LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 140, 12 July 1909, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

It is reported that the Timber Coramission will cost the country from £3OOO to £4OOO. At the next meeting of the Volunteer Officers' Club, on the 22nd inst., a lecture will be given by Colonel Bauchop. •Mr. John Fuller, of the Fuller Proprietary (savs a Press Association niesLage), has concluded the purchase of the freehold of the Auckland Opera House fo r the sum of £22,000. At a meeting of the New Plymouth branch of the Locomotive Engine Drivers' and Firemen's Association, held on Friday evening, a motion was passed heartily supporting its executive council in approaching the Minister for Railways for separate recognition, as it lias no' confidence in the Amalgamated Society to represent the locomotive staff; and further, that this branch regrets the statements made by the president of the Amalgamated Society, they being opposed to fact. I am Informed on gfiod- authority (writes a correspondent of the Patea Press) that twenty of those men who were employed at bushfalling at Waitotara have retired from their positions. It is alleged, too, that they are firstclass men. skilled and practised bushmen. Their protest is that they were put in gangs among others who were unskilled, and they could not see the force of others gaining the benefit of tl.eir hard-earned 'skill. Payment is fixed in accordance v>ith the area each gang covers, so that if their contention is correct they have reasonable grounds for complaint. A theatrical manager on the state of the money market in New Zealand:—"l don't know much about the depression." said .Air. Allan Hamilton, "but I do know that the business done in Dunedin,, Christchurch. and Wellington by Chung' L'lig Soo and Mr. Richards' company is the best I have ever done in the Dominion. I think the depression must ho greatly exaggerated. At the present moment my dramatic company is doing excellent business overland to Napier. When our friend Sir Joseph Ward returns with that ten million loan and wool, goes up to 2s per lb I suppose tveiyliodv will lie happy, but the fact is that New Zealand has enjoyed such continuous prosperity for so many years that the slightest set-lbaek is looked upon as ruination by a section of the people. Some of them ought to live in Queensland, 1 where their nerves would be steadied. One good year and four had ones is about the average in Bananaland."

"Hard times! No money to spend! Nonsense!" said .-, !'• ■; ling Auckland business man to a liar representative when asked what business was like at the winter clearing sales. "IxKik for yourself," he continued. "There arc hundreds of people thronging the counters nf every department this morning, and so it lias been since our sale .begun." This wax the information vouchsafed by the .business man in question, and it was corroborated by the managers of the various other emporiums visited. Evidently the bargain-hunting fever has taught on properly, for, despite the miserably wet morning, the shops were filled with customers, and the dill'ercut departments were like human beehives. Busy attendants were rushing about in '.very direction, and the bargain-hunters, generally wandering in pairs, were diving into remnant baskets', sampling dress .-lull's, pricing laces, and apparently enioyimr to the full the opportunities for shopping which a cheap sale all'ords. Sullcnlv facing a crowded courtroom nt .Mercer. Pennsylvania, •lames Boyle ami liin wife, the kidnappers of the ten-year-old .schoolboy, Willie Wbitla, received the .severest sentence ever pronounced for this crime in America. The man's punishment is imprisonment for life, and the woman was sentenced to twentv-live years' imprisonment and a Hue of £IOOO. Young Wbitla, whose, faiher is a prominent lawyer, was stolen • from school last March. The affair exj cited enormous interest, and hundreds of detective* endeavored to trace the kidnappers. A ransom of £2OOO was . demanded, with the throat that if it were not paid the boy would be killed. The sum was handed over. The guilt of Ihe woman Bovle was revealed by a confession she made while ill a state of intoxication. Morphine and a razor were found in her possession. The couple heard the sentence unmoved, and said no word to identify Ihe mysterious millionaire Hawe. who. they declared, inspired the kidnapping.

Tn reference In Hip statement made l-.v n medical witness in n rasp at Napi'pv that "thorp had been an abnormal number of senile oases diirinj; flip last twelve mmitlls lliroiipfliniil New Zcain nil. ami ill manv of the cases' it was impossible (n tell how they had becfl caused.'' enquiries in medical quarters Wlod In draw any facts tn prove that there bad lippii any inereasp in the pcrcentiu'e of puerperal eases. Tiro "abnormal nmnlier" rturinp: the last twelre. months mm- have a verv simple explanation. Towards the end of 1P.07 is was decided to make "piierpwM fever" in its >-rioiw names' a "notifiable disease." 71ie object was to enable thp District llenllh URicers to lteep an eve on midlvivei who hid been a I lending a ease that had developed a puerperal malady, and to prevent the spread of infection. ITene» -as"s that were formerly not an- | lotinced to the authorities are now I nroiiiiit.lv roiiortcd. and consequently the Ut-.tistics show on paper an inereasp in [ the number of cases, but actually the iiercontnw may not he "rcatcr for the !■>.;+ fcivlv" months than tor the preceding year. Tf ,'jJtor. pronerlv is not insured call at or''F"W*;ni) the United Insurance Company, itd. : l)evoii..Sti'eet. Telephone IDS. Wrf)?t*"" '-Bros., district asonts. Tnsnr<ince cflteted on th«. moat- favorable '