LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 92, 9 October 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Fanners are rather anxious for a few good showers.

Mr. J. B. Barleyman, of YVaitam road, has volunteered to carry out experiments in lucerne growing, under the supervision of Mr. Baylis, Field Instructor for this district.

The Minister of Public Works stated recently that he believed electrical power would bo available in the country for dairy factories at £l! or £d 10s per horse-power jut annum; £2S is the average cost of steam on the same basis.

At the annua] meeting of shareholders of the Bell Block factory it was decided to donate a sum of money equal to U per ton of last year'.-) output towards the Agricultural Society's new hall fund. This -will work out at about £7 10s— a substantial donation that it is hoped will act as a lead to other factories in the district.

The following pupils at the Frankley road school have made full attendance for the quarter ending September 30:— Alma, Bul-lot, Alix Warren, dean Bullot, Keitha, Bullot, Elsie Cole. Margaret Lovell, M«.y Ferguson. Leslie Xewell, Gerald Howell, Cedric Newel], Jack Lovell, Ivo Grant. Owing to the .prevalence of measles the school was closed for a fortnight, and consequently the attendance showed a marked decrease.

The Municipal Abattoir manager's report for August shows that 40 cows, 11J> bullocks, 2 calves, (142 sheep, 51 lamlbs and 102 pigs were slaughtered for local consumption. These iigures show an increase of 1 calf and 90 sheep, and. a decrease of 7 cattle, 12 lam.bs and 70 pigs, when compared with those for the corresponding month of last year. Sixteen cattle, 2 sheep and 3 -pigs were condemned, and 35 cows and 5 bulls were slaughtered .for export. Fees and rents for the month amounted to £llß 17s 3d.

At Ihvwera on Saturday some record prices were paid for town property. A section in Nigh street, with a frontage of 33ft and a depth of !)oft. with two shops, occupied respectively by Messrs. Sergeant (jeweller) and Bach '(saddler), realised £OO per .foot. Six other sections in Union street, each 40ft. by 06ft., brought .prices ranging from £2O to £3B per foot. All these were the property of the late Mr. A. A. Fantham. Othci sections in connection with various estates also realised satisfactory prices. Messrs. Gillies and Nalder were the auctioneers.

A game of billiards to decide who was to kill a. man was played in Paris the other night. A message stated that about 10 o'clock at night a man was taken in a cart to a restaurant in the Rue Bichat, and recognised as a customer named Oubreuil. a bookbinder by trade. Tie had two deep stabs in his left side and stomach. . He was at once taken to the St. Louis Hospital, where he soon afterwards expired. The man had attended a popular ball and had quarrelled with a band of Apaches. They determined to kill him. but instead of drawing lots agreed to play a game of billiards, (he loser to be the assassin. This was done, and as Dubreuil was leaving the ball the man who had lost plunged his dagger into him. A .bakehouse at the rear of Mr. A. Pearee.'s shop, Fitzroy,' w.as destroyed by fire very early on Saturday moriiing. The dames were discovered by a passerby, who gave the alarm. The Fitzroy Fire Brigade, under Captain YV. Griffiths, turned put promptly, but the llamas had such a hold of the .building that it was useless to attempt .to save it, and so efforts were concentrated on preserving- the dwelling and shop, which were only aibout ten feet a.way. These efforts were successful, anil the main building'was not damaged, although the bakehouse, was coTiipletely gutted, only the oven remaining intact. The bakehouse 'Was insured in the Commercial Union Office for £12"), and the stock in the Victoria Office for £2o. The origin of the fire is a mystery. There had not been a fire under the oven since 1.30 a.m. on Friday, and at 11 p.m. there was no sign of fire.

