LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 320, 21 February 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

An adjourned meeting of the Borough Council is to be held this evening. January milk cheques will be paid as 1 follows by the following factories:— Maketawa £1482, Tarata £350, Waitui £414, Tariki £1237, Lepperton £933, Moa £4092. The tlrenui Post Office was broken into a few days ago and a parcel containing about £35 stolen. A cash-box containing a big sum in cash was left behind by the burglars. The Hastings Democratic League condemns compulsory military training as being too elaborate and costly, and an unsatisfactory substitute for volunteers. It regrets that the Act was passed before the wishes of the people were ascertained. Some five and twenty of the principal business people of Inglewood have signed a petition, which has been forwarded to the Minister for Railways, supporting the action of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce in asking for the old express time-table to be restored. The Education Board has been notified that a grant of £320 has been made by the Department towards the erection of a new school at Frankley Road. The question of immediately proceeding with the work will be under consideration by the Board this week. A gig containing a lady and gentleman was proceeding down the coast on Saturday, and when just past Oakura one of the motor waggons was met. The horse shied and capsized the gig, with the result that both occupants were thrown to the ground, but fortunately escaped injury. After considering applications from four manufacturers of tennis balls, testing samples of balls submitted, and giving consideration to opinions received from the various associations and clubs, the management committee of the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association has adopted Ayres' championship ball for the New Zealand championship meeting. Several would-be motor experts were discussing tne merits oi two motor cars standing outside a back country hostelry where motor ears are the exception rather than the rule, when one of them definitely settled the question by em-phatic-ally stating that the black one j was the best car, as a car of the same j make had won the recent " reality" test. Presumably he meant the reliability test. The answer, however, effectually s'ettled the argument. I The Waverley A. and P. Association has had presented to it a very fine silver cup as a challenge trophy. The cup is valued at £2O, and was presented to the Association by Air. James Smith. The cup has been allocated to the open leaping competition, and is to be won three times in succession or five times at intervals. The first prize of the wood-chopping competition has been increased from £5 to £B, and a woodchopping competition for boys under 1G i has been added to the programme. An . enthusiastic committee is; in charge of I the arrangements for the show, which lis the second held by the Association, ! and the fixture promises to attract a large attendance. The new Royal Dutch Packet liner Van der Hagen, which arrived at Melbourne recentiy, has wnat is described as the newest tiling in lifeboats, the '"basketboat,'' which is an interesting part of the vessel's equipment, it was christened the "basketboat" by its inventor. It is absolutely unsinkable, and will right itself from any position. The outside casing is made of ordinary cane I wickerwork. T:ien comes a layer of large pieces of cork, and finally.* inside all, is a wooden lining. With fortv people in the boat, however, the floor o"f 1 the wooden lining never reaches the lc\e] of the sea outside, and any "water i coming aboard simply runs out again I | through the wood, 'leaving the boat ! j diy. There are patent davits' to launch '< it by, which swing it over the side and i | let it drop anyifcrr; the boat righting • itself, this does not matter. There is i also no chance oi it being smashed j against the side of the vessel, in the j I w "*erwork and cork have such a I amount of spring in them. i j Back from a most popular, if verv j torrid, season in West Australia, and I looking as young and as blooming as 1 ever, Miss Nellie Stewart tells a, reallv j humorous story of her experiences in ! | Ivalgoorlie, where during the whole of ; | her visit the thermometer kept per- j j sj stentl ,V trying to get further and fur- ! j ther above the 100-degrec level Miss 1 I Stewart naturally felt the heat keenly, : ' v KI V , as ' in(lpe<1 ' almost prostrated by : | it. The manager of the refrigerating j works', hearing of her sufferings, came ,a.ong with a brilliant suggestion that! she should spend tiie day in the icehouse , j not m the freezing chamber, but i somewhere in the vicinity, where the - j temperature kept steady at about Oode* : !The proposal was gladly accepted, and' <ll d.iv long Mi« Stewart luxuriated in oolnoss until it w,s time to go to the hentre. One fl , lml(lei . s to <■ Amenean pa P ,,, llave , of the incident. "A Star on Tee." >-v 0 - 'Wanted Xell G'wynne," ;; Cool Kittv si?'"Se i" v °! ld ,i nevifaH >- have been 'J',, , Jwllmes across four or I ns 1,1 "'Miration of the event. ; The pawnbrokers of Great Britain j ,BSUe ° W 100 a year , of those „ , I curative virtues of Dr. SheMoX\h"! netie Lm.ment. Tt elves «,}* re!i p f I and speedv cur? whenever applied to a burn, b ister, bruise or „ ™ Sn PP or 0 * \ . any nature. no substitute ok. ! tamable everywhere. - \

