LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 227, 31 January 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

■ o The goods shed at the Eltham railway station has been lengthened by sixty feet and re-roofed throughout. The whole of the buildings have been re-painted. As the Income Tax Department has lately been sending out its notices, it may be stated that where an income does not exceed £4OO the tax is Od, where it is over £4OO but not not exceed £6OO, 7d, and when it exceeds £2OOO Is 2d.

According to the Prussian Minister of | Agriculture the prices of meat in the better sections-of Berlin rule as follow: Roast beef, Is 2d to Is 3d per lb; fillet cutlet of beef, Is 7d to 2s 2d; pork cutlets, Is M to Is 3d. There is no suggestion of May and December or of marriage for money in the following advertisement which appeared in a Wellington paper:—Wanted by old age pensioner, a wife; she must be an old-age pensioner also; must be an abstainer; advertiser has a good home in the country.

A resident of Ashburton, in conversation with a Timaru Herald reporter, said that sly-grog selling is now almost a tiling of the past in Ashburton. This he attributed to the excellent way in which the police had brought offenders to book, and to the substantial fines imposed by Mr. V. G. Day, S.M. He added that there had not been one sly-grog case in Ashburton during the past two months.

New local swimming classes are in course of formation at the West End School.

At the S.M. Court, Opunake, on Thursday, the case of J. R. Stewart v. Kohi, a claim for surveyor's services was heard. After evidence had been taken and considerable discussion, judgment was given for the amount claimed, with costs (lis), and solicitor's fee £1 Cs.

Good progress is being made towards the opening of the new co-operative bacon factory and the commencement of the pork export business at Eltham. Mr. R. Butcher, of Wellington, and formerly one of the curers for Messrs Dimock and Co., has been appointed manager of the new concern.

At a banquet tendered at Kimbolton to Mr E. Short, Mr C. J. Reakes, Chief Government Veterinarian, urged on all farmers the necessity for keeping up the breed of flocks, and always doing their best for the purpose of keeping the New Zealand meat in the highest position in the Home market.

The building trade is stated to be brisk at Fitzroy at present. Besides those recently built, two large residences are in course of construction on part of the Shuttleworth Estate subdivided about eighteen months ago, on a new road which will eventually be the main thoroughfare to the beach from this rising suburb. Since the day of its acquirement by the State, says the Dominion, the goods traflie on the Manawatu railway has greatly increased. The policy is to send as much traffic as possible over that route, and to spare the greater cost of haulage over the heavy Rimutaka grades. Many more tTains than foi'merly run over the Manawatu line.

The West End School opened after the holiday recess with a roll number of 379 (including 37 new pupils), compared to 417 on the roll when the school broke up. At the beginning of 1910, the numbers were 345, compared to 397. To-day, the school mistress (Mrs. Dowling) informs us, seventeen proficiency pupils from this school enter the New Plymouth High School. The usual fortnightly meeting of the Loyal Egmont Lodge, 1.0.0. F., M.U., was held last evening, Bro. C. A. Mathcsoni N.G., presiding. Two members were initiated, and a letter of recommendation granted to a member who has removed to the Auckland province. The annual balance-sheet was read and adopted. The total value of the accumulated funds is £6844 lis 3d.

Gillies and Nalder held their monthly horse fair at Hawera on Saturday. There was a good entry of 112 horses. Except for anything of good quality, animals were hard to dispose of. Prices on the whole were satisfactory. Good draughts fetched up to £3O, hacks ranged from £5 to £ls, while aged and inferior sorts commanded up to £5. There was a fair enquiry for milk-cart horses, which realised to £lB and £2l. The visit of the Rev. Mr. Mason, the water diviner, to Wairoa is likely to prove of great benefit to the people of the town should his water prophecies prove correct. He indicated in the Recreation ground a reservoir of water at no great depth, capable of giving a supply of. from 200,000 to '250,000 gallons per day. The site is only 40ft away from the bore put down some years ago at great expense to a depth of 800 ft. Mr. Mason pointed out that it was just possible to mis-tapping a supply by a few feet or inches.

The Stratford District High School committee is the first, believes the Feilding Star, to ask for the enforcement of section 18 of the Education Amendment Act of last session requiring the attendance of all young people between 14 and 17 years of age at continuation classes. At Tuesday's meeting, the Taranaki Board approved of the application, but resolved to defer taking action until receiving further information with regard to regulations from the Department, and that the Department be applied to for a model set of regulations. The Stratford committee, adds the paper, has the reputation of being a keen and bright body, and thus it continues to take a live interest in its work.