Members of the Equitable Building Society of New Plymouth (First and Second Groups) are notified that subscriptions will be due and payable today (Monday), at the Secretary's office, Ourrie-strect, from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. —Advt

The New Zealand Farmers'' Dairy Union liavD disposed of 150 tons of cheese at o%d per lb. A scheme of medical inspection of school children bus been prepared by the Department of Public Health. It is intended that dental examination shall be embodied a* a prominent feature of any system of in.s|>eetion which may be put into operation. Draught horse breeders k New Zealand have been doing a large and profitable trade with Australia, and it w not surprising that in some pavts of the Dominion alarm is felt at the number of mares going out of the country (says the Pastoralists' Review). New Zealand enjoys a unique reputation for the standard of her heavy horses, and it would be a most unwise policy on the part of breeders to deplete their studs far the sake of the high prices now ruling in Australia.

Maori lorp! Near the site of the Gisborne Oil Company's new bore at Waitangi (says the Poverty Bay Herald) there is a hollow in the hill, with a cabbage tree at each end. Connected with this spot there is an old Maori legend to the elfeet that once upon a time a huge whale, was chased by a party of Maori warriors in a big war canoe and killed at Waitangi, the tale thus accounting for the oil there to-day. The hollow in the hill represents the war canoe and the cabbage trees are the warriors. •It is stated, on the authorityof Frank Bullen, that sharks rarely attack a man in the water when whales are about. Mr. Bullen says he has seen a man washed off the back of a whale, and although there were two or three hundred sharks round the whale they never paid any attention bo him at all. He spent the whole of one Christmas afternoon on the back of a whale, which, in rolling, had wrecked their boat. They knew the sharks were underneath, and the problem they tried to solve was how long it would take them to get through the basement and come to the superstructure.

It was mentioned by an expert witness at the sitting in Dunedin of the Royal Commission on Alines that there are 5000 steam boilers under Government supervision in the Dominion. Of tint total there are 900 in Otago. The same witness snid that there were no expert boiler inspectors representing tho Government in England or in the Commonwealth, as we have in New Zealand. Here an oflicial record of all boilers was kept from their birth until they were condemned to the, scrap heap. In proportion to the number of boilers in use there were fewer explosions in New Zealand than in Great Britain, Australia and America.

Considerable conjecture has been aroused among those interested in the study of deep-sea fish over a catch of several fish of a strange species which was made about 40 miles off the Otago Heads on Thursday last. Some of the fish, one of which turned the scale at 381b, were on exhibition in the local fish shops last week, and occasioned a great deal of curiosity. Dr. Ttenham, professor of biology at Otago University, has pronounced the fish to be sea bream. The fish, which are said to be not entirely strange to local waters, having been caught there several years ago, are common to many European waters, also to the East Indies. The sea bream is allied to the freshwater or carp bream, which is found in many European lakes and rivers, and which afford good sport to the anglers, though coarse and insipid as food.

Mr. Koliert McLarcnt, a Wairarapa resident who is now in the Argentine in charge of a. very large ranch, seems, still very satisfied with that country (says the News). Writing to Mr. H. H. Walters, of Carterton, he says: "I have just sold 700 head of fat cattle, and feed is only just coming on, as two days ago we had V/ s inches of rain. This is the first since May (!, but I have plenty of feed; have not touched the hay yet," and hope I will not have to now;. I shall get another lot of bullocks away in September (300). I have another 1000 after that by the end of the year. Our profits last year amounted to'roughly £20.000, and this after buying 3000 acres. Not bad management that. We sold 500 fat bullocks and UK):) head of female stock (cows and heifers). Land has gone up in price in leap* and bounds.; people are leasing their places and going Home to live, f have planted over 1500 trees this season, .art there is no natural hush on these lands. Have ten ploughs going -sowing alfalfa; have over ]OOO acres to sow this spring, and now this rain has helped us out."

