LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 331, 25 January 1909, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Twenty enrolments in the recentlylormed Stratford Defence Kill.,- Club have already been forwarded to the Defence OIIHMJ.

Cabinet has authorised the vxpemlirwinnmi to •tlo ,000, and railway construction votes totalling 17000.

Admira Spcrry, of the American licet, has sent the Kotorua natives a number , l ,l,o l ;u g!'>ipllK of J,in,self, in recognition of the gifts of mats and other vl i'leffi i ' l . tl, ,'' y gave l "'" 1 ,Wl ™ lll; \ i»itcd the Hot Lakes.

It is understood tlmt tiro license an,l no-license parties will .„ rr( , t , t , five local 1.0.1ic-s i,i thu ligniout Ucensf fu 7 ,'. omm . ilU "K " candidate efliU 01 the licensing committee, and thus 2Uyc the expense of a contested election.

At a meeting at Okalo on Saturday night, it ivas decided to purchase a piece m Maori land near the township for tlic purpose of a recreation ground. A considerable sum has been promised towards the cost, which js in the neighbourhood of ±'ißoO. °

Tlie Garrison Band's Sunday concert on the Ksplanade yesterday 'afternoon attracted a very large number of appreciative listeners, "Garland of Flowers," to the memory of tin* late Mr. Adolphus Ooldwater. who was formerly a drum-major of the band, was splendidI.v rendered. j

A further remain! till next Saturday was granted on Sutni'dsiy in the easn flj;ain>t Dr. K J. (iuotlo, charged with, murder. The accused was still too ill to appear. It is expected that by next Saturday he will have sufficiently recovered to enable the Court to 'liv a day for the trial, and in all .probability a start will be made on \Vcd:ics day week, Im'livwjr v Urtl.

•Mr. H. Phillips, who lately gave up (lie work of carrying the mails between OJiaiawa and Normaliliy, has established [ a imiipie record. For nearly sixteen 1 .years lie had carried the mails in the d','strict without a day's break. We take' the opportunity of thanking him for till! conscientious way in which he attended to the Xormarihy road delivery of this paper, in connection with which we have never received a com- j plaint. j

• "Wellington is the nearest tow# in Xmv Zealand,'' said .\lr Charles Wilsoi>. at tho -Victoria Colto'ge Council recently. "Our wealthy classes are tlie absolute incarnation of selfishness." These remarks were meant to emphasise a statement 'lie had made that the genius of all the college's troubles ivas the lack of generosity of the public of Wellington. In Dunedin they could raise several thousand pounds for the University, but •when the hat went round in Wellington as many hundreds could not lie found. I'll Auckland and Diinciin. the colleges ■were always getting legacies. Was Victoria College ever so treated ?

The Belgrade correspondent of the Daily Express states that Colonel Yesipovitch has been put under arrest for having fircil in a restaurant towards a table at which his wife sat with some friends. A youag girl was wounded, lie refused to submit to arrest, declaring that there was no law in the land that could touch him, hut the War Minister ordered his arrest. Major Voukassovitch, who was in command of the men who shot down Captain Novnkovitch in his prison cell, lias been dismissed from the service. These are the two lirst regicide ollicers to be punished shce King Peter's accession.

Mr Mcintosh, who passed through Adelaide, en route to ine Old World with the films of the Jolmsou-Buriis light recently, stated in a short interview that he lwd refused iiIU.OOO for his share in tlie business, which was 1 made on behalf of Mr J. C. Williamson. He had agreed to accept that sum, and everything was ready lor the payment of the money by one o'clock on Tuesday, sth inst. Then came the n'ews of the death of Mr George Latiri, and Mr Williamson was so upset that the stipulated hour passed without settlement, lie had felt a bit sorry after having made the bargain, Imt the expiration o"f time enabled him to try olf.

