LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 251, 2 March 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The (jreymouth Star roports that a Brunner resident, as a result of partaking of a small tin of oysters experienced all the agonies of poisoning sometimes associated with tinned luxuries.

According to the last Gazette, the following birds indigenous to New Zealand are not to be protected this year:— Kea (or mountain parrot), hawks of all species, black shags, white-throated shags, and red shags. According to the Marton paper, the. price of earthen pipes has recently been increased by 33 1-3 per cent., and owing to this fact no satisfactory tender was received by the Marton Borough Council for the sewerage works. There were 7 marriages, 24 births, and 7 deaths in the district of the New Plymouth Registrar (Mr. J. S. S. Medley) during the month of February. For the corresponding month of last year the figures were 11, 20, and 7 respectively. There is a suspicion in the minds of a great many people that the Government valuations of urban as well as rural lands are inflated. A property in Masterton, which was valued for taxation purposes at £3OO, recently changed hands at £3lO.

According to the statement of a mother in the Feilding Court, her husband, who preferred to follow up racing to work, had sold a pig belonging to their little boy for £5 and took another £1 from the children's money-box and went racing with the £6.

Writing to a New Plymouth resident, a Londoner states that the cost of living in England is rapidly increasing. Bacon is selling at Is 2d per lb, best English beef Is per lb, and pork at Is 3d per lb. He adds that New Zealand mutton can be bought for 0d per lb.

The Maori chief Ratotonu died at Te Kuiti last week. Money to the extent of £490 was fotii.d in a font underneath his pillow. The deceased had been a leading chief, and took a prominent part in the Waikato wars in his younger days, and had many narrow escapes. A private letter received by a resident of l'almerston from a friend in Canada states that the hay crop has been a failure this season, and much stock will have to be disposed of before winter; indeed, it is feared that there will be considerable mortality of stock during the winter. Cattle were heing sent to Winnipeg from long distances to satisfy local requirements.

The twenty-sixth annual conference oi the W.C.T.U. will take place at New Plymouth this month, commencing on the 23rd and finishing on the 30th. It is exjffected, from" the number of applications for lodgings received, that th? delegates will number betweeu 90 and 100. If this is the case, it will be the largest attendance at any W.C'.T.U. conference held in the Dominion.

There are hundreds of unoccupied houses in Wellington at the present time. A New Plymouthite who has just returned from a visit to the capital city tells us that as showing how "values" of suburban properties have receded, a friend of his who bought about half-an-acre of land four years a'go for £IOOO could not realise now even £SOO on it. The bubble has burst with a vengeance, and the city is suffering and will continue to suffer for some time to come.

Messrs. Boon Bros., the contractors for the removal of the Old People's Home to its new site at Westmvn, havo now got the old men's quarters in readiness for occupation, and at !) o'clock to-day the inmates will be transferred. The contractors have kindly offered to transfer the inmates, and tlie traction engine and trolley which have been used in removing the building will be again utilised. The trolley has been floored, and seats will be provided for the okl men, and all their belongings will be taken along at the same time.

"The only fish which the Campbell Island whalers can obtain for eating is the flounder, which is of excellent, firmness and condition. According to an Invcrcargill paper, on one occasion last 1 year they killed a sea elephant, and on dissecting it they found that it had no less than 22 flounders in its stomach, one measuring 21 inches. The modus operandi of catching a fish is spearing, although the men consider that if they had a net they could obtain some very, fine hauls. The flounders seem to be very numerous. The depredations of the sea elephants do not appear to diminish the nuniDer to any great extent.

Tlie cost of house rent, as compared with the average wage of the casual laborer, was strikingly illustrated during, the hearing of a Wellington court ease. Three of the witnesses called were the wives of laborers. The first deposed that her husband earned £2 a week on an average, and out of this £1 10s went in rent for a six-roomed cottage. The second witness, with her husband and family of two, rented a two-roomed cottage for which they paid 10s a week out of earnings of £2 a week. The last of the witnesses stated that she and her husband and one child rented two rooms, the average earnings of the head of the house being only £1 10s per week.

Me«srs. E. ,7. Carthew and Co., land agents, New Plymouth, report the following sales:—Mr. MeMahon, 400 acres, to Mr. W. Hamilton, of Whangamomona. Mr. Hartnell's six-roomed residence in Devon street to Mr. Davies, of Stratford. Mr. Baldock's six-roomed residence and three-quarter acre of land, Devon street, to Mrs. Jakes, of Waipukn. Mr. Simmons' fine 270-acre farm at Tikorangi to Mr. Wells. Mr. Wells' 100-aere dairy farm at Mangorei. Mr. Loofley's 50-acre dairy farm at Oakura. Mrs. Pikett's one-eighth acre and fiveroomed residence to an investor, and one acre lniilding site to Mr. A. McDiarmid; and at Vogeltown, a six-roomed residence and half-acre to Mr. Priest, of Okato. Workers in search of their own homes under new legislation will be interested to learn that regulations are about to be gazetted. Any person receiving an income of not more than £175 per annum, who can deposit £lo,may apply to the Lab-] or Department requesting the building of a home up to some £4OO, £SOO or £OOO. Interest will have to be paid at the rate of !i per cent per annum for the money advanced, and 2 per cent per annum for the repayment of the principal sum. A large number of plans ot suitable cottages have been prepared by the Labor Department for the selection of applicants. These are of various designs—neat and cosy looking. They must., however, be adhered to by applicants in the essentials, but reasonable! departures from the designs will be permitted. The goodness of Warner's Corsets is not all in the shape.—Advfc.

