LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 140, 22 September 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

. Some interesting figures relative to the cost of technical education during the past ten 'years have been laid on the table of the House of Representatives. During that period capitation amounted to £119,802, subsidies on contributions £33,786, and grants for buildings, equipment, etc., £111,676.

The weekly meeting of the Egmont Lodge, No. 112, 1.0. G.T., was held in St. Mary's Hall last evening, the C.T., Bro. C. Pepperill presiding. Sis. Legg conveyed greetings from the Ahuriri and Band of Hope Lodges, Napier, to the Egmont Lodge, and was asked to return the greetings. Bro. Maunder gave an account of his stay in Invercargill and an interesting narrative on prohibition in tihat town. A meeting of the Park Tennis Club's ladies' and general committees was held 'last evening, the president, Mr. R. Cock, presiding. Three new members were elected. The engineer forwarded a certificate of completion of the courts by the contractor, and the final pay mem was passed. The president, secretary, and Messrs. Sandford and F. C. Tribe were appointed a grounds committee. The resignation of Mrs. T. C. Schnackeuberg from tOie ladies' committee was accepted, and Mrs. C. M. Hill was elected. The president referred to the work that was being done by members in the early morning working bees on the courts, and the ladies' committee volunteered to provide afternoon tea on the coming Saturday and Thursday afternoons on the courts. Members are asked to make the improvement of the surroundings a personal matter, and to attend these two working, bees. The president and Mrs. Cock offered to place their grounds ai "Overdale" at the disposal of the club for a garden party early in December, andi were accorded the hearty thanks of the meeting. The lady members of the club are to be asked on Saturday and next' Thursday afternoons to select the site for the clubhouse, for which Mr,, Sandford offered tQ Bufemit ft iUtxk pjaa, t

New York is about to embark upon a scheme of municipal music, which will provide free concerts for the ■people all the year Tound. The Government has approved the plans for the new wharf and harbour facilities at Hokitika to cost about £37,000. The project of a canal to connect Manakau harbor with Waitemata is again being discussed in Auckland, an.! the Tamaki route is being favored in preference to the more expensive Avondalc proposal. ''l feel so strong on the subject that I could swear. I could kick somebod) about it."—An expression used by Mr. G. Sangster at the Stratford County Council meeting yesterday in reference to the East road separate fate. "I believe in saying what I think of people"—"lf other people told you what they think you'd be in a state of chronic uncomfortableness."—A piece of repartee from the Stratford County Council meeting.

In a report on the Wellington produce markets the Post says: "Rhubarb is now coming in freely, and selling from 4s to 10s per dozen, asparagus 2s to 3s per bunch, cucumbers 5d to Sd each. Hothouse tomatoes were quitted at from Is to Is Od per lb. Several more good finds of kauri gum are reported from the Northern Wairoa. Two Maori girls unearthed a patch the other day, a few miles from Dargavi'.le, which went about five hundredweight and realised some £2O. Several of the lumps weighed over 201b.

The handsome new building, which is being erected at Wellington for the Union Company is nearing completion. The offices will cost close on £50,000. They are very handsomely finished inside and outside, and the lighting arrangements are excellent. The large chamber for the transaction of public business will be a feature of the new offices, and a convenience to the staff and the public alike.

Writing from England, Mr. Allan Maguire, who has been revisiting Ireland, speaks depressingly of the state of that country. He declares that it has gone back a great deal since he left it as a young man. Poverty seemed on the increase, rather than otherwise, and it was not uncommon to see the peasantry working bare-footed in the fields, when in his time they were able to purchaso •'brogues." Last season the pupils of the Hawera District High School produced from theiv gardens a good crop of vegetables. During the past few days a number of the boys and girls have been busily occupied in sorting the seeds from the vegetables into neat packets. No fewer than 3000 packets have been done up (says the Star). Of these 1500 packets will be kept for the school, 500 will be given to the native schools of this district, 800 will be sent to the Board for distribution, while 200 packets will be sent to other parts of New Zealand and to Australia in exchange for seeds of other varieties. The work of packeting the seeds formed a portion of the agricultural course which is now being taken at the school.

Amusing storita come from Marseilles concerning, the ex-Sultan of Morocco during his stay at that ancient and important port. With everything he' saw during his promenades in the city, if he were unacquainted with it, he exhibited either the delights or the fears of a child. When it was suggested he should go into the lift to take him to the Church of Notre Dame, he'uttered a terrible cry. The noise of the machinery ihad terrified him; he preferred climbing the steep hill. On a revolving bridge at the docks he was given a demonstration of tihe working, but as soon as the machinery was set in motion he uttered an agonised cry, with the result that the working was stopped. At a music hall he was delighted with the clown and some dancing girls, but a battle of flowers given in his honor was too mnch for his nerves. He thought his last moment had arrived, and beat a most undignified retreat from the hall, and leaped into the first carriage that he saw standing outside.

