LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 378, 2 May 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Tt has been decided to establish freez-ing-works at Balclutha. The deaths in the Duncdin district for the past mouth totalled 100, which is a record. A man who was taken into ciisiouy at Christclnirch on a recent Sanir night on a charge of druiikenne.-s had 182 10s 3d in his possession. As showing the prosperity and grow th of Taranaki, the Customs revenue lor last month was -2.) per cent, greater than for the same month of last year. An efl'ort is beiii'j; made to up-et the Oakura school committee election, on the ground, we are told, that "tie of the householders voted for eight candidates instead of seven. The Duncdin Star relates that a trader of the eitv who got into ptcuniary dilliculties s'me fifteen years atro has returned to Duncdin, and is jiaung oil' his debts in full. A farmer in the Masterton district states that about eighteen years ami lie put in a blueguni post and also seven! totara posts, and to his surprise he found that the latter had decayed first. A new town is to be founded in the vicinity of Waitnn-ji, Bay of Islands, on the spot where the Treaty of Waitawji was signed. The town will be appropriately named Ruarangi, which means "recollection of olden times." It is situated on the shore immediately o:>nostte Russell. The following advertisement appears in a Berlin journal: "Young man wishes to marry tall, handsome, proud, fearless, independent, unprejudiced, self-support-ing, intellectual, artistic, economical, cheerful young girl who believes that the greatest happiness in life is a love match without mercenary motives." On Saturday afternoon a youngster igot too close to the lake in the Recreation Grounds, and fell in. A visitor to Xew Plymouth, enjoying a stroll through the grounds, saw the accident, and he .got a wetting before the bov was hauled on to terra firms. The lied ire around the lake doesn't seem to be much protection. A leading London woolbroker, in the course of a private letter to the head of a Xew Zealand house, says: "I fancy we shall have a firm market now for the remainder of the year. The consumption of wool, especially in Yorkshire, is immense: but I think America is a bit stuck with dear merinos." The reference to the condition in Yorkshire will make pleasant reading for New Zealand woolgrowers. With the consent of .the parents (says the 'Xorth of Auckland Times) a "child wedding" took place in one of the coastal settlements north of Whangarei the other day, the contracting parties being merely boy and girl (the latter only fourteen years of age). This settlement is gaining an unenviable

notoriety for such unions. Surely the parents must he to blame for the conditions that lead to these regretiUDle happenings. On Saturday morning, before Mr. T. C. List, J.P., a woman named Anna Murphy was lined £1 and costs 7s on a charge of being drunk when in chartre of a horse on the previous day. The penalty was made heavier on account of the defendant's failure to appear, she having lieen 'hailed out on the previous evening. The Bench pointed out that the maximum penalty was £lO, and the maximum term of imprisonment three months.

Mr. F. McLeod, an ex-Wellingtonian, now of the Federated Malay States, is revisiting his old city (says the Wellington Times). According to Mr. McLeod, the Malay States have gone ahead of Xew Zc-ihnd along some radical lines. All hind is leased from the State; there isvibsolute free trade, with a very small revenue tariff; the currency is paper money issued bv the Government; the railways belong to the State and are paid for, and instead of a public debt the State has a good invested surplus. A meeting of representatives of the butter companies of the MamiWatu district decided to set up a committee to fix the selling price of butter each month, so as to prevent underselline. The milk supply throughout the district is now falling off. though it has been exceptionally good rieht through the season. Most of the creameries in the district will continue to run riirht through the 'winter. Dnirv farmers .-.it-, growing winter feed in increasing numbers, which is having the effect of increasing the yearly supply of milk.

