LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 144, 14 December 1911, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Mr. 11. J. Brown, managing director of the British Empire Oilfields, Ltd., will be present at this afternoon's annual meeting of the Taranaki Petroleum Company, whose interests his company have secured, and he will make an important statement regarding future operations at Moturoa. Mr. C. Garter, chairman, who has just returned from England, will give an account of the negotiations and full details as to how matters stand. A verbatim report of the meeting, which is probably the most important yet held in New Plymouth, will appear in the News of to-morrow.

The Tuapeka Times understands that a deputy-returning officer in the district has been deprived of his ollice owing to an alleged too active interest in the success of one of the candidates. Maxim Gorky, the famous Russian' novelist, is said to be dying from consumption in his retreat at Capri Island, in the southern part of Italy. Gorky is an exile from his own country. Ail anonymous donor has given £3OO for the Children's Home at Gisborne, for which Lady Carroll recently presented two acres of ground. The gift will receive a £ for £ Government subsidy.

The funeral of the late Sergeant-Major Dufl'in will leave St. Joseph's Church at 2 p.m. to-<l.ay. The members of the A and B companies (Taranaki Rifles and Guards) will parade at the Drill Hall at 1.45, and the veterans will fall in at the church at 1.45.

"Four million Britishers, when fully employed, get only from l)s fld to 32s 6d per week. Tn the face of such figures as this, the workers of this workingman's paradise ought to be the most contented people in the world," said Archdeacon Bartlett at the Goulburn (X.S.W.) Synod recently.

Friday, 15th inst., being the last day on which land tax may be accepted without the addition of a 10 per cent. pe»alty, the Money Order branch of the Chief Post Office will remain open on that day between the hours of 4 and 5 p.m. for the convenience of persons whose land tax is still unpaid.

The youth who was arrested by De-tective-Sergeant Boddam and Constable Boulton last Tuesday week on a charge of breaking and entering a New Plymouth shop, was brought forward on remand yesterday morning and again remanded by Mr. Fitzherbert, S.M., on the application of the police, till Thursday next, 21st inst. Ernest Reid (41), headmaster of the Moonah (Tasmania) school, whilst instructing a class by illustrations on a blackboard, dropped dead last week. Dr. Isabel Ormiston, Department Medical Inspector, happened to bo entering the scltool at the time, but after a short examination she found life was extinct. The deceased had been teaching for 20 years.

The State Legislature of Kansas is discussing a Bill by which it is proposed to prohibit the wearing qf tights on the stage or in other public places. Tights, it is suggested, should be supplanted by skirts reaching not less than 4in. below the knee-cap. The word "knee-cap" is apparently so offensive to the promoters of the Bill that throughout the document the word ''patella" is used. Fines of £2O for each offence, or in default two months' imprisonment, are proposed. The unfavorable season is seriously affecting the milk supply, but the amount paid out is greater than for the corresponding period last year. For the three months ended November the Eltham Company manufactured 627,593 lbs. of 'butter, paying out £25,920, as against- 077,593 lbs. and £24,559 for the corresponding period of 1910. The output of butter boxes and cheese crates by the Egmont Box Factory shows a decrease of 1(1 per cent, compared with last year.

Citizens wearing gum-boots, mackintoshes, great-coats, oil-coats, goloshes, sou-westers, etc., and carrying umbrellas, are being pathetically invited bv window advertisements to "Try our Ice-cream," indulge- in summer drinks, and generally hold festival. The sight of a liglit straw hat with a giddy band sends a cold shiver down the back, and the daintv summer blouse for the lady and the silken sock for the man, somehow look as out of place as a full-rigged ship in the Sahara. The prophet who promised us the prevailing sample of weather until the Xew Year, when a drought is due to arrive, has "picked a winner" up to now.

An incident that slightly upset the equanimity of the congregation in one of the Xew York churches occurred during the. morning 'services last Sunday week. The collection was in progress, when Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, the multi-million-aire, who is one of the sidesmen, tripped, and fell. The well-known millionaire went sprawling along the aisle, ami the contents of the plate were scattered all over the iloor. It was a rather serious fall for the aged financier, who, however, suffered no ill effect, and was able to resume the collection, after the lost offerings had been returned to the plate. A Xew York writer, commenting on the incident, says it is the first time in Mr. -Morgan's history that he had ever let money go.

