LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 164, 10 January 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

In China the rat is a luxury, selling at about 2s a dozen an the food market. This suggests a chance for a new export trade. The longest bare-knuckle fight was that between Jonathon Smith and James Kelly, near Melbourne, in 1855, which lasted six hours and a-quarter. It is now understood that Mr. A. W. Hogg lias decided to accept a testimonial from his friends and supporters, provided that it bears no political significance. An old man who was arrested for begging at Muolan, near St. Gall, Switzerland, was found to have bank-notes to the value of £5600 concealed in the lining of his clothes. Taking advantage of the present spell of dry weather farmers are working long and toilsome hours. in the hay-making field. The crops are good throughout the province, and in the southern portion unusually heavy. The scarcity of labor is an acute problem, and settlers are assisting each other in .harvesting operations. Judging by .the areas shut up for grass, both hay and ensilage should ■be plentiful for winter feeding.

Two persons partook of too many libations in the town yesterday, the result being that they became unsteady. An officer took charge of them and placed them out of harm's way for the night. An official statement made by the Canadian North-West grain dealers says that 30 per cent, of the grain crop is still unthreshed. Fifty million bushels are under snow, and there will be practically no "fall" ploughing. ' The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight; that he shall not be a mere passenger, but shall do his share of the work that each generation of us finds ready to hand.— Theodore Roosevelt.

A resident of Cambridge (Waikato), who has been in the habit of leaving his doors open during the summer evenings found on rising one morning last week that someone had entered the house during the night and extracted £4 10s from his trouser pockets. A monster eel, weighing 231bs, 4ft 7in long, with a girth of 17in, was captured by Mr. T. Dahl at the Foxton beach last week (says the Herald). The monster was in a pool near the new bridge across the creek which drains the lakes. It broke the spear and was only captured after it had been shot.

We don't have to go to fertile Taranaki for examples of what the-land will carry in cows for dairying (says the Manawatu Herald). Within a stone's throw of Foxton a holder of 35 acres of land grazes and milks 25 cows, beside* keeping a horse, etc., while another holder of 45 acres milks 25 cows, keeps a horse and 12 head of young stock! At a recent meeting the Mayor told the Wellington City Council that the corporation had seven motor cars now, including the motor fire engines, and two more were on order. Eventually the department would become very large; it was quite large enough for the motor inspector at present, and he already wanted an assistant. There were 40 taxi-cabs alone to be inspected. Advices by mail report disastrous cyclonic storms in many parts of the United States, causing widespread destruction of property in Southern Wisconsin, Eastern lowa and Illinois. The principal buildings in the business quarter of Virginia (Illinois) are reported to have been demolished, and many farmers' houses, especially in Wisconsin, have been destroyed. The damage and suffering over a wide area have been increased by a heavy fall of rain, sleet and snow.

• Tonga is experiencing a severe drought. The grass is scorched up, the whole place wearing a brown and dusty appearance, and the nuts are beginning to wither and drop off the cocoanut trees, being unable to get the necessary moisture to fill out and mature. This means that the copra output for the early part of next year will be seriously curtailed, and the yams and "kumala" crops are also feeling the effects of the continued dry, scorching days.

The statement tliat Madame Sarah Bernhardt is going to marry the most recent success in her company is denied by her with ridicule. M. Lou Tellegen, who is only 2<5 years of :age, is a very handsome but only moderately talented Flemish actor, and he appeared with her in her recent American tour, and again in England. "The report that I am going to marry him," says Madame, "is comical, simply comical. If it were not so comical it would be shameful. I am a mother, a grandmother, and a greatgrandmother. My son Maurice is 44 years old; M. Tellegen is only 26." Referring to the case of the man who was prosecuted for setting his horse at full gallop into the thick of the crowd awaiting election results at Hastings, scattering the people in all directions, and causing several ladies and children to be knocked down, a contemporary remarks that it may not be generally known that, should a man deliberately ride through a crowd and a fatality result, the offender is held by British law to be guilty of murder. It is almost a pity that some person did not take it upon himself to 'remonstrate" with the offender with a good stout horsewhip.

A farmer in this district lias succeeded in baiting a large number of blackbirds by means of small hooks (says the Manawatu Standard),. The birds are particularly fond of black currants, and the expedient adopted is to hang a small hook with a berry on the end of it from one of the lower branches of the bush. The temptation is too great for the greedy blackbird, and it finds itself unexpectedly trapped. Hooks can be lmng in this manner all round the tree. The proceeding, the farmer admits, is certainly cruel, but he contends that the work of extermination must be carried out. If it is not th.ere will be no fruit.

