LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 289, 26 April 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Good Templars' Hail will be performed to-morrow afternoon. It has been finally decided that the Irish delegates will speak in New Plymouth at an early date, and a meeting will be held in the Rolland Hall to-mor-row evening to make suitable arrangements, and to fix a date for their reception.

There will be a polling-booth at Mr. Crocker's store to-day in connection with the harbor election. An idea seems to have gained ground that owing to there being no poll for borough councillors in the east ward there would be no facilities for East End voters.

The dairy factory employees of Taranaki are holding a big meeting at New Plymouth on May 3rd to discuss the demands made by the workers and the position that has arisen through the Dairy Factory Employees' Union refusing to register under the Arbitration Act, and the employers' refusal to confer as to a new award until it does so.

A Stratford correspondent writes denouncing what he' characterises as a "diabolical plot" to get rid of the borough foreman and put in. his place another man, * who, he alleges, i,s a bosom friend of certain interested parties. As, however, we are noj prepared to-fight a series of libel actions that would probably follow the insertion of the letter, we are unable to give it publicity. "Oh, Mr. King and >Mr. Maxwell are certainties. They can't help going in." said a caller yesterday in reference to the harbor elections. If everybody thinks so, and refrains from voting on that account as this man proposed to do, there's a very grave possibility that the candidates named will not poll sufficiently heavy to win. It behoves the electors to take an interest in the matter, and to go to the poll. During the hearing of a judgment summons case yesterday at the local S.M. Court, examining counsel elicited the fact that debtor spent one shilling per week on tobacco. He considered that a man who owed money should not smoke, but should devote that amount weekly towards reducing the debt. His Worship, however, considered that one shilling weekly was quite a moderate expenditure on the fragrant weed, which to some men was food as well as smoke.

The importance of keeping a cash book correctly is hardly realised sufficiently by farmers, and in accordance with the idea of bringing the matter before those interested, the Education Board have asked their instructor, Mr. 0. M. Hawson, A.C.A. (London), to give a lesson on the subject on Friday next at the Inglewood School. Mr. Hawson will explain fully a simple and up-to-date method of ascertaining how one's cash account and bank account stand.

"That the captain of a mailboat is no respecter of persons was well exemplified" (says the "Western Pacific Herald," Suva, Fiji, of March 22nd). The Makura had left its moorings when Sir Joseph Ward and family rushed along the wharf just in time to be too late. The U.S.S. Company's launch, however, came to the rescue, and the successor to the late "King Dick" was safely stowed aboard. Surely we are entitled to consider it a compliment that the Premier of "God's own Country" could only tear himself away from the attractions of Suva at the last possible moment. At the Inglewood Police Court, before Messrs. W. E. Pereival and H. Trimble, J.sP., on Saturday, A. Barlow was charged with a breach of the Police Offences Act in failing to bury the body of a deceased calf. Defendant did not appear, but wrote to the clerk of the court pleading guilty to the charge and was fined £1 and costs 7s. L. Instcr was charged with a breach of the borough by-laws in riding a bicycle on the footpath in Matai street; convicted and fined Is and costs 7s. J. 0. D. Quigley was charged with allowing his chimney to catch fire on the 13th inst. Defendant did not appear and Constable Fitzgibbons conducted the prosecution.. Defendant was convicted and fine 10s and costs 7s.

The usual weekly sitting of the Magistrate's Court was held yesterday morning before Mr. H. S. Fitzherbert, S.M. Judgment was given for plaintiff by default in the following cases:—A.B.C. Boot Co. (Mr. Hutchen) v. Win. Powlcy, claim 4s (id (costs 7s); M. C. Butcher (Mr. A. R. Standish) v. Alex. Ross. £1 10s (costs 6s); Newton King (Mr. Hutchen) v. AVm. Ingram Thomason, £Ol 5s (£4 15s fid). Judgment debtor did not appear in the following judgment summons cases, and orders were accordingly made by default:—Allen Veale (Mr. Standish) v. Atua Tnukoi, amount of debt, £2 5s Id, to be paid within seven days, or in default seven days' imprisonment- Clark Bros. (Mr. Johnstone) v. Eric Harding, amount of debt, £1 Is, to be paid within seven days, or in default seven days' imprisonment. A. B. Bullot (Mr. A. R. Standish) v. Wm. Huse, debt of £1 4s Cd to be paid within seven days, or in default seven days' imprisonment. In the case Frederick Arnold (Mr. Standish) v. Tlios. Wm. Jennings Howell, judgment debtor appeared and agreed to pay 8s per month in liquidation of the debt. An order was made for the payment of £!> 15s within seven days, in default seven days' imprisonment, order to be suspended as long as 8s per month is paid. R. J. Hughes (Halliwell and Thompson) v. Geo. Oakes, claim £3 lis. After hearing evidence of judgment debtor as to means, His Worship declined to make any order.

Few names are more misleading than that of the Egyptian cigarette. For it is not Egyptian. It flare not be, for the Egyptian Government ha.s, since 1891, imposed a heavy fine on any firm that uses Egyptian tobacco to fill Egyptian cigarettes. The reputation of the Egyptian cigarette was built up with Turkish tobacco, and that reputation must not he soiled by allowing the dishonest manufaciuver to the rank home-grown stuff. In one way only is the Egyptian cigarette Egyptian—it is Hungarian, and the tobacco Turkish, while the workmen who unite the two are invariably Greeks.

