LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 170, 17 January 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The number of petitions in bankruptcy filed in the Wellington office during 1911 was 18, as against 34 for 1910.

Masterton farmers are being offered' £3 5s per ton for oaten sheaf chaff—and refusing it. No fewer than twenty motor cars were employed to convey the guests to a wedding in Masterton the other day.

A meeting of the Tisch Memorial Committee was held last evening. A further meeting will take place next week. English files just to hand state that currency is given to a rumor that the Pope intends to make Easter a fixed date, selecting the first Sunday in April for its observance.

Four Westinghouse electric fans have been fitted in the new Empire Theatre. They were appreciated very much last night, one of the warmest we hare had, keeping the building delightfully cool.

It is estimated that fully 50,000 acres of bush have been felled in the King Country during the past year. The weather has made it impossible for early burns, and the only hope is that good autumnal weather will be experienced.

A remarkable coincidence at the Delhi Durbar, says an Indian officer in a letter to a member of the Wairarapa Daily Times staff, was that at the presentation of colors by the King both the Brigade-Minors (were New and both wer© educated at Nelson College. They were Major Davidson and Major Glasgow Some time ago the poundkeeper at Whangarei was badly hoodwinked by a person who bought his own horse at the auction sale at the pound for half-a-crown, and thus evaded payment of. 25s costs. Permission has been'given)thepoundkeeper by the Borough Council to take legal proceedings to recover the remaining 22s fid. A very mean act of sacrilege was committed at St. Paul's Methodist Church, Palmerston North, recently. Someone entered the building, apparently by an unlocked door, and stole a bottle of ■sacramental wine, together with a number of Communion cups. The thief was evidently after more valuable booty, but failed to find any. At the last meeting of the Egmont County Council Crs. J. Burgess, T. Harvey, P. Willcox and E. Maxwell were appointed a committee to examine the traffic of team waggons, and it is understood they will give a report with a view to making negotiations with the Transport Company relative to excessive damage on the roads. Mr. T. G. Wilton, of Te Rangitumau, Masterton, is a "ringer" among shearers. He has occupied the shearing board every year for the last 41 years, and last Saturday put through 203 oil the. blade. This is a performance which would put many a younger man in the shade. Mr. Wilton's family are also experts at shearing. One of his sons recently made a tally of 267 in a day with the machine.— Age. In the Magistrate's Court before Mr. H. S. Fitzherbert, S.M., judgment was given by default in the following cases:—New Zealand State Guaranteed Advances Superintendent v. Philip Jackson, claim £54, costs £4; Hawkins and Smith (Mr. Grey) v. Jas. Connell, • £35 8s 10d, costs £2 16s. In a judgment summons, in which Benjamin Tooke (Mr. Standish) sued' J. W. Uncles for £1 18s, the latter was ordered to pay the same in seven days, or in default seven days' imprisonment. A strange affair happened at Belvedere, Lower Wairarapa. A bee farmer in the district had several hives of bees on the side of one of the hills last season, and among them were two empty boxes. All were left there in readiness for swarming this year. On examination a week ago by the owner, it was found that the two boxes had been inhabited by swarms. The V.es are the same as his own, halfbred Italians, and presumably his own have swarmed and taken to the empty hives instead of flying away to fresh places, as is usually the custom. There i« room for an extension of the Tourist Department's activities, especially in connection with Taranaki' (remarks the HaWera Star). Much remains to foe done for Mount Egmont as a. unique tourist resort, and were money expended oil some of the things which are nepded to popularise it, the outlay would probably be repaid a hundredfold in a comparatively short time. If the business people or the local bodies' of Hawera, Manaia, Norinanby, and one or two other places were only to set the example of connecting each other with tramways, then whatever Government might be in power would no doubt see the wisdom of supplying Mount Egmont as a tourist resort with a similar service. Such a service would unquestionably be a great inducement for tourists to visit the mighty mountain and its contiguous scenery, and there is really no reason why the State should wait for any example in the matter. - Hawer and its neighbors will no doubt ere long—to the commercial and social advantage of all concerned—be conveniently connected with each other by tramways; but such a service to Mount Egmont—- . from some convenient point to be agreed upon—has merits of its own quite sufficient to commend it to the favorable consideration of local residents, local members of Parliament, and Parliament itself. As th© Hon. T. Mackenzie is one of those local members, we daresay that not only as such, but also as Minister in charge of Tourist and Health Resorts, he will recognise the propriety and businesslike character of the proposition. The people of the districts concerned should certainly not lose sight of it; and_ Mr. Mackenzie himself might ingeniously, yet with a delicately ironic touch, render no slight service to his constituency in the matter by leaving a commendatory Ministerial memorandum on the subject, by way of suggestion to his successor in Mr. Massev's prospective Government. It seems to be an opportunity which the outgoing Minister should not try to resist as member for Egmont.

Lord Roberts is fighting very hard to secure compulsory service for the citizen soldiers of Great Britain. Some time or other England may come to grips with some other nation, and trained soldiers will be needed. Numbers will tell, but the quality will count most. It is because quality is essential that Crescent Blen Tea is so widely popular. It is a good tea, and good all the time. Try it. —Advt. ''

Rheumatism, Gout, Sciatica and Lumbago are amongst the most common and yet most painful diseases. Naturallv the market is flooded with "cure-all" nostrums, which, of course, fail to give relief. RHEUMO is a scientifically compounded remedy, which rarely fails to effect a permanent cure. Sold by all chemists and store, 2/6 and 4/0. 21

On Thursday Mr. Brandon Haughton, the Empire Picture Company's expert, will secure a picture of the many interesting scenes at the East End Seaside Picnic.

The unpleasant episode in India, in wJveh a prominent native ruler turned hi;', oack upon Royalty, recalls an episode in ;ie life of the late Mr. R. J. Seddon, which the general public may have forgotten (says the Wairarapa Age). In the year i'B9B Mr. Seddon accompanied Lord Ranfurlv, then Governor jof the Dominion, on a visit to Hastings. The Mayor and his councillor were'assembled at the railway station to extend a civic welcome lo the Vicc-regal party. His Excellency shook hands with each of the councillors in turn. The Prime Minister was doing likewise, when he came to a certain councillor that gentleman deliberately turned his hack upon Mr. Seddon. The insult was resented by the local press, and the public showed its disgust by relegating the councillor to obscurity on the first opportunity. ' Mr. Seddon, though he laughed at the incident, was plainly affected at the insult offered. , The Berlin newspapers announce (says Router's correspondent) that a new process for the manufacture of artificial diamonds has been discovered by Dr. Werner von Bolton, a chemist in the Siemens Halske works there. The doctor observed that ordinary lighting gas decomposes when exposed to the vapour of mercury, and that if the gas be allowed to work on metallic amalgams of mercury the carbon contained in the gas is liberated in a non-crystallised form and in crystals or diamonds. As the diamonds obtained were infinitesimal in size, diamond dust was placed in a tube .iriNrhkh gas was dissolved' to act as so-called mother crystals. The newly-formed crystals adhere to these, and the result is a larger, but still very email, stone. The amalgam used is natrium., It is placed in a glass tube containing a small quantity of diamond dust, and' ligliting gas is passed through the tubp ; .:for four weeks. The inventor is now engaged upon the problem of increasing the size of the stones.