LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 92, 27 July 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A bankrupt Wellington pastrycook commenced business on, a capital of his own amounting to 13s lid, and a sum borrowed of £l2O.

A correspondent, signing himself "'Fair Ptay," writes concerning the treatment of the sailors on the Viganella, which he denounces' in strong terms. Street maintenance, including general and special work, is estimated to cost the Auckland City Council £27,000 during the current year, and the eost of collecting and destroying refuse in the city is estimated at £4400. It is estimated that the public of Taranaki will benefit to the extent otf nearly £2OOO as a result of the shipment of manures and merchandise direct from Liverpool to New Plymouth by the Viganella.

(Dr. Drew, of Tima.ru, made a request last -week to the South Canterbury Hospital Board that facilities should be provided at the Timaru Hospital for himself and other medical men conduct an experiment for t)ie cure of cancer. I'ne Board agreed to provide the facilities asked for.

Particulars have come to light of a reimrkable raid' made on a gaining room connected with one of the principal hotels in -Rome. A few nights ago half-a-dozen policemen entered the room while roulette was in progress and seized all the* money on the tabels—abou; ;SOO. They also took the pocket-books of the players, but made no arrests. Not until some time afterwards did the rouletteplayers discover 'that -they had been the victims of an audacious robbery, the "policemen" being a band of thieves in disguise.

At the Education Board meeting last] night a letter was received from Major | McDonald, commandant of cadets in the Dominion,-in reference to the report of Major Sandfordi that the Central School cadets had been paraded as a guard of i honor upon the occasion of Lord Plunket's visit to New Plymouth without reference to -him. He wrote: "I have carefully perused all the correspondence relating to the matter, and at once accept the 'statements of Captains Mcllroy and Bocoek that they were ignorant of the regulations, and at the same time, as the Board 'has asked my advice on the matter for future guidance, I willingly give it, as follows: —Before any parade other than the usual weekly drill can take place, company commanders should obtain permission from the battalion commanders, and the latter from me, if necessary. Neither the headmaster nor the committee can authorise ajrarade of the -cadets."

"I love it, I love it, and who shall dare to chide me for loving that old armchair?" Many members of locaf bodies who have a poetic turn of miiwl might' well set the lines to music. The rule; that a member wishing to address Hie meeting shall rise from his seat is not so well known, for it is more often disregarded than not. The majority of the local bodies people hold fast to their' chairs. They may remove their weight! from the seat of tho chair, hut cling lovingly to the arms. With hands gripped on the side of the chair, elbows bent outwards, back arched, feet scarcely resting on the floor at ail, and kneesj bent, the speaker looks anything but a man firm in his convictions, conversant' wiith his subject, or anxious to impress his opinions upon his fellow-members. In fact, he is not an edifying spectacle. How much more dignified when he starts from iliis seat, pushes back his chair, plants his feet firmly on the floor, and delivers his remarks as though he means them. The schools in the Taranaki Education District will be closed for the spring holidays during the week commencing Monday, 20th September, and for the six weeks' midsummer on Friday. 10th December. .• i" • ■ . V vV- v