The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily Express reported some weeks ago that Prince Waldimir Teropakoff, a penniless nobleman, sacrificed his life in Moscow in an attempt to win a very strange wager. Count Waldig, a wealthy landowner, made a bet with him that he would not drink a gallon ol liquor at a draught. The Prince's reward if he accomplished the feat was to be the title deeds of a valuable estate. The Prince ate nothing all day with the exception of a salt herring, and in the evening, in the presence of the Count and four witnesses, he raised a gallon jar to his lips and drank steadily until he set it down empty. The title-deeds ot the estate were handed to him, but hardly had he received them when he sank to the ground and died in a few moments.

Mr. Robert McNab, interviewed by a Southland News reporter recently, said land values were very much higher in the North Island than in Southland. Personally, he did not tiling the land in itself was more fertile in the North than in the South, if it were looked at purely from the point of view of an analysis of the soil, but the extra number of hours of sunshine in the year through the shorter winter gave a much longer growing period when .stock had to be fed witu specially-grown fo.mev, thus making a very great difference in the values. Land at £4O an acre was not uncommon, and prices up to and over £SO for the best dairying country had been touched in favored spots in Taranaki. These prices were not given by men who did not know their work, but who were making a living out of their properties. They could not be given where a special effort had to be made to grow their winter feed.

An article in the Army and Navy Gazette on the new Defence Act in New Zealand, contributed by Major Boyd Wilson, does not give much confidence in the scheme from the "universal" point of view. By omitting to provide a means for the selection of the 3000 men who will annually be required for the territorial army out of a total available—after exemptions — of 5000, the "House has failed to perform a most obvious duty, and has allowed to pass out of its hands the settling of a most vital question which, in the interests ol the community, in the interests of the defence of the country, in the interests of the territorials, and last, but not least, in the interests of the recruits themselves, should have been thoroughly threshed out on the floor of the House. Thus the very keystone of the whole fabric, the pivot upon which the harmonious and effective working of the defence scheme depends, the most intricate question that requires solution is—left to regulations. And if the regulations on the subject are at all loosely worded the door will be at once be open for the pulling of strings all over the country, political and petticoat influence will receive an open field for their baneful efforts, and grave dissatisfaction may follow." Major Boyd Wilson suggests as a remedy that those who are not chosen for the territorial force or legally exempted, should receive a training in some quasi-military occupation, such as transport, hospital orderlies, etc., and compelled to devote an equal amount of time to the service of the State.

At a mooting of the Stratford A. and P. Association on Friday a motion to hold the show in February instead of December was lost.

Mr. R. Davies, of New Plymouth, has been making a collection of New Zealand woods on behalf of two American botanists, and has already procured ana forwarded SO different varieties. He hopes to add another 30.

Not a little excitement was caused in Rotorua a few days ago when it became known that a new geyser had broken out at Shag Rock, just behind the Postmaster Baths. Several who inspected this new geyser state that water is ejected to the height of 20ft. The trade returns for 1910 show that the dairying industry, in addition to sup-: plying the large and growing domestic trade—estimated as £1,000,000 for butter and £IOO,OOO for cheese—gave for export butter to the value of £1,823,000 and cheese to the value of £1,200,000. This total export of over £3,000,000 is still a long way behind the £8,000,000 which was the approximate value oi the wool export trade ; but the butter increase for the year, as compared to 1909, was £183,700, and the cheese increase £94,800, making a total year's increase of £278,500, or over 10 per cent.

A correspondent of the King Country Chronicle writes:—"On the South East side of Aria all the land belongs to the natives, and is locked v/p. Go where you will in that part of the King Country a block of native land is usually somewhere blocking progress and being a burden to the settlers. Close to the factory is a block of 2000 acres with roads all round it and contains some of the finest dairying country it is possible to see. It is mill-stones such as these that keep districts I back. Blackberry, gorse, broom and ragwort are all infesting this area. When land containing weeds like these is permitted to remain in the midst of hard-working pioneer settlers, enhancing its value by their money, labor and industry, it is truly a sad state of affairs. Yet there it is, plain, to be seen—an eyesore and a disgrace. All this block should be carrying, settlers, all of whom would undoubtedly be milking cows."