Xo subject lias beVn more vigorously preached by medical men and health reformers for the past generation than that of fresh air. At the Medical Congress, which sat in Sydney recently, the value of oxygen as a curative agent was brought prominently forward every day, so that really if any section of the community should be convinced of the value of the open window it should be the doctors. One of the. speakers in the section of public health, however, poked a good deal of fun at his fellow-members of the profession because of the difference between practice and precept on their part. "I came up to the congress.'-' he declared, with some degree of scorn, "and found not a single window about the place open; T came into this particular room and found the atmosphere thick enough to knock you down. We don't seem able to convince even doctors of the value of fresh air," he added. The speaker closed with the observation that it seemed to him that until they got a second generation of doctors who were taught automatically to live in the open air during the first'seven vears of their lives, medical men would' not be persuaded to rigorously practice the health-giving doctrines that they preached.

MELBOURNE TAILOR-MADE SUITS. Tlie records- of the past are eclipsed to-day. Tim Melbourne habit of looking ahead is at tlie very apex of justification. The new tailor-made suit at «5s is a challenge in value. It's a prophecy come true. An ideal built around a 'permanent principle, a supremacy that brooks no argument. Xever lias a suit been offered for approval with so much confidence. Never a suit created and built embodying so many proven advantages. It's a dominating suit—a twentieth century masterpiece. Take anyone of thfc dozen new models for an instance. Xote the new features: tlie. extra full length, the "cut in" at the waist, the new deep lapels, the wide revers, the vest cut a trifle lowr; not the hang and set of the coat, the snug fitting collar; note the new American .shoulders: note the absence of the exaggerated padding where the sleeve joins the shoulder; note the new roll collar and the semi-square cut of the coat. Trousers are cut just a trifle fuller than last season, with just that perfect hang and fit over the instep that only a master craftsman can impart. Taken altogether, there is a "unity" of excellence in every detail that interprets every ideal a purchaser can possibly have about a suit, while to own a Melbourne tailor-made suit stamps a man as a connoisseur of what beauty of design in good fitting clothes really means. Dozens of the newest fabrics to choose from, any one of which the high priced costume tailors would ask you five guineas and more for.— Advt.

Although she already has two husbands (both divorced) living, Princess Ida Sulkowska has just obtained pw mission from the Court of Arad. Hungary, to marry a third time. The Court at first declined to give its consent, o» the ground that the suitor for the princess' hand was in debt, and might use his wife's money in order to discharge his liabilities. The princess,"however, brought evidence to prove that her future husband can support himself, and the Court withdrew its objection. Mr. Cecil Madigan, who has been selected as the Khodes scholar for South Australia for 1911, is proceeding to Kngland to endeavor to unravel a tangled skein of difficulties in which circumstances have involved him. Maddigan having been selected as Rhodes scbo?aiy his satisfaction was complete until Dr. Douglas Mawson, who is to lead the Australian Antarctic Expedition to the South Polar regions, announced that he desired him to join the expedition as geologist. The attraction of a unive*. sity course at Oxford and of a sojourn amid the snow and ice of the South' have weighed about equally in the mind of Mr. Maddigan, who in an endeavor toenjoy both distinctions is journeying to London to interview the trustees of the Rhodes bequest. At the boys' camp at "Almadale" on Monday, Mr. G. D. Braik, Chief Inspector, in impressing on the boys the need of practical education, told a good story of a youngster whose parent thought he should have a good pony, with which, of course, he wag hugely delighted. Some time after, it was agreed the boy needed book learning, too, so they got a governess, this ladyprocured the regulation book, which had' in it the picture of a cat, and underneath the picture the legend, "This is it cat." The boy had the letters dinned into him with wearisome iteration, until at last ho said, "Oh, damn the eat. VYhere's the pony?", Coming from such a source, the story hit the boys right on the funny bone. Later, Mr. J. Dunlop the manager of the stud farm, made a ' clever reference to one strong word in the story. He was pointing out the benefits of work. '-The man who works's happy. The man who is Jazy i« not worth a " Then quickly turning to. the Chief Inspector, Mr. Dunlop said, •What is the word, Mr. Braik?' The boys saw this joke, too.—Feilding Stay.'