LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 139, 8 December 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

It is reported that Miss Adelaide Van Staveren, daughter of the Rabbi of Wellington, has accepted an engagement in grand opera in Milan. A Masterton dairyman who has culled his herd systematically, finds this year that he is supplying as much milk from 65 cows as he did last year from a herd of 00. "I think the lot of the average man is much more pleasant and happy in Australia than in England," said a returned colonist in an interview. "I am quite sure of this—that any man coming to New Zealand and getting over the first three or four years will never settle in England again from choice." A peculiar accident occurred near Eureka, Waikato, resulting in the total destruction of a motor car. Apparently a charge back-fired, and, igniting the petrol, the whole machine base was soon in flames. Although tho owner endeavored to cut off the supply of oil, he was unable to do so, and received some painful burns. An interesting decision was recently given in the Wandsworth Court, when Judge Harrington held that the tenant of a house must pay the rent, if the place was haunted. The defendant in the case was William Atkinson, who xvas sued for the recovery of the rent due with respect to a house of which he had taken a lease. Atkinson declared that the building was haunted, and that he simply could not live in it. From Grafton, New South Wales, we have the dimensions of a huge cedar tree, which measured 70ft in length and 30ft in'girth, and so proved too big to be shifted, but as the log is estimated to contain from £BOO to £IOOO worth of timber, a sawpit will probably be put alongside it, and the timber cut into movable pieces. Roughly, there would be about 47,250 superficial feet of timber in the log, and the weight would be about 07Va tons. Here is an instance of how newspapers are sometimes misled, and so publish incorrect news. It got abroad that an animal had been killed in this locality by lightning recently. First it was an ordinary bullock, then it became a bull of some value, later a valuable one of Mr. Taylor's worth some 80 guineas. Now it transpires that the animal was not Mr. Taylor's, it was not worth 80 guineas, and it i.s doubtful how it died, but lightning is not now regarded aa the cause.—Waikato Independent. There were two illustrations in the Wellington Magistrate's Court recently of the fact that the working of the human mind is beyond moral ken. A young girl was charged with having stolen money from her "'young man," who when the case was called, entered the box and begged leave to withdraw the information. Ho stated that he loved the girl and that the information was laid in a fit of pique. The Magistrate, after tendering some advice to the informant on the folly of hasty action, permitted the withdrawal of the information. Later on in the day a young man was arrested at the instigation of a woman on a charge of stealing her jewellery. The case did not come before the Magistrate, but all the afternoon the precincts of the Court were haunted by the informant, who, with tearful accents, implored all and sundry to assist in getting the young man released. A tender domestic ipterest was blended with the romance of life in the polar solitudes one night last month at the little Gauniont picture theatre off Piccadilly Circus (says a London paper). The occasion was a private view of a really wonderful series of kinematoyra.pli films which Captain Scott has managed to send all the way from the Antarctic ice barrier, where he is even now awaiting his chance for a final and, as all the world hopes, triumphant dast to the Southern Pole. The "dress rehearsal" was given before no less interested a spectator than Mrs. Scott herself, who, with a company of friends, enjoyed this first glimps of the actual life that her husband and his little band of comrades are leading at this moment many thousands of miles away—almost beyond human ken. It was altogether a joyous evening, and Mrs. Scott hailed caeh incident with unfeigned delight. People in America (says the New York correspondent of the Standard) are asking why novelists, who cause their heroes and heroines to marry and live happily ever after, should he unable themselves to maintain unbroken households. The query is the result of the number of recent announcements of domestic strife in literary circles, Mr. George Randolph Chester, the creator of "Getrichquick" Wallingford, a very popular character in light fiction, has .been divorced by Mrs. Chester, who received £320 a year in alimony for herself, and £SBO for the maintainence and education of Mr. Chester's two sons until they are 25. Mrs, Booth Tarkington, herself a writer, though less famous than her husband, has instituted proceedings for divorce; and Mr. Upton Sinclair has announced his intention to secure a divorce. Mr. Jack London was divorced several years ago: Mr. and Mrs. Richard Harding Davis are separated; and Mrs. Francis Hodgson Burnett divorced her first husband; as did Amelic Rives, whose, first novel, "The Quick or the Dead," won her instant fame. This list could be largely extended, and it is causing a discussion as to whether novelists expend so much care and attention in developing the domestic traits of their characters that they have no energy left to safeguard their own happiness.

THE FINEST THING ON EARTH. '"Chamberlain's Oolic, Cholera and Diarrhoea Remedy is absolutely tlie finest thing on earth lor colic, pains in tlio stomach ami diarrhoea," says Mr G. H. Hodgson of Wanganui, N.Z. ""It will cure every time. No one is subject to more violent attacks of diarrhoea than myseif, but I have never known Chamberlain's Colic Cholera and Diarrhoea Remedy to fail to cure me." Sold by all chemists and storekeepers, K [