LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 187, 17 November 1910, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A representative committee was formed last night towards the establishment of a Y.M.C.A. in Wanganui, sHys a Press message. The Postal Department advise that the Brindisi mail despatched from Wellington on October 7 reached London on the 11th inst. The funds of the New Plymouth Hospital will, it is anticipated by the Hoard, benefit through the recent performance of 'Dorothy" by about £SO. Of the £45,362 voted for roads and bridges in the Taranaki land district last year onlv £22,701 was expended. This year the sum of £43,910 figures on the Estimates. Owing to the accident to the Opunake motor coach, the mails will for the present be despatched by Jury's coach, closing at New Plymouth at 9 a.m. This arrangement commences to-day. The Presbyterian General Assembly, now sitting at Auckland, occupied all yesterday morning in the discussion of the merits of "Church Praise'' versus "The Hymnary," and decided to delay decision till next session, and in the meantime to obtain opinions from Presbyterian sessions' choir leaders. " J At Greymouth an old resident killea two ducks, and on opening their gizzards found several samples of coarse gold. The ducks were bred on the place, and were allowed to wander about the hill. How they got gold in that locality is causing some interest, and duck-owner* are deliberating whether they shall increase their broods or emigrate to Bullfinch. Acting under orders from the Vatican, Archbishop Richelly, of Turin, has declined to celebrate tile marriage or Prince Victor Bonaparte, the French Pretender, with Princess Clementine, of Belgium, although all the arrangements foi the Ceremony are complete. It is believed that the Pope asserted his prerogative with the object of striking at the Quirinal, owing to the couple being related to Italian royalty. A dearth of female and boy labour is reported from Nelson by the Laboui Journal. Owing to the fact that the demand exceeds the supply, a great deal of overtime is beinjjf worked in the confectionery and jam factories. There are also many applications for labour for the fruit and hop season. Many girls are said to prefer this class of work to domestic duties. The domestic laboui famine continues all over New Zealand.

In the bankruptcy division of the Supreme Court yesterday morning, before Mr. J. Terry (Deputy-Registrar), Mr. A. H. Johnstone (instructed by MesarsMeek and Von Haast, of -Wellington), acting for the petitioning creditors, Briscoe and Co., Ltd., sought for an order of adjudication of George Hodgkinson and Bernard Fama, builders, Patea, as "bankrupts l . There was no opposition ,to the application, and the order asked for was granted.

French opinion is that it is not at all improbable that within the next six months there will either be a dictatorship in Portugal or a return to monarchical institutions, with the Duke of Oporto, King Manuel's uncle, on r the throne. It is pointed out that from the days of Louis XVI. it has always been a mistake for Kings to make Concessions against prerogatives, and that Manuel's fate may be that of Spain's present ruler.

"Wellington is the most expensive, place in New Zealand to live in," was a statement made by Mr. J. G. Aitken, of Wellington, at the Presbyterian General Assembly held recently. House rent, he .said, was quite 25 per cent, dearer in Wellington than in any other town in the Dominion. Notwithstanding the recent depression and the fact that there were a considerable number of empty houses iu Wellington, the rents of suitable dwellings there had not decreased. Despatches from Abyssinia report that hundreds have fallen in a desperate battle between the forces of the young Emperor, Lidji Yeassu, and those of the Empress Taitou. It is known that tht, agents of the Empress have been preparing for over a year to wrest the throne from King Menelik's youthful successor. Nubian agents are now seeking British and Italian intervention to prevent an outbreak of civil war. It is believed that Italy is anxious to regain a foothold in Abyssinia.

A well-known Whenuakura farmer, who is also a keen nature student, is of opinion that imported game such as quail and pheasants, are much scarcer throughout the district that they were a few years ago. On the other hand, wekas have increased considerably in numbers. This is believed to be due to the protection forwarded by boxthorn hedges, in which the weka is generally pretty safe from the attack of marauding dogs. In some places the predatory habits of the weka is said to be responsible for a falling-off in the supply of eggs at certain farms. Where the poultry runs are not weka-proof, the* cunning egg lovers soon find out the nest, and demolish the contents. Turkey's nests have, it is, said, suffered considerably from their depredations this spring.—Patea Press.

