LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 294, 6 May 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Brighton butcher ia advertising that he does not stock "Australian and other inferior meat." Steps are being taken to establish a fat stock market at Solway (Masterton) on the lines of that at Addington, in order to encourage the c.i.f. buyer to operate. The Territorial Officers' Examination Board for this area will sit in New Plymout on Tuesday, 10th inst. The board will consist of Major F. T. Bellringer (president), and Captain R. W. 11. Hamerton, of Patea. The boring plant purchased by the Gisborne Oil Company from the Omata Oil Company, including engine, pipes, etc., is to be shipped by the Rosamond to-day for Wellington, where it is to be transhipped to Gisborne. Whipping machines, which hold boys immovable while they receive from fifty to two hundred lashes, are said to have been used at the Minnesota State Training Schoel, U.S.A. An inquiry has been ordered by the legislators. A sign of the times. Mr. A. E. Sykes is just completing the erection of a substantial warehouse in King street. Mr. Sykes, with characteristic enterprise, is going in for manufacturing on a large scale and extending the wholesale department of his business. The secretary of the Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board has notified the Clifton Council that the council's contribution to the funds of that institution would bo based on a valuatityl of £694,603, amounting to £231 10s 8d per annum, or £l9 5s lid per month.

"Tliere arc 970,000 blades in the Mauretania's turbines," said the Hon. C. A. Parsons at the Royal Institution, London, recently, "and the total length of blading is 120 miles; yet everything works so smoothly that the noise caused is not greater than that resulting from the working of an hotel fan," A chimney at the Taranaki Club catching fire was the cause of the firebells ringing out an alarm last evening. The brigades were promptly on the scene with the necessary appliances, but before they arrived the fire had been suppressed by the officials at the club with its own apparatus. The local butchers have decided to make a booking charge of y 2 d per lb on all meat not paid for on delivery. The Master Butchers' Association has decided on this course instead of raising the price of meat, by reason of the advance in the price of fat stock. A discount of 2% per cent, will be allowed on all accounts puid by the l?th day of the following month. ' At yesterday's meeting of the Clifton County Council the clerk (Mr. H. E. Vaughan) stated that at the 31st of March there were outstanding rates to the value of £IOOO. Since then, by ' dint of much hard work and letter writing, he had managed to collect about half of the amount, and he hoped to be able to report to next meeting that the balance had been collected. Many multi-millionaires among thu vast army of Americans going over to England for the Coronation have already secured West End houses at fabulous sumß. One Liberal peer has refused an American offer of £IO,OOO for , the use of his residence for six weeks. Another American has offered £17,000 for the tenancy of a house in Hill street during May, June, and July, but the owner refuses to take less than £20,000. The New York correspondent of the Auckland Weekly News furnishes same interesting news concerning American ideas of advertising. He says: "If you asked an American business man how to get rich he would answer, 'Advertise! Advertise! Advertise!"' For that is what he does himself and he finds that it pays. There is no country in the world where advertising is carried on so extensively as in the tJnited States of America. A pastime indulged in by local small boys just now should be discouraged by all possible means by parents. The game is known as "Buttons," and one of the operations is the picking up of old buttons by means of pressing a dampened thumb on the button and lifting it by means of pressure into the palm of the other hand. The successful boy claims ownership of all buttons he is successful in picking up. These buttons go the rounds of the boys, so that a boy may have in his possession a but-, ton that has received moisture from scores of other boys' mouths. The danger to the children's health is apparent, and the practice should be checked. There was a very large attendance of employers, in fact, the largest ever held in New Plymouth, over 150 being present, at the Town Ilall last night, when Mr. Wm. Pryor, general secretary of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, gave an address on "Industrial Problems for business men." Mr. C. E. Baker, president of the Employers' Association, presided. The speaker dealt with the industrial situation existing in New Zealand at the present time, and said that the main problems confronting business men were how to secure a rest from further labor legislation restrictions, and how to secure political action in the best interests of the Dominion. The questions of fixing holidays and donations by traders were also discussed. The detail work of the federation in the interests of employers was also pointed out, and the, address closed by a strong appeal to business men to support the local Employers' Association and the New Zealand Employers' Federation. It appears that a man named Patrick Kelly, who was committed to the Avondale Asylum last week from Waihi by the local justices, had just before his arrest made a violent attack upon Dean Hackctt, of Pneroa. When the latter was returning from the Waikino district, he stopped his trap to speak to a mnn who accosted him, ami who was evidently suffering from some extraordinary delusion. The man Inter attempted to pull the Dean out of the trap, and threatened to murder him. With some difficulty Dean ITackett whipped up his horse and got clear awav. The man accused several persons of being implicated in an attempt to chloroform him at the railway station. The Rev. ,T. W. Burton will preach at the Whiteley Memorial Church on Sunday morning on "The Secret of Greatness," and in the evening on "The Lure of the Ideal."—Advt. Bobliv pushed me in the gutter, 111 the pouring rain. All my cake and bread and butter Floated down the drain. Mummy put me straight to bed, 'Cos my clothes were dripping, (Have me Woods' Great Peppermint Cure. Bobby got a whipping. ( 15