Tho 'Maoris at Moturon liad a very I big haul of conger eels 011 Sunday oil Mikotahi, landing about twenty-five, some of them weighing fully thirty pounds. I Thus the Auroa correspondent of the 1 Hawera Star: —A local Maori who died recently had about A'so in cheques buried: with him. " It's an ill wind that | blows nobody good." | In our report of the Poultry Show last week J. Cummins, of Auckland, wmh credited with having won first priw> in -Silver Wyandottes. This sliould have read C. Cuniniing, of Hawera. [ 1 A visitor to the port a coup'* of I days ago found the "waters" so strong. and the water so attractive that he roll-1 ed off the wharf into the sea. When he 1 was fished out he was several degrees t more sober. A movement for a world-wide celebration in 1914 of the hundredth anniversary of peace ymong the English-speak-ing peoples has taken form and it has ibeen announced that a committee Has been selected to carry out preliminary organising work. The Rev. Bailey continued his mission yesterday. In the afternoon at 3 o'clock in the Primitive Metihodist Church he gave a. Bible -reading. The Rev. Mr. Nixon was present. Last evening Mr. Bailey delivered a powerful addi'ess 011 "Ezekiel," and there was a large at tendance. j The Matin states that by 1913 tihe ! French aerial fleet will comprise 20 j units —namely, 14 cruisers and six scouts. The War Minister is at pre-1 sent concentrating his attention on the; realisation of the aeronautical programme.. Twenty special airship stations will have to hp provided by the same time. At Pahiatua on Thursday last a Celestial named Ah Gin; whose visage bore a grin when he stepped into the dock, but which assumed a lightning change when he was made acquainted with the penalty of the law, was convicted and fined £25 and costs, in default three months' imprisonment, for ibeing found in possession of opium. A cable message to the Sydney Morning Herald from Suva, dated 6th inst., states that the Debua Estate of 6000 acres, near 'Navua, has been sold by Mr. Arthur Joske to Mr. Studholme, for a sum of £15,000. It is the intention of the present owner to convert the esuu.e, which up to the recent hurricane -adj been producing a large quantity of bananas, into a rubber plantation. j There were 13,613 persons who paid! for admission to the Dominion Dairy!, Show during tihe four days. Mr. Robert Morrissey, of Hawera, estimated the number at 13,001, and therefore wins the prize presented by" the proprietor of the Taranaki Daily News for the nearest gnesis to the correct number, viz., one year's subscription to the Taranaki Daily News. From n, Government bulletin prepared 1 by Dr. Kebler, the ihead of the division of drugs in the Government Bureau of ' Chemistry, it would appear that there ' are more "drug fiends" in the United States than in any other country in the ' world, not excepting China. "The num- 1 ber of drug addicts in the United States," ' says the report, "is variously estimated < bv those conversant with the situation,' at from 1,000,000 to 4,000,000." |: There are 662 acres of vineyards in 1 New Zealand, of which 494 acres are in : the Auckland province. There are 135 < in the Hawke's Bay, 15 acres in Welling- i ton, 8 in Otago, and 5 in Nelson. Pro- 1 duction has increased wonderfully dur- 1 ing recent years, the average return of, 1 wine per acre of vineyard beiiiig at pre- ,< sent roughly estimated at 500 gallons.! j The selling price of wine in the open \ market at the present time is from 7s to,, 8s per gallon. [ ,1 One of the boatmen'at the breakwater , received rather a surprise the other day. ] He forgot that the Paritutu had been ( dredging a berth for herself close inshore and washed out to a dinghy. He, had proceeded a few yards and the ( water came up to his knees, but with , the next step he suddenly felt t-he sand disappearing from under him and he be-1 1 came almost snbmerged. He had walked 1 1 over the "cut" made by the dredge. A( few strokes, however, soon placed him in i' safety. I "At the present time native children, { are dying like flies," declared Mr. Field (Otaki) in the House of Representatives last week. "There is no hope for the race," he added, "unless something is done to stop it." Mr. Field asked the Government to provide for registration of the births and deaths of natives, 1 throughout the Dominion, and was informed that the question will be cons-id- ; ered if possible t'his session. Mr. Field | believes that if native births and deaths 1 are registered the result will show an enormous mortality of youthful natives which will compel" the Government to take some preventive action. It may be imagined by the majority of people that cold storage is a comparatively modern method of preserving animal matter. That it is so in regard to j the present up-to-date methods of preservation is undoubted. .Speaking a.t St. I James's Hall. Sydney, last week, Profes-1 1 sor David referred to the recent discov-1 eries of mastodon remains in Siberia, pointing out that the bodies of these' huge beasts were intact. The flesh was | so perfectly preserved bv encasement in! ice that the Eskimo dogs when hard I pressed tby hunger actually ate the lea- j therv tissue. The fact that these huge bodies had suffered no disintegration showed that nature had provided a svs- j tem of cold storage to which modern methods could not be compared. To convey any adequate notion of what a million really represents is a difficult task, but Mr. Robertson, secretary to the Post and Telegraph Department, essayed it at «. social gathering on Saturday evening, when speaking of the expansion of New Zealand postal business. It would take anyone, lie said, five or six weeks, working eight •hours a day. to set down a million strokes on paper, and by that time the wrist of t-he writer would be in need of surgical attention. Again, it would take one man ten weeks to sort a million letters if he sorted thirty per minute, a prettv fair speed. Multiplying this task by 151, one gained i some conception of the burden of the j work that fell 011 the men and officers I of the Postal Department of Now Zealand. j "A pernicious system" was a term j used at the meeting of the Moray Place (Dunedin) School Committee the other j j evening. This referred to a scheme j ,'W'liich has been inaugurated by a certain' firm of chocolate manufacturers, and I which has for its object a largelv-inereas-1 ed sale of penny packets of chocolate! j among children. Each packet contains ; one of a series of cards, and in exchange I ■ for the completed series tho collector oh- j ■I tains a larger packet of chocolate. As; 'j one cannot see the card contained in a! [ packet of chocolate until the packet is 'i opened, the child may go on buying doz- ' ens of packets without being able to 1 complete a certain series. It was pointed ' out that the collection of the cards was 1 becoming almost a craze with children, 'j who invested every spare penny in them, and carried this expenditure to undue , length. The committee decided to refer > the matter to a sub-committee for investigation and report.