A Berlin shop-lifter named Starke, with two companions, planned a midnight raid on a large butchering establishment. Starke clambered into the building through a window, but just as his two companions were about to follow they perceived that they were under the observation of a street watchman, and decamped. "Warned by the disappearance of his comrades that something unexpected had occurred, Starke threw off his jacket, donned a blood-stained butcher's apron and cap, switched on the electric light, and, seizing a butcher's knife, began to work furiously at the meat. AY hen the watchman appeared and asked the supposed butcher whether he had not observed the suspicious behaviour of two men outside, Starke replied nonchalantly that he had seen the rascals, but that they had run off on catching sight of him, whereupon the watchman .withdrew, satisfied that everything was in order. Then Starke robbed the cash-till, packed lip some choice pieces of meat in a a parcel and, opening the door with a key which he found on the premises, quietly let himself out and departed. PILES. The only permanent relief from piles is relief from constipation so as to relieve the blood pressure and irritation in the intestines, then the piles will gradually disappear. Chamberlain's Tablets will certainly cure your constipation. Sold by all chemists and storekeepers.

The [recently-discovered Aranui cave at Waitomo is said by visitors to be the best of the three so far discovered in that district.

Scientific investigation has now demonstrated that without the ceaseless labors of microbes our earth would be an uninhabitable charnel-house.

According to the Legislature Act of 191)8 every person who makes a bet, any wager, or risk of any nature upon the result of an election'is liable to a line not exceeding £2O. It is understood that immediately after the elections the Hon. J. A. Millar will take proceedings against the Railway Advocate and other newspapers which have attacked him.—Petone Chronicle.

In our report of the traffic on the Main South road the printer made the figures quoted by Mr. Shaw relating to the tonnage on the roads to read "daily" instead of "yearly." The mistake, of course, was obvious.

Some people will scarcely realise that there have been railways in New Zealand, for well on to half a century. The first railway in New Zealand, from Christchurch to Ferry Mead Junction, was opened 45 years ago on Ist December. ■The- farming instinct is early cultivated by the New Zealand youth. It is not uncommon to see boys from ten years upwards milking cows in the Taranaki district. The Wairarapa, however (says the Age), has a prodigy eleven years of age who can adjust the shearing machine and shear a sheepr A recognised American authority on rural matters unhesitatingly affirms that sunshine and hold moisture can be made into soil, if it falls into the hands of a man who knows, and who has ability and patience to work with nature. Soil is a relative substance, amenable to the intelligence and industry of the laborer. If we take from the soil we must add to it in proportion. An honest man will not try to cheat his ground nor try to go against nature. Truly, a man may make soil, and he must, having it, or having made it, take care of it. It must be protected from washing and bad cropping. The so-called practical farmers, who object to the use of fertilisers and sneer at scientific agriculture, are generally soil robbers. They do not believe in rotation of crops, their chief idea being to take all they possibly can get from the land, without giving anything back in return.

The Primate of New Zealand has now (writes a London correspondent) completed his consultations with the architects, Messrs Sodding and Wheatly, of Plymouth, regarding the plans for the proposed cathedral in Dunedin, and the plans as approved by him will go forward immediately to the Cathedral Building Board in Dunedin. Until they aro approved by that body, it is, of course, premature to say anything about the proposed plans. Generally speaking, they provide for an edifice something after the 'style of Bath Abbey, with a centra! tower but no spire. It will have both triforium and clerestory, and will come distinctly within the cathedral category. Bishop Nevill has secured £IO,OOO of the £20,000 which is required before a bequest of £27,000 can be claimed, and he publishes in the Morning Post an appeal for further subscriptions, pointing out that the Anglican Church in Otago was quite unendowed. "My good people," he says, "have very self-deny-ingly raised £IO.OOO towards this object, and have obtained promises for the payment of instalments of about £3OOO more, hut as the resources of the diocese for this purpose are now .almost exhausted, I venture to address myself to my fellow-countrymen, in the hope that I may be able to crown my 40 years of episcopal service by being put into a position to lay the foundation-stone of this cathedral on my return to Dunedin."