Very few women would have acted with the same presence of mind as Kate Sheedey. licensee of the London and Carnarvon Hotel, Kins-street, Melbourne did on 12th Anril. At about 7 p.m. she observed a laborer named Albert Lee walk upstairs and coolly enter her bedroom, where she kept a considerable amount of money and jewellery. She slipped quietly to the door, locked him in, and sent for the police. When arrested Lee feigned drunkenness. At the City Court next day the Bench sentenced Lee to a month's imprisonment for being unlawfully on the premises. The Tananaki County Council's objection to the extension of the Xew Plymonth municipal abattoirs to include the country for three miles from the borough boundary lias been overruled by the Crown law officers, to whom the question was referred by the Department of Agriculture. The application of the Borough Council will therefore be sent on to the Minister, who, according to the Crown law officers, has the •power, under sections 15 and 16 of the Slaughtering and Inspection Act. to gazette the extension of boundaries.

During last week Mr. Newton Kin™ landed six new motor-cars from Home, mostly ordered for local buyers. There were two l(i-2(l-h.;\ C'althorpe cars, one each for Messrs. M. -T. Jones and .1. \V. West's livery stn'de businesses. A Csilthor])C 12-14-h.p. oar is for sale, as well as a Riley car. One Riley was for Messrs. Thircess, leaser and Co., and one for Mr. Kind's own business. Ailother ](i-20-h.p. Calthorpe arrives next 'week for the Waitara stables, and a 30-h.p. Char-a-bnnc for tile Motor Transport Company's mail service between (tyunake and New Plymouth. '•We must he prepared to defend our soil against the Asiatic peril," said the Hon. T. Mackenzie in n speech at D;irgaville. ''History reminded us how the Mongol hordes had conquered China and Russia and massacred IS I /., million souls. How did we stand in that respect?" He was glad to read that one of the planks of the Commonwealth Labor party was a citizen army. Even now swarms of Asiatics were landing and settling in the Northern Territory of Australia. We must have population. Lord Kitchener had given us the minimum necessary for onr defence, and his advice could be accepted or rejected, but it must not be tinkered with. For Children's Hacking Cough at nieht. Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, \/ij } 2/0

Work in connection with the reptiirt to the Oamaru breakwater is proceeding slowly but steadily. When the large' blocks of concrete are sufficiently intact (n l>e of service they are to be used, but in other [daces a fresh parapet is being built. Some good stone has (says the Mail) iii'i'n found in the quarry adjoining tile breakwater, and great help will lie a Horded by tlie use of this metal for the purpose of an "apron." Devon-street central lias recently been. 1.-metalled, and the tarring of the eurlace has almost been completed, 'lhe street was just becoming u credit to the town, when along came the drainage siali', who ripped up the tarred macadam* in order to connect a property with the »ewcr. Surely that worx should all have been completed before the street was • i'.utically re-made. Doubtless there is M ine reason for this cart-hefore-the-hiij-e style of road-making, and bur-j.,-s»es would doubtless be glad to hear it. A shocking occurrence is reported from Howden Clough, near Dewsbury, the victim being Walter Oldroyd, a i oung colliery laborer, who has lately -iuiwn symptoms of religious mania, following upon nervous debility. He was heard praying in his bedroom, and as no response was made to the call of "Open the door," an entrance was forced, and uidroyd was then found holding his lace to the fire. His eyes had been burnt out, nose was charred to a cinder, and his cheeks and neck' were also sadly burned. A storv of a girl's remarkable pluck is reported <bv the lkthurst correspondent of the 'Sydney Daily Telegraph. Miss Turner, of \etholms, was driving from Brewongle, when the buggy capsized through the hoi'se shying. Miss Turner was thrown beneath the vehicle. Eventually she managed to crawl out, and found that her leg was broken. The plucky young woman then unharnessed the horse, and, mounting, rode back to Brewongle, a distanet of one and a-lialf miles. She was afterwards brought by tvain to Bathurst, and admitted to the district hospital for treatment.

At Newcastle (N.S.W.) recently, John McCaldie, cabin boy on the steamer English Monarch, was found lying in his bunk with a bullet wound in his right breast. A live-chambered revolver, loaded in four chambers, was picked up on the table in the cabin. Sergeant Turnbull was summoned, and he asked the lad how it happened, and received the reply: "I will teli you all about it after." The* boy was removed to the Newcastle hospital, where he 'was admitted in a dangerous condition. At the hospital the lad made a confession. "I did it myself," he said. "They put a Chinaman to sleep in the same cabin with me. I spoke to the captain about it. I could not stand sleeping with a Chinaman. That is the reason 1 did it."

