man or boy.—Advt. A dainty little lunch. With a glass of 0. T. PUNCH, the acme of perfection, No fear of contradiction,

Whiteley Memorial Churches, 11 and 7. Rev, Gibson, from Hawera, preacher. Rev, Gibs in is a very able speaker, We give all a hearty welcome,— Advt,