The Polly, the oldest American merchant vessel, was in New York Harbour a few weeks ago discharging a cargo taken on board at Bridgeport, Connecticut. So lightly has time touched this vessel that, despite her 10b years, she remains in as good condition as most mercantile ships of one-tenth of her age. She is only 61ft in length, and has only 45 tons net burden, but she has a notoriety which is much more substantial. Her former skipper and owner, Captain Upton, armed his crew with axes and cutlasses, and few prim- | t'eers enjoyed more .successful cruises fci 1812. The Polly's rig was that of a sloop, and her captures of Britishmen were many along* the New England coast, until she was overhauled by the British frigate Phoebe, when Upton and his ship and his men were made captive. Despite renewals of planking and beams the vessel's original lines have been retained, and she is as saucy and seaworthy as ever. Writing to Mr. T. York, of Woolston, a former resident of that locality says: "Two of my.boys and myself left Inglewood with two good half-draught horses, a light spring dray, and llcwt. of goods on our 74 miles journey to our present location. At the end of three days we arrived at Whangamomona—43 miles of mud, in many places up to the girths, and we had to wain all the way ourselves. From there we had fourteen miles to 'get to the land; and it took us eight days to get there. There is a very bad river boundary to our place, and when we arrived there we found four settlers camped on the bank waiting for the river to go down. They had been there a month, and never thought of a rait until we built one, and got our'goods and ourselves across. When we came here there was no track for horses nearer than one and a-half miles, so we had to carry all our stuff on our backs. Now we can get pack horses to the door. There have been about four miles of six-feet track made this year about here, so, compared with other settlers, we are weh off for roads. I often think of the labour agitator and land nationaliser in Christchurch, and would like to see them toiling through the bush, and .then see if they would say that the bush settlers do not earn all they get." We may point out that the road from Inglewood to beyond Purangi is metalled and by no means a bad road even in winter. Mr. York's friend has evidently been drawing largely on his imagination.

New arrivals at the Melbourne comprise 32 inch white calico, 3s lid per dozen yards; boys' straw boaters, Is 3d; lace edge duchesse sets, Is lid; men's fancy washing vests, 4s lid; and boys' bathing costumes. The quantities, varieties and values m ■men's, boys', and children's straw hats at the Melbourne celebration eale is beyond any attempt to compete with ft We don't tell trade seerete/htffc VnHSmlt mind customers knowing tHin It* **(* ous good and sufficient reasons we obtained unusually low prices on Btraw bougU'lto; Vmtain, ._ ._.,_ :

.I •nrriTTTr . " L M As an evidence of how careful dairy farming pays, and how good Stratford land is, it might be mentioned (says the Post) that Mr. Wicksteed, of Pembrokeroad, is taking 11501bs of milk daily from an ordinary farmer's herd of thirty cows. Over 1500 applications have been* made to the English Anti-Socialist Union for enrolment in the speakers' classes as a result of the offer to give contracts of .1100 a year and upwardsto suitable speakers against Socialism. A rather good joke, that tends to show the value—or otherwise—of expert evidence, was recently played off in a northern centre to a number of farmers, woolbuyers, etc., by an agent of a well-known: meat freezing company. He produced a silky looking lock of what looked likerather coarse wool, and asked the experts what sort of a sheep they thought it came off. One immediately said that it was from an English-Leicester lamb,, another thought that it looked more like Lincoln wool, some thought it was hair from an Angora goat, others gave other opinions, but none of them got near the correct' article. As a matter of fact the lock in question was cut off the neck of a poodle dog! The Military School for the sons of nobles in Pekin does not seem to have been a success. It was opened in 1906 r and the period of instruction was to be Ave years, so tihat in the ordinary course the first batch of graduates would have emerged in Hill. But the attendance was so irregular and the disposition to learn so defective, that the authorities decided' to shorten the term by two years, and accordingly ninety students, were graduated in 1009. When these youths were distributed among the local divisions it was found that the majority were not fit even to be non-eom-missioned officers, and they we?e drafted into the Imperial Guards, the school being at the same time closed. The Prince Regent is now said to have decided that the institution shall be reopened and conducted on stricter Knee.

The inheritance tax of £184,000 shows, says the New York correspon. dent of the "Daily Telegraph'" that Mr. Harriman died worth £14,250,000, instead of the £20,000,000 with which the public credited him. Even the raikway king's friends thought £18,000,000 a conservative estimate. The authorities who received the tax desire to know just what stocks Mr. Harriman owned, but the information has not been forthcoming. It is recalled that Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and, Stewart Kennedy, the little-known philanthropist, who came here an emigrant boy from Scotland and acquired wealth, alt left fortunes just over,£l4,ooo;oQo. Thia amount would be greater but for the practice of American millionaires to distribute their funds largely during life to universities, charities, and hospitals. Mr. J. D. Rockfeller, the Standard oil king, who is undoubtedly the world's richest man, has lately been busy ridding himself of many superfluous millions, and if his life is prolonged he may yet be successful in concealing the real extent of the wealth lie has acquired. A short time ago one of Mr. Rockfellerts lieutenants, Henry Rogers, died, leaving nearly £B,OOO/)00, and what Rogers had at his best was always a mere bagatelle compared to the wealth of his chief.