GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 109, 7 June 1909, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS.

One of the many virtues ascribed to the average Celesual is ia.ii, lie never, or raray, gets driuiK —at least in public, Bui one-lias been distiiigiiwiiiig mmsen in Thames recently, ami, as .a result, he got Ids name on ihc Court register, ami Himself within lour walls "t his .Majesty's prison. Un tin- day in question uie oiienucr was noticed in cnaige of a horse ana uiiri, and Hie erratic wiiise lw was steering led to some suspicion regarding his suunety, the horse being ol an indisputably excellent am. ciiantcter. the Celestial John, like his scriptural brother in profession, drove furiously, but at a medium pace. lie took the reins across the noule animal's quarters, shook his head (his own) and his arms (also his own) and otherwise made a great pretence of getting up a fast gait. So he zig-zagged dowu me streets amiu much amusement from the sidewalks and anathema from other drivers, who, going in the opposite way, found a uiinculty in avoiding a collision. Finally, a couple of constables, in the interests of the Chinaman, and of justice, decided to put him out of harms' way, and escorted him to the station, with tne result above stated.

Tile Kcv. W. Curzon-Siggers, vicar of St. -Matthew's, Dunedin, speaking at the annual meeting of the Society for the l'rotcctioii of Women and Children, said that if Xev Zealand was not already .he devils' own country, then he was ustiticd in saying it could not be far rom deserving that unenviable designaion. At the last meeting of the Society ,ve cases were reported of girls about o be mothers at 10 years, and a lad f 10 and a girl of 17 being parents out f wedlock, and of a second child ueinc orn in sin. If no other month's repot ave them any addition to tliis sad lis

- - then it would be bail enough, but tin was not so. Jn their opinion it wa time this State intervened and made il legitimacy a criminal oll'enee of a vcr; serious nature, with such drastic pu:i ishment for a second oll'enee as migli act as a warning anil effectually preven si repetition. Some time ago the Sydney polv;e b( came aware that a gang of yoiri. thieves, consisting ehielly of lads age from fourteen to eighteen, was engage in a course of systematic thieving fror shops, and special officers were depute to run them to earth. II was foun that the hand numbered between twent; and thirty youths and boys, most c whom were probably under the banefv influence' of one or 'two, The plan wa for a couple of the gang to visit a bus, shop, and ask for certain articles. 0 these being produced by the shopma great dissatisfaction at price, quality color or something else was expressc, by the quasi-eustoiners, and white til shopman turned his back or went, awa to get other articles some of those il ready displayed would be purloinet (puck passing between the confederate was engaged in, and, as a rule, tli losses were not discovered until th youths had left the premises. Th name, however, has been checked by th police, and some of the offenders hay received punishment. In conversalion with a German-bon but naturalised British subject, Intelj a representative of the Rcefton Time was informed as follows:—"You ISritis. do not love the British flag as we foi eigners do. -We know what other flag bring upon us. You don't. There is n coimlry so free as your Britain and he colonies. In Germany there is bow ing and scraping and official interfer Mice, and life was horrible. You Briton: arc a clever race. You call for peonl. to come to vou, open your arms to then and vou profit by it. War bctweir KiHand and Germane! Never! J Ik. KaTser is mad. Everybody in Germany knows he is so. He is watched by keepers. But if Germany wants to build Dreadnoughts she has' to go to Britain for the money. If British trade with Germany were to stop a month, Germany would be bankrupt."