A Waitara fisherman is talking of erecting a "freezer" at Kawhia and going in for the fishing business on a large scale, and supplying the whole of the Taranaki market.

Saturday's storm was responsible for a rise in the liutt river of seven feet above the ordinary summer level. No damage, however, is reported on this account. Along the sea front at Petone a considerable quantity of debris was washed up, and one or two wash-outs of a minor nature occurred on the Huti Park railway line.

The statement that the decline in the birth-rate in civilised countries is due to woman suffrage is challenged by Mrs. Fawcett, the'well-known advocate of votes for women, who quotes.the following figure* in support of her contention: In New Zealand, where women can vote, the birth-rate is 27 per thousand, while in Canada, which is without woman suffrage, it is only 23 per thousand. An inquest was held at Stratford on Tuesday regarding the death of Eli Whitley, a laborer at Whangamomona, who was found dead in Stratford on Sunday. The jury returned a verdict thai deceased met his death by exposure, and that no blame was attachable to the hospital authorities or' the police. The Coroner, in concurring, said that in future it would be well if those in the ( backblocks sending patients in to the hospital would also send a telephone message to the police, so that the patients could be met at the station and seen to by the police. Mr. McC'luggage had acted very kindly in the present case, and deceased met his death entirely through his own fault in not going at once to the hospital.

In view of the '"breeze" which occurred

in the House last session between Mr. W. T. Jennings, M.P., and a member of the Cabinet, it is considered sometimes that the popular elect of Taumarunni is "without the pale." Hence the following exerpt from the Ohakune Times is peculiarly readable:—"On several occasions during his recent visit and particularly in the course of his political address at the Town Hall here, Sir Joseph Ward made special reference to the splendid services which Mr. Jennings, M.P., has rendered to his constituency. During ten years faithful representation, Sir Joseph said Mr. Jennings had given the Government great assistance in legislating for the special requirements and great needs of the pioneers of the back blocks."

Everyone has fieard of the hardships of bnckbloek settlers ill winter time, owing to the diflieulty of getting supplies in on account of the bad state'of tlio road. It is not often, however (says the Wanganui Herald), that summer time sees them in a similar plight, though this, we are told, is what has lately been happening to the Ahu Ahu settlers, though the cause is not tile bad state of the roads, but tin low start of the river. Some of the settlers in lae block have to depend 011 the Wanganui river steamers for communication, and o'ving to the shrinkage in depth due to the long spell of dry weather, it lias not been possible for the boats to take all the cargo offering. Consequently the people at Ahu Ahu have had to husband their supplies, and the arrival of even one sack of flop is mi event to rejoice oyer. The member for Wcstland, Mr. T. K. Y. Seddon, reached Wellington this week ( after a visit to the West Coast, and g.'ve a New Zealand Times representative particulars of the way in which the district is developing. The most satisfactory news was that after a long depression the timber trade has revived and is actually so flourishing that Mr. Seddon felt justified in saying that there is a boom. "So unlike what prevailed this time last year," he remarked. ''The local demand is good, but the industry

is doing well, principally because of the large Australian orders for white pine. Prices are satisfactory, but I have had

again to make urgent representations to the Railway Department regarding the

lack of sufficient trucks to carry on the business." As an indication of the expected permanence of the season of prosperity, Mr. Seddon stated that Messrs 'Butler I'ros., of Hokitika, have laid down one of the largest mills in the country, equipping it with the most modern machinery. They have, in fact,

taken their competitors, the Oregon mills, as a'pattern, and their plant is capable of an output of 40,000 feet of sawn timber per day.

Mr;. Jennings, M.P., who has been for six or seven weeks travelling in the remote portions of his electorate, lias covered no, less than 2670 miles by railway, buggy, horseback , 'coach, and steamer. He informed a News reporter last/night that road and bridge work was proceeding very satisfactorily in parts of his district. He instanced the metalling of the Te Kuiti-Awakino road, which was proceeding under the supervision of Mr. Rothery, formerly of Rahotu. This work was being done expeditiously, and would be of great service to travellers on this much-used highway. To show the real advantage of metalled road as compared with the slush which lias to serve as a road often for many years, he stated that two years ago it took from seven to eight hours to travel from Pio Pio to Te Kuiti, a distance of only 10 miles. On this visit he had done the journey on the metal in 2>4 hours, after opening the Mapara bridge a few weeks ago. Mr. Jennings also noticed that metalling was going on under the supervision of the Clifton County Council along the Mimi-Mokau road, between Uruti and Mt. Messenger. Work generally seemed to have been pushed on with greater expedition in the last twelve or eighteen months, and most of it was being carried out under the contract system. Tenders for the long-looked-for Ongarue bridge near Taumarunui closed last week, and a Wellington firm's tender had been accepted. With the exception of those districts visited by fires recently, the country was in great heart.