Fifty-eight years ago last Monday (says the Wanganui Chronicle), Mr.) John Morgan, of Newton Villa, Durie' Hill, arrived in Wanganui with a party of Taranaki settlers, who had come down with the intention of founding theishomes in this district Included in the party, in addition to Mr. John Morgan and his wife, were the Treweeks, Mr. Herbert Toogood, Mr. Harkness, and others, whose names have since been closely identified with the growth and development of the town and district. Mr. Morgan, as he looks back over thei past, not unnaturally dates the progress of Wanganui from the itime of the arrival of the Taranaki party. When they arrived Wanganui was 'but a primitive village; to-day it is well on the way to becoming a city. "You have a splendid asset in this town with your saltwater baths and do not seem to recognise it," said a visitor to New Plymouth. He said that when he came to New Plymouth he was suffering from rheumatism, and after a few baths he left much better. This was only the start of his visits here, as he intended to return and take a course of baths. He expressed surprise that the advantages of such a place were not better advertised. It has been pointed out that enterprising people living in places with beautiful natural scenery and health-giving qualities issue illustrated booklets, and let the less favored parts of the country know what can be seen by visiting them, but New Plymouth, with all its beauty and advantages, has yet to rise to the occasion. A letter received by a Wanganui resident from a gentleman of thirty years' residence in China states that tilings are in a bad state at present.. "It is hard to say, the writer proceeds, "what the end of this revolutionary movement may be, but the country cannot revert to a worse state than it has been in for ages past. There is one thing certain, that even if the Republican movement does not succeed, the Manchu Court or nobles will never again have much say in the government of the country. The Chinese are now more united in their present movement than I have ever seen them before. They mean. business, and the sympathy of the world is with them. Personally, I am of opinion that ultimately things will resolve themselves into a limited monarchy and constitutional government, which will be led by China's best man! But who is that? He has yet to come to the front. It strikes me that they will have to have the assistance or guidance of Europeans or other foreigners, Japs, for instance. However, something will have to be done soon, as commerce so far as China is concerned is almost at a standstill."

A Swiss aviator flew to the wedding of a girl friend on his aeroplane, and as the newly-married couple came out of ehurch dropped a bouquet from an altitude of 00ft in front of the bride.

The dearth of unemployed labor in New York is shown by the street cleaners' strike. Advertisements were issued for dOOfl men at 15s a day, hut less than 1000 replies were received. The prices for admission for H. B. Irving's Company's production of "Hamlet" are (is dress circle and orchestral stalls, 3s for stalls ,and 2s for pit. Early door to the stalls one shilling extra. A train which left Farndon for Napier the other evening had the somewhat unusual experience of having her boiler ran dry. At Awatoto the train was stopped, and it was not until a bucket brigade refilled the boiler that a start was made again. Mr. Plowden, at Marylebone Police Court, dismissed police summonses recently against three people for using bad language in their own house, saying he could not interfere with them unless they .chose to put their heads out of the windows. "No," he said, '"they must have the privilege of the Englishman's castle." Modern millinery was responsible recently for a curious mistake at Sittingbourne railway station, Kent. A woman wearing a hat with a large green plume was on the .platform bidding good-bye to friends when, without any warning, the train started. When stopped, it was then ascertained that the engine driver, seeing the green plume bobbing about, took it for the guard's green flag that all was clear to start. Next, please! Some two years ago a number of chamois were imported to New Zealand and liberated on the Southern Alps. Except on one occasion a few months after their liberation nothing was afterwards seen of the animals. A Wellington resident, who has just returned from a tourin the southern mountain district, states, however, that one member of the herd was recently seen by a guide on the flats near Mount Cook. The chamois seen was alone, and it is doubtful whether it is a sole survivor or merely, a wanderer from the flock. ■Rather a neat fraud was committed in Paris the other day. A man fell down in the street and thrust his elbow through a shop window. Tile shopkeeper rushed out and demanded compensation. The man who had fallen apologised profusely and produced the equivalent of a twenty-pound note. The shopkeeper promptly changed this, stuck to £3, and handed over the balance, and the man staggered off. When the shopkeeper came to examine the note he found it was a forgery, and that he was the possessor of a broken window and a worthless piece of paper. The missing stranger, on the other hand, was £l7 in pocket. An amusing, if embarrassing, incident occurred the other day in the New York Assembly. A certain Assemblyman had persisted in speaking after he had been declared out of order, so the Speaker called 1 upon the Sergeant-at-Arms to compel the offending member to resume his seat. Normally this is done by the official placing a hand on the member's shoulder. The Sergeant happened to be absent, and his place was 'being filled by an assistant, a Tammany "spoilsman." He crept down the aisle, made a flying leap, threw one arm round the As-sembly-man's neck, and bore him heavily to his seat. There was, of course, an immedate uproar, which ended in an explanation and apology.