A singular incident ]>revcntod flic celebration of a wedding wliiYli was arranged to take place at ii chapel at liedminister. The bridegroom iiad visited iiis bride as Int.i a s noon, ami went awav

.intending to prepare himself tor tho ovont. He was missing ai the chapel, au<l the minister went away without performing iiio ceremony. The bridegroom, who has been a soldier, and lias seen service in India, was subsequently found on a seat in I'-Jrevillp-Kmvth Park in an unconscious condition, and was taken to the bride's home by the bride herself. Tin; house which had been furnished for the couple had been broken into and a portion of the furniture removed.

A romance arising out of the Duke of the Abruzzi's visit to America to see Miss Katherine Elkins has been revealed by the arrival of Lieutenant fclalvatore Casano. of tlie Italian Navv, at Boston, on the liner Romanic. Lieutenant Casano is •engaged to -Miss June Inland, a beautiful girl, who is a membev of a prominent Boston family. "During the Duke of the Abruzzi's last visit to America Lieutenant Casano accompanied lilm as aide-de-camp. While the Duke was courting Miss 'Elkins, the lieutenant courted Miss Leland. Tlio' lieutenant spoke no English, and Miss Leland no Italian, but, curiously enough, both of them were conversant with Japanese, and-tile first step of the courtship were conducted in this language After-

wards Miss Ldaml taught her lover English. Sir Robert Hurt, speaking to an audi-

ence at Lisbnrn, hi the district in which lie spent his boyhood, said that the Chinese hated lighting, but circumstances would force it upon them, and he prophesied that there would come the day when China would do something extraordinary, They might have a great (leal of fighting to do. but possibly in one or two hundred years would be as strong individually and nationally as Germany, and -then would turn round to the rest of the world and say: " Gentlemen, there must be no more lighting." They would throw in the force of their arms with the country attacked and against the country that made war, and he believed in this way the millennium would come. The Chin-

eso, however, wore reasonable, and as reasonable people would act; in a reasonable way. A pathetic story, illustrating the hardships of a trapper's life in the wild* of Northern British Columbia, has just reached here Jrom the N;us river, writes the Victoria (8.C.) correspondent of the | Daily Mail. Charles Hayncs, an old trapper, ran short of provision* and sent an Indian to the nearest town, Port Essington, to obtain a supply. A loaf of bread and a few vegetables were all the food left for Haynes and his six-year-

old son. Realising that death was npproaching, Haynos told the l;ul that li« was going to have a long sloop, and pointing to a loaf of bread, warned him that' he must 'eat only a little each day. "You must not look at father's face when he is asleep," he told the hoy, and placing a handkerchief over his face he lay back and died. For four days and nights, with only a morsal of dry bread each day, the little fellow waited patiently for his father to awake. When discovered by -«i couple of trappers the hoy was on the verge of starvation. For many hours he could not be persuader] that his father was not merely

asleep, • A Home paper says: "History has a Teniarkalde way of repeating itself in naval designs as in other matters, ami the development of destroyer craft is .1 t-ase. in point. The original idea in the vonstnnetion of torpedo-boats was swifl, small vessels caipalble of delivering torpedo attaeks nt night or of dealing with •eri ( pples after an engagement. Then teame (lie destroyer to smash np tile :torpedo-boat.und after that, the torpedo gnnlboat. whase aim was to dispose of either, made Ms appearance. But both torpedo-boats and destroyers have been so developed that the torpedo gmiboat since been left behind. Our destroyers now vary in displacement I'roiiv the 200 'tons of the Hornet, completed in 18114, to the SOO tons of the Mohawk, or type. Last of alt has come the Swift, of 1800 tons, ■which is really half-way between a destroyer and scout, with speed and seagoing capacity sufficient to rum down any destroyer 111 any kind of sea and armament strong enough to smash her. !N T o\v conies the announcement that m the destroyer* just ordered, the Admiralty have gone back to the moderate 'dimensions of 070 tons. From this it is inferred that there is l to be a. reversion to 'the old ideals of small, swift tonpedo craft, relying mainly upon the torpedo and not on the gun, as they do now. The announcement has caused some surprise among those who have been watthing the recent tendencies of naval designs.