At one of the largest shop* in Paris in February the attention of an inspector was drawn to a lady visitor wearing a harem skirt beneath a big fur coat. The inspector was amusing himself by looking at the dress, although he could see but little of it, when lie noticed the wearer steal a piece of lace. She was followed on leaving the shop, and arrested, and in spite of her protests was taken to the commissary of police. Here it was found that she was wearing a real harem skirt of very ample dimensions, which contained a quantity of lace and other costly articles, which she had stolen. This up-to-date thief is a young woman of twenty-two living in the Avenue du Maine, She wrs taken to the police depot.

A sad case is reported from Taumarunui, says the "Auckland Star." Mr and Mrs Erni, settlers of Swiss nationality, reside in the Mangaohutu Valley, some thirty miles down the Wangnnui River. A week ago one of their five children sickened, with diphtheria, and died before they could reach Taumarunui. It was buried at that plaec, and when the parents returned to their home after the funeral they found two more of the children ill. No boat was due up the river, so, mounting their horses, each parent took a child and rode over twenty-eight miles of rough country to Raurimu. whence they took them by train to the Taumarunui Hospital. One of the children, a boy, has since died, but it is thought the other has a chance of recovery. The parents arc almost demented with grief. Can a man be drunk twice in fine day ? This was a question Mr. W. Kerr, S.M., had to decide at the Waverley Court on Thursday, says the Patca Press. A Waitotara Maori was brought before the court by Constable Wilson on two charges of being drunk on the same day. In the morning Constable Wilson received a complaint about the Maori being drunk, but when he went to look for him he had disappeared into the pah. He forthwith issued a summons against him, but later on in the da yhe received another complaint, and this time he found the Maori carrying on like a madman, so-he arrested him forthwith and locked him up. His Worship could not see how a man could be drunk twice in one day. Intoxication was a progressive process ending in drunkenness, he said. One of the charges was, therefore, struck out.

Harpm skirts might W9II have been welcomed 0" years n»o by the overburdened slaves of fashion. According to Herr Otto FUcliel, whose "Costume in tho Nineteenth Century 1 ' is written with characteristic (iernmn thoroughness, "about 1850 a lady of fashion wore a flannel petticoat, an underpetticoat, three and a-half yards wide, a petticoat wadded to the knees and stiffened in the upper part with whalebones inserted a hands-breadth from one another, a petticoat with three stiffly starched flounces, two muslin pettieonts, and then a skirt. Even if all these petticoats were made of stuff, the weight and discomfort of such a quantity of material was so great tjiat the idea of a steel crinoline was greeted enthusiastically, and the inventor cleared £30,000 out of it in four weeks."

Under the heading "The Romance of a Premier,"' the. London Daily News refers to the fact that Mr Andrew Fisher, the Prime Minister of Australia, is to be feted In- the Liberal party when he is in London as a guest to the Coronation. He is to attend the banquet, given on May 25, at the King's Hall, Holborn restaurant, at which Mr J. Ramsay Maedonald will preside. Mr Keir Hardie, in conversation with the lobby correspondent of the Daily Xews, said Mr Fisher was a district secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union at the time Mr Hardie was general secretary. ''ln 18711," added Mr Keir Hardie, "\vc had a trade dispute, and Mr Fisher was black-listed—that is, he was among a number of men whom it was resolved not to employ again. He emigrated to Australia, and today be is the Premier of the Australian Commonwealth." The Ayrshire miners have invited Mr Andrew Fisher to a banquet while he is in the Old Country. Captain Fastick, of the steam trawler Nora Niven, wbo has had experience of trawling in the North Sea, has been giving his opinions abou ( t the New Zealand fish and fishing grounds. He says that we have mackerel and sprats here equal to the Home fish, but the trawlers arc not adapted for catching them in large quantities, He has caught excellent mackerel in the Hawke's Ray waters. Tn these waters paid Captain Eastiek to a Post reporter, wind and weather rule the movements of the fish more than in the North Sea. There the weather is more stable, but it has grown more and more unreliable of recent years. The fishing industry of New Zealand is capable of enormous expansion. The distribution of the British fish has become a fine art. All the fish caught is packed in natural ice in boxes, and so it is sent to the market within 24 hours of catching. Then there is a perfect system of post and rail as between the dealer and consumer, and rapid carriage and house-to-house delivery by the railway companies themselves at remarkably cheap rates. Captain Fastick held that the sole of Northern Europe was a fish superior in point of flavor, texture, and everything else to the New Zealand sole, but in all other respects the New Zealand fish were well up to the North Sea standard. ''The herring," he said, "is the prince of all the fish. I know of no finer fish in all the sea than the herring. Why should it not be introduced into New Zealand waters? Thrive. I should think it would. The herrings come down from the North of Scotland into the Channel. \V fl do not follow them beyond the North Foreland. Tn the herring season the North of England fleet tackles them sailing out of Sunderland. Then follows the Crimsby fleet, and after that the Yarmouth and Lowestoft boats, and so they are hunted, if you like to put it that way, up'to Christmas time, when they get' into the Channel. r have seen them for a few minutes at a time so thick that a mnn might almost stand on them. Thcv swim comnaetlv massed, some four or five feet thick."