Writing to Mr. F. C. Tumor, of Eketahuna, from Germany, Mr. Von Reden, a former resident of the district, states: "Things look pretty black here politically. The bulk of the people are. becoming more and more Socialistic, but. one cannot blame them. They have little or nothing to sa.v in the government of the country, have to pay very heavy taxation, and are trodden upon and annoyed bv a most insolent and brutal poiice. It will come to an explosion some day. At present it is only prevented by the police and a great display of military power. lam sure lam not mnch of a Radical —in fact, in New Zealand I was looked upon as a Conservative—but really I do not blame the people if they begin to kick against the nricks a little."

The panic at Palmerston due to the presence of Powelka is a mere bagatelle to he panic in Rotorua Sunday night wok. The night was cold, and the Indies' swimming :bath was crowded. Suddenly (states a local scribe) a cjjorus of shrieks arose, and badly split so ■much of the welkin as was over the Imth. Tlie attendant rushed in, expecting to see, at least half a dozen corpses, or else some rash Peeping Tom. But no. She saw, however, the lady bathers standing crowded on the benches in the dressing boxes. All fingers pointed to tho water, and there a monstrous, wicked rat was swimming from side to side. ]t was headed off and turned to the other end of the bath. Its advent was followed by another chorus of shrieks, and a piece fell out of the welkin, and nenrlv killed the rat. At last poor wliiskerandos. in blind terror, made the shore and took refuge in the haven afforded by a heap of lady's attire lying on the floor, while the owner stood on the seat and shrieked. Even the hardened lady attendant was not equal to routing out his ratship, so a screen was formed, Ihehind which the bathers huddled, while a mere man came in with ■l dub and destroyed the dragon that had so fluttered the dovecotes of the lady bathers. A Rhodes scholar now at Oxford, writing to a friend in Wellington, states that ''Rhodes scholars are hardly noticed there unless they particularly distinguish themselves at athletics or university work. The rank and file pass through without making any mark upon Oxford —at least so far as one can judge from external indications. . . . The American Rhodes men are notoriously the worst at Oxford. Very few carry away anything really good from their stay at Oxford. They 'hang together' a great deal, partly from a liking for each other's society; partly because the Englishmen dan't care for them. A great many Americans return to take up educational positions in the -States universities, and most of the latter welcome Rhodes scholars as the apostles of culture. . . 1 aere is a genuine Oxford atmosphere, but few Rhodes' men imbibe it. Those that do are to be envied. It is academic and yet social. Most of the Oxford men (I speak of the ordinary English undergrad) come up to Oxford and have a perfectly happy sociaV life with desultory bursts of real work; they form some friendships; they pass out into the world with some kind of a degree. Years afterwards they look back upon their Oxford career through colored .spectacles, and see that it was

good. . . . One lias to be careful of one's associates at Oxford. The college .scholars arc the best men Intellectually. and the most brilliant socially a* a rule. They are also generally the poorest. These are the men who give Oxford most and take away most."

k SIX MONTHS' OLD SORE—CURED IN LESS THAN A WEEK. ''My little daughter suffered for six months from a bad and obstinate sore behind the ear, and nothing had any healing effect upon it, altbong T tri«d manr ointments. Then T tried Rexona which evidently contain* mr&tive properties not found in other*, 'or after the first application the sore shf.wor' sicrns of healing, and after a few applications, it disappeared altogether, 'eaving a clean skin underneath. Rexona cured this six months' old sore in' less than a week." writes Mrs. John WacDonald, 1 Harold street, Erskinevine 'N.S.W.) Rexona, the new skin reoiodv, is sold in triangular pots at Is M nnd X ObtainnW" at Bullock and Johnston's. _ - ®