The Hon. J. A. Millar, Acting-Minister of Finance, will announce the financial results of the year ended March 31st last at Dunedin on Tuesday night. On a recent morning, while a member of the Stratford Golf Club was doing a round on the links, he drove a ball which killed a pheasant that happened to be flying over the ground. The special rate necessary for the Hospital and Charitable Aid contribution in the borough of Inglewood will be one-twelfth of a penny in the £, and not one half-penny, as was reported in Thursday morning's paper. A farmer named Walchhofer, who died at Radstadt, near Salzburg, Austria, last month, left behind him 110 fewer than 121 direct descendants. He was three times married, arid had altogether twenty-eight children, of whom twentyfour are living. The youngest is 10 and the eldest 07. Last February a Wangnnui nurseryman pent a consignment of apple and other fruit trees to Hongkong, China, as a trial shipment. It was expected -they would reacli China in the spring of the year. The shipper has just been advised that the trees arrived in splendid - tion, which is particularly gratifying, as they were in a rapid state of growth when dug up, though all the leaves were removed before packing. An order lias been received for a further supplv of apple trees of the variety suited to fhe warm climate of China. One of the conditions at the recent dog trial at Te Wera was that in the working of their dogs the men must not use any unpublishable words or phrases—if they did so disqualification fell 011 them at onte. Things went very well while the dogs were doing as they were expected; but when the canines failed to do the proper thing it was no uncommon thing to hear one of the men let out a sharp unprintable term, and then stand on his hat or contort himself into sundry shapes on remembering that he had thereby disqualified his dog.— Post.

Passengers by the express from Wellington on Tuesday were caused a good deal of discomfort by a breakdown of the steam-heating apparatus for the carriages. It appears that shortly after leaving Wellington one of the tube connections between the forward carriages became broken, and by the time the high altitude at Waiouru was reached the cold made itself felt somewhat unpleasantly. With the advent of winter, and the long night journey over the cold Waimarino Plains, it is hoped that.the authorities will have the steam-heating gear in thoroughly efficient order. A specimen of the Tare Xew Zealand Cross was sold at Sotheby's in March for £IOO. The cross was granted to Constable Henare Kepa Te Ahuru, A.C., for bravery during an attack on the enemy's position at Moturoa in 1808. The storming party having failed to find an entrance, Constable Kepa climbed the palisades alone, and, in doing so, was shot through the lung, but nevertheless walked out of action and brought his anns into camp. The decoration is in the form Maltese crow, with gold and silfer -ornamentation. Only two specimens are known to have been sold at auction. Mrs. J". W. Curtiss, a millionaire, was secretly married a fortnight ago to Dr. Alfred Lawrence, a leading authority on mental disease. Mrs. Curtiss has a fortune of £4,000,000, and is described in the American newspapers as "the most opulently dressed lady in America." In 1907 her son by her first marriage, Mr. Louis Morris, applied to the courts asking that conservators be appointed to take charge of his mother's fortune, on the ground that she was incompetent. Mrs. purtiss was examined, and admitted spending over £4OO a month on cabs alone. She argued that a lady could not live in New York on lees than £4O a day. The court granted the petition of Mr. Morris, and appointed two legal guardians. Dr. Lawrence, before his marriage to Mrs. Curtiss, gave evidence that she was capable of managing her own affairs. With regard to the telegram from Auckland alleging that there is discontent among railway guards, who believe that the department is employing private detectives, one railway employee in the suburban area told a Post reporter that there had been an impression for some time past that private detectives were engaged. It was the habit of those detectives to board a train at a flag station—one from which it was the guard's duty to collect the fare. "They were on the look-out," said the informant, "for the guard who failed to issue a ticket after receiving the money, or who allowed the traveller to go beyond the distance he paid to travel." Another guard corroborated what the previous one had said, and added. "Yes, you have to be pretty careful nowadays. This latest scheme, however, is about the 'limit.'" Mr. H. V. Bayfield waited on the Patea Harbor Board at its meeting on Thursday with a view to obtaining an option over the foreshore under the Board's control, in order to enable his principals to develop ironsand dsposits there. He explained that he was not a company promoter, but he was merely investigating the position on behalf of his principals, and he would like to know upon what terms the Board would grant the lease of the foreshore. Should the terms prove satisfactory, an engineer would at once, be sent to report. The following resolution was passed: "That on the Board being satisfied with the bona fides of the applicant it grant him an option of six months over the foreshore and the adjoining land at the rental on a sliding scale as mentioned by Mr. Bayfield, and renewable at a rent to be fixed by arbitration, wharfage on iron exported to be not less than Is per ton, and £2OOO to be expended on works within the first eighteen months from date of lease, and that the Board give favorable consideration to other details of the lease."

APRIL BLANKET SALE. Quantities, varieties and values for this sale at the Melbourne are beyond any attempt to compete with it. We don't tell trade secrets, but we don't mind letting customers know that, for various good and sufficient reasons, we obtained unusually low prices on the blankets bought for this sale. Stock up for winter. Nothing talks like price. Here are figures. You'll not buy like this later! White blankets, single-bed' size, 0s Cd pair; double-bed size, 17s Cd pair. Heavy blue-grey blankets, singlebed, 8s 9d pair; three-quarter siae, 12s fid pair. All-pure-wool N.Z. blankets, three-quarter-bed size, 17s 6d pair; full double-bed size, 21s pair. Fine white Roslyn blankets, long fibre N.Z. wool, assorted borders, good heavy weight three-quarter size, 18s Gd; full doublebed size, 24s_(ld. High-grade blankets, superfine merino long staple wool, snowv white, beautiful soft finish, with uncom- | mon border, full double-bed size, 27s 6dextra large size, 32s 6d. Above prices for this sale only. We reserve right of limiting quantities.Advt. jFor Influenza take Woods' fireat ■Peppermint Cure. Never fails. 2/6, 1/6. A stalwart, athlete of Hay, , Savs "all other pills are child's play, Laxo-Tonic alone Builds up muscle and bone In a, most unmistakable way." LAXO-TONIC PTLLS, 10%' d and 1/6Obtainablo at Bullock & Johnston's.