I Mr. C. D. Sols-, secretary of the United Oddfellows' Premier Picnic, has re- ; c-eived wont from the Trallic Manag.r ! that special trains will be arranged :ar ; Thursday, 131st March. Anniversary Day. when a great time is anticipated at the Breakwater.—Stratford Post. "An evil-Miielling, insanitary ho>el I in the middle of a stocKyard," was a \ teacher's description of the "residence" i attached to a country school under tT:e ! Wanganni Education Board. Unfortunately, the reduction of tile grant bv the Department will prevent the i doing anything to remedy this admitte 1- ' ly bad «tate of affairs. it is staled that Baily, the spiritualistic medium who visited Xew Zealand some montlis ago, is' to undergo a series iof tests by scientific men in England I shortly. will arrive at Southampton I on February 27, and will give a series | of seances under the direction of Froj fessor Ruichell. He will afterwards provide manifestations for a group of investigators' at Milan. At the meeting of the manhgers of the Dunedin Technical School it was stated that an endeavor would be made : to have the country pupils take their i meals' at the school, the said meals to be cooked by themselves, and the ma- | terial to be supplied at cost price. It was also stated that the idea promised . well. Parents were especially favorable | to it, savs the Otago Daiiy Times. j ''Anxious Enquirer" puts this poser to a southern contemporary: "If a young man has a strong young wife, with whom he cannot live, and a weak , old widowea mother, which should he ! support in idleness' and luxury, and which should lie let starve?" And the shrewd scribe answers thusly: "Let my anxious enquirer induce the husband to be reconciled to his wife, recover possession of his child, nourish and cherish : his aged mother; and then, if other ! trouble should come, let him put that into his pipe and smoke it.'' Mr. Edward Ilannan, a young Welj lington mechanic, lias invented a newlifeboat, which is now being tested. The , boat can hardly be called a thing of beauty, being constructed on raft lines. It is 25ft long, has a beam of Bft, and a draught of Sin. lit is built of wood, : and has airtight copper tanks for j greater buoyancy, and to provide against such an accident as' the staving-in of the hull. There are lockers for water, food, oars, etc., and the construction of I the boat is such that should she be s upset, the passengers would have little difficulty in,getting back into her. The j invention is patented. j liauraki Gulf "was practically denudled of oysters before the industry was ; placed under the control of the Marine | Department, but arrangements are nowbeing made to have some of the old beds j replanted. Present supplies come from | the Bay of Islands and from Kaipara, j and it is anticipated that when the j North, Island season opens on May Ist : a fair supply will lie forthcoming. In j order that the beds will not be depleted j of more than a reasonable amount each I season, the Marine Department is enI gaging men wiio can be trusted not to exceed the three bags a day limit impos- . Ed by the regulations. It is a curious coincidence that the French mail steamer wrecked oil' t lie ■coast of Minorca with such terrible 10-:s of life was named after the nw general Chanzv, who commanded the Second Army of the Loire during the : Franco-Prussian war. and in whose j staff Lord Kitchener, a youth fresh from j .the Royal Military Academv at Wo il- | wioli, was attached. It was during tliw I first experience of t-h? actuaiitkv of war I that young Kitchener is said to have j made a perilous ascent with two French ! officers in a war balloon, and to nave i snared actively in several engagements, only to he stricken down with pneumonia and invalided home. The chairman of tile Otago Education Board has just published a significant 1 reply :o the charge ot extravagance against education Boards in regard to building grants. Mr. Mitchell points out that of €381,23.') '-ipent in lmildimr* only £103,357 had passed through the ] hands of the boards, -t217,875" being j spent by the Minister himself and | 253 on technical schools. The .education i board expenditure includes money spent j on training colleges, which can hardly | be included in the primary school exI penditure. When \vc hear or' teachers i having to live in whares, hut-. ; tents, because money cannot lie z <ifrom the Minister for residences, the figures given are significant.—Exchan:,' 1 . A German of distinction, speaking recently in England, remarked that while jhe was a guest, of Prince Henry of ! Prussia on board the flagship of that | commander, the Deutschland, the Prince | had in the course of conversation at I luncheon referred to the rumor in Engj land that a toast was drunk regularly on German warships "To the day when i the German fleet shall defeat the Engj lish in the Xorth Sea." The Prince and I his officers at table were .most indigI nant at what the Prince stigmatised as ! a ''beastly lie," and said that such a j thing was inconceivable. Prince Henry subsequently wired to the German in question in England, to the effect that such a rumor, being given currency by a London paper, was an insult to the German navy, as well as an utterly absurd and baseless thing.