LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 106, 12 August 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

(Road boards, like youthful and unwilling students of Oaesar's Commentaries, would seem to have little Latin. The chairman of a Portobello (Otago) local body recently awed his colleagues by a threat to read the Latin equivalents for Cape weed, broom, etc., and in the course of a running comment on live weeds and dead languages related the story of a farmer bent on legal proceedings. His lawyer encouraged him with a Latin technicality. On hearing it the farmer exclaimed, looking grave, "If it's as bad as that I'll pay up." Very queer is the story which is related of a workman to whom an old-fashion-ed name had been given when he was baptised. His comrades made such fun of the name that they ended by driving the poor man ill. When he returned home he found a cruel jest scrawled on the wall of the house where he dwelt, and, having accused a fellow-workman of the trick, he got sadly beaten in the fight that followed. He then went to his room, wrote on a scrap of paper, "My silly godfather was an idiot, and is the cause of my death," and thereupon hanged himself, life was quite extiiict when his wife came home some hours later.

A campaign ds being waged in this j country- against the house fly, writes the New York correspondent of the Lyttelton Times. In all quarters the cry is going up to deal death'and destruction to this sumtolfr pest, it being claimed by scientific men that this insect carries in his tiny body the bacilli of typhoid, tuberculosis, dysentery, and interstinal diseases. In most of the southern States of the Union the fight is going on briskly, and the American Civic Association has organised a "Fly Fighting Committee" to carry on tie good work. The entomologist for the United States Department of Agriculture says in a circular that "the insect we now call the 'house fly' should in the future be termed the 'typhoid fly,' in order to call direct attention to the danger of allowing it to continue the breed unchecked."

Mr. T. A. iEdison has been forecasting the future to an' American interviewer. He thinks that "there is much ahead of us. We don't know what gravity is; neither do we know the nature of heat, light and electricity, though we handle them a little. . . . Art will be in-

creased and distributed as we emerge from the dog-stage. Society will have to stay this whisky business, which is like throwing sand in the bearings of a steam engine." Then he entered the realms of political economy: "In 2000 years, by the cheapening of commodities, the ordinary laborer will live as well as a man does now with £40,000 annual income. .Automatic machinery and scientific culture will bring about this result. Not individualism, but social labor will dominate the future; you can't have individual machines and every man working by himself. Industry will constantly become more social and independent. . .

Less and less man will be used as an engine, or as a horse, and his brain will be employed to benefit himself and his fellows."

Dr Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, spent about an hour at Sydney one day recently trying to get the Premier, and did not get him. He told his audience at the University about it when he was replying to addresses of welcome. [Dr. Bell was not harshly criticising the Department, he simply made the remark as supplementing the statement that he did not know much about the telephone in Australia, He added that there were certain features about the system which he would like to investigate. He had come to Australia to learn, and he wanted to know what was being done. He noticed that the people of Australia had not yet the telephones in their homes. In Indiana (UJSA.) every farmer had one, and telephone wires were the wire fences. One could hardly got into an hotel in the United States without finding a telephone in each bedroom. The system in Australia was very cheap, but if that cheapness interfered with efficiency, it was a bad thing. At present he was not prepared to say Whether the system was efficient. He had been invited to give evidence Ibefore the Royal Commission, though, unfortunately, jhe had not been personally connected with the telephone system since 1879. For children's hacking cough at night, foods' S*ea't Peppermint Cure, Is 6d. 28 M.

Major Bellringer will lecture at the School of Instruction to-night. The commission appointed to enquire into the question of the control and maintenance of the Waipuku bridge will sit at Inglewood to-day. Mr. G. T. Murray, district road engineer, will preside. An informal meeting of the Taranaki Guards is to be held this evening with reference to the resignation of Captain Mills and the best method of showing the company's entire sympathy with him in his action.

The one bright spot in a dreary bankrupt • examination on Wednesday occurred" when Mr. T. 6. Weston, counsel for the" Deputy Official Assignee, asked the bankrupt under examination, "What did you expect your crops to come to?" The witness replied, "I expected them to come to maturity." There was a very general smile. A complaint reached this office last night from a traveller on Devon road, Fitzroy, concerning the inadequate lighting of certain works being carried out by the Gas Company at Strandon. The company is opening up the street for work at the mains, and our informant I stated that the lighting of the trench was insufficient for the protection of the public. At the Magistrate's Court yesterday morning, Frank A. Lee,, grocer, was charged with a breach of the Shops and Offices Act on July 28 last by failing to close his premises at 1 o'clock for the remainder of the day. Inspector Willis deposed that on the afternoon in question he happened to be in the vicinity of the offender's shop, about a quarter past five o'clock. He .noticed Lee's shop ' door open and the light on in the shop, j and saw the defendant supply goods to 1 a customer. He went in and pointed out to defendant that he was committing a breach of the Act. Defendant replied that he was quite aware of that, and said that possibly a prosecution would be the best thing that could happen, as he was pestered by people, and couldn't even have his tea in peace. The Inspector said he wouldn't suggest for a moment that he was doing this for gain, or for the fun of breaking the law, and he believed he was pestered by people for goods on Thursdays, and he supn'ied them out of kindness. The-defend-ant, who pleaided guilty, was fined 10s and costs.