LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 230, 3 February 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

It has cost the Geraldine County Council (near Timaru) over £IOO for small birds' eggs this season for the Temuka district alone. Some of the eggs have not been paid for, and many boys are holding 1.0.b.'s for their egg money. A child just born to the wife of Judge Richard B. Russell, of Atlanta, Ga., <8 already famous. The infant is a boy, and is the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child on his mother's side, and the seventh son of a seventh son on the side of his father.

It is stated that three male teachers under the Wanganui Education Board intend leaving the service this year in order to follow farming pursuits. The reason assigned is that the demands of the present syllabus have now become so great that the teaching profession has no longer any attraction for them.

As an illustration of the popularity of moving pictures in Russia, it is estimated that the takings at those places of amusement last year, with an average admission of lOd, amounted to £4,300,000. The films were chiefly of French and Italian origin, and during the cnolera outbreak they were used greatly in educating the people to prevent a spread of the disease. Sir Frederick Treves has spoken of "the extraordinary habit people taking drugs when they are ill." "if you picture," he said, "the environment of a doctor .... you see a roonr

.vith a multitude of shelves, covered with bottles irom floor to ceiling. Those bottles are rapidly vanishing, and the time is not far distant when they will be reduced to an extremely small number. The empty shelves will be replaced by simple living, suitable diet, plenty of sun, and plenty of fresh air." Reports by the Karamea, which has arrived from Montreal, state that there is not the slightest doubt that a great trade will eventually spring up between Canada and New Zealand. The high prices imposed by the American meat rings are causing distress to all classes in the great Dominion, and Canadians arc hoping in the near future to import frozen mutton from New Zealand.

A strange find was made recently near Kelso. A weather-beaten iron box was offered tor sale to a dealer in scrap iron, but owing to a dispute the sale did not take place. The box was subsequently opened by a blacksmith and found to contain rings, watches, necklaces, and other jewellery, valued altogether at several hundred pounds. The lumber heap, of which the box formed part, was on the site of some houses which were burned down many years ago. The Wairarapa Daily Times breaks out editorially:—"Every year it is being borne in upon us that the present condition of society is intolerable —that it is a rotten, crumbling fabric, and that it cannot much longer exist at all. The conviction finds expression in socialistic visions, in anarchial schemes. Some dream of a lair day, of a new world; others try to hasten the coming of that good time which still seems so far oil', by some sensational act to make men stand still and bethink them! How is society knit together? By the ties of expediency, of necessity. The savagery of a bygone time is veiled, but it is noi departed. What mighty upheaval is at hand?" Gee!

A "distinguished visitor" —who looked it —recently called on the Mayor of l'almerston North and told him that he was detained in Palmerston on his way to meet Sir Joseph Ward at Auckland. Ilis Worship showed him the sights of Palmerston and passed him on finally to a leading hotel, after he had expressed himself as graciously pleased with the Square, the Mayor and the various "lions." At the hotel he desired to change a cheque for £lO. The hotelkeeper demurred, but finally changed one for two guineas. It was,' it was said, returned from Wellington marked "no account," and now there are enquiries for a distinguished visitor. Several million tons, it is believed, of a new mineral lie in a remarkable vein of which a sample has just been discovered at Bernhadily, near Almeria, which has been named calfatita, after its finder, Senor Calfat. This mineral consists of a substance which, after being calcined, produces pure alumina and pure sulphate of soda. ]t is thought that his discovery may bring about a revolution in the sulphate of soda market, which lias up to the present been monopolised by tin' Germans. An American linn lifts already made an offer to purchase 00,000 tons of the new mineral annually, but so far no decision has been arrived at.

Speaking is reference to a motion passed at the last meeting of the Hutt Borough Council, the chairman of the Tramway Board (Mr. J. W. McEwan) states that in the course of a few weeks lie would receive an offer from the Edison Storage Battery Car Company to put down an 11-mile service for the sum of £45,000. If the people of the tramway district wished to accept the offer and run the service on the same lines as Cliristchurch (under the Tramway Board) an opportunity would be afforded them to do so. If not, then it was more than probable that a company would be formed, to whirl) the Board would delegate its powers under section 42 of the Hutt Valley Tramways Act. A boy named Murdoch Munro, of the Waipawa L/istriet High School, llawke's Bay, has distinguished himself and his school in an unusual way at recent examinations. Four years ago lie was in Standard If., but was promoted to Standard 111. before he passed Standard 11. After spending one term in Standard 111. he was promoted to Standard V., thus passing through three standards in one year. The next year lie spent in Standard VI., and gained a proficiency certificate. In 1009 he was a pupil in the Secondary Department, and in 1910, four years after he was in Standard 11., he passed both the .Junior Civil Service and Matriculation examinations. This ' surely a record for rapid progress. Munro is about 14 years of age.