The death is announced in Melbourne papers of Mrs. Ann Smith, formerly Mrs. Jones, who lived at Glenrowan in the stirring days of the Kelly gang of bushrangers. * At the time when the gang made its last stand at Glenrowan Mrs. Smith was the wife of the proprietor oi the Glenrowan hotel. Her husband was shot, after the gang, in seeking to escape from the police surrounded tho premises and fired into the building regardless of the fact that it containea numbers of townspeople herded there by the gang, including Mrs. Smith (Jones) and her children. She escaped from the hotel before it was burned, but not before her children had been struck by bullets. Her escape was remarkable, as she walked about the building quite indifferent to the fire of the police. Then her anxiety and grief led her to bitterly upbraid the police as murderers, and she could not be persuaded for some time to quit the building when the police ceased to fire.

"For ways that are dark and tricks that are „ vain, the heathen Chinee ie peculiar," so we ar.e told, but he cannot beat the finger-print system of identification. In the ingenious days of not so very long ago it wa« quite a common practice for a Chinaman, who had made his little pile in New Zealand, to leave for the Flowery Land and settle down once and for all near the tombs of his ancestors. In some cases the final act was to dispose of his papers in HongKong or Canton to one of his countrymen prepared to try his luck in the Dominion. The trick of using false papers is not so easily worked nowadays, as before leaving Xew Zealand a» Chinaman who takes out papens leaves on record his finger-print alongside his signature, so that when the '"'signature" comes along again the presenter is asked for his finger-print as well. A, case of a Chinaman trying to slip through on another man's papers happened at Wellington on the arrival of the Manuka from Svdnev. The papers were in order, but (he finger-print of the newly-arrived failed to correspond with tiie impress in the Customs records. The result was that the man had to be sent back to Svdnev.; .aftd»Atet>rttohoxUi»i«.'■■tltr.vfl., will J

A well-dressed woman planted herself on the motorman's platform of a Caver-sham-bound car just after five o'clock, a few nights ago (says the Dunedin Star), and resisted every appeal to get off. As the front platform is forbidden to passengers except under special circumstances, the motorman had no choice but to keep his car standing till the trespasser was evicted, or until he received authority to proceed; and since it was crush-time* four or five other cars were soon held up the stubborn lady. Presently an inspector came along and gave the motorman authority to pull out, which lie did, and relieved the jam. The joke is that after all the lady wanted to get to St. Clair, not Caversham, and further south she peaceably left her place of honor for a less conspicuous seat on the St. Clair car.

'•Of what awaits me I will not speak.. Of what awaits you let me first say one thing. A change of vicars in a parish is always a trying thing, because it is hound to bring changes and difference!* of one sort or other," remarked the Rev. O. P..-Davys, vicar of St. Peter's. Wellington, in the course of his valedictory sermon to parishioners, on Sunday evening. Continuing, he said: "And there isa temptation to make comparisons between the old and the new, to the detriment of one or the other. May I ask you to remember that unless one" is careful and fair, one may do great injustice to the greatest and most devoted earnestness, the purest sense of duty, and * the deepest love of souls, because they come in a form that does not appeal' to one. Let us," he concluded, "remember that there are more right waysthan one."

The news that Mr. Hugh J. Ward has joined the firm of J. C. Williamson and Co., while it may come as a surprise to most people, was not altogether unexpected by his personal friends. Mr. Ramiciotfci will cease to be a member of "the firm," and it is his interest, or the greater part of it, that Mr. Ward has acquired. Mr. Ward's career both as actor and actor-manager has been an eminently successful one, and undoubtedly he will be a valuable acquisition to"the firm." A private cablegram received from him from Perth (W.A.) states that his farewell tour as an actor is announced. He will bid farewell to the stage in June 1911, when he will take up his residence permanently in Sydney. New Zealanders will probably have the pleasure of saying farewell to Mr. Ward early in 1911,' it being his intention to play a farewell tour throughout the Dominion. After that Mr.. Ward's company will disband, and Miss Palotta will leave for Vienna on a visit to her mother.