The Amalgamated Press, of London, in which company is included the Daily Mail, the Evening News, Home Chat. Answers, the London Magazine, and numerous other publications controlled bv Lord Northeliffe, held its annual meeting last month. Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, who presided, announced that last year the company distributed £175,000 for literary contributions and salaries—over £3OOO a week. After allowing £25,000 for depreciation in plant and buildings, the profits for the year stood at £25!),500, and the interest on preference shares in the company was covered nearly ten times over. As the ordinary shareholders had been receiving for many years a dividend of 40 per cent., the directors had decided to commence a staff pension fund, and were setting aside the sum of £15,000 as a beginning.

The Tailuipe Borough Council has authorised 11 contract for an electric-lighting scheme to cost £5504. The vital statistics for the month ol January in the New Plymouth district were; Births, 27; deaths, 13; marriages, C.

The director and the organiser of the Technical School have been busy during the week in interviewing the masters of the various trades in New Plymouth with a view to arranging classes for the coming year, on lines suited to the requirements of the various trades interested. It is intended to issue a prospectus, giving details of the syllabi of the different courses of work.

Some 1700 tickets were issued in connection with the Stratford picnic, which was held at the Breakwater, lloturoa, yesterday. Two trains were requisitioned, the first one, which reached the beach at about ten o'clock, consisting of nine covered-in waggons and a similar number of carriages. Everything passed off satisfactorily, there being no accident of any kind. The weather was Taranaki's best, and that is saying a good deal. And that none appreciated this circumstance more than did the 'bus men hardly requires to be stated, for ttiey made the most of the golden sunshine.

At the Magistrate's Court yesterday morning, before Mr. Fitzherbert, S.M., Charles Revell, of Okato, was ordered to pay the amount of his old-age pension monthly ( £2 3s 4d) into court until the extinction of arrears for the maintenance of bis wife. The sum owing now is £ll 10s, which accumulated at the rate of 15s a week up to November 5 (when the information was laid) and 5s a week to date. The effect of the order will be that defendant will receive no part of his pension for nine months, but he was agreeable to do this if he will be allowed to keep his earnings for himself.

Local sports were put on their mettlo yesterday. Besides the usual cricket matches, Stratford assailed the fort at bowling, tennis, and croquet, and Inglewood sallied forth to do battle in the first-named. The visitors were successful only at croquet, in which the New Plymouth Club's players went down rather badly. On the New Plymouth bowling green Stratford were defeated by 49 points, and Fitzroy accounted for Inglewood by a majority of eleven points. At tennis the New Plymouth club beat Stratford by 40 games, and Fitzroy had 38 games more to their credit than the Stratford W.Y.M.I. team.

Speaking to a reporter on Wednesday Mr. Renner, secretary of the Patea Shipping Company, said that his company was not inconvenienced in any way by the fact that a section of the men at Patea were refusing to work their boats. An instance given by him to show tha» such was the ease was that on Monday last during fifteen working hours, two boats belonging to the company handled 200 tons of general cargo outwards and 2300 crates of cheese inwards. In regard to the men employed in working the vessels at Wellington Mr. Eenner stated that, up to the present, his company had had no trouble) and everything was working smoothly. Before the Grand Jury was discharged by Mr. Justice Chapman at the Wellington session of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the foreman said its members wished to specially commend the behaviour of one witness, named McCann, in connection with an indecent assault at the Basin Reserve. The jury had asked him to convey to his Honor its commendation of Mr. McCann for his manly conduct in taking action to prevent injury or harm of any kind ol a child of tender years, and, in the absence of a constable, very bravely arresting the culprit and taking him to the police station. Recognising that so few people seemed to realise the responsilibity resting upon them, the grand jury thought some word of commendation should be spoken in this instance. His Honor: Thank you, gentlemen, 1 hope the public press will take notice of that.