LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 189, 8 February 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

On Friday, the 2nd inst., on the motion of Mr. A. E. Standish, letters of administration in the estate of the late Mary Ibbotson were granted to Thomas Edward Ibbotsom, of Mokoia, railway employee. Sailors are getting scarce at several New Zealand ports. At Lyttelton one schooner has been delayed for over a fortnight waiting for one man. Some of the sailors are to be paid as high as 10s a day.

There is a great dearth of flaxmill hands throughout Southland at the present time, and good wages are being offered, up to 10s per day for ordinary hands and 32s 6d per ton for scutchers. In the height of the flaxmilling industry the highest price paid was 30s. A lady resident of Palmerston, who has just returned from a holiday trip to Napier, remarked the contrast "in the appearance of the country between Hawke's Bay and Manawatu. In the former the hills are absolutely bare of verdure, but from Woodville on the abundance and freshness of the vegetation was a pleasing contrast. The committee of the Frankleigh Tark Sunday School have decided to hold another garden party, on Thursday, February - 29, Mr. J. H. Frethey having kindly placed bis grounds at their disposal. The committee had the misfortune to strike a wet day at their last garden party, and it is to be hoped that they will have good weather this time, as the proceeds are in aid of their new Sunday School building. It is expected that there will be a very large attendance, and the ladies are procuring the best afternoon tea possible. A programme of music will be rendered during the afternoon.

The secretary of the Giis Company informs us that the company has entered into a contract for the supply of Newcastle coal for the current vear.

■ The Whiteley Ohurch tratees have decided to purchase a section at Vogeltown for a Sunday School, off the main road and opposite the store.

A Harvard (U.S.A.) graduate, who is heir to a fortune of £ 1,050,000, has gone to work as a grocery clerk at 9s a week in order to learn the business in which his father made his fortune.

A s.ite has been selected, for the erection of a new accommodation house at Mount Cook, and most of the material required has already been conveyed about two-thirds of the distance. It is hoped that by the end of the tourist seaion* the erection of the new buildino- will be well advanced. °

A fact which should be remembered in connection with the Wellington strike is that, on a capital expenditure of over £600,000, the profit for eight months of the year on the tramways was only £llßl—really two days' takings on the cars. The whole of the rest of the time the cars are being run to make bare expenses.

Another Aorangi dairyman claims the milking record. He states that he received a fraction over £2 6s 8d per cow for December's milk from a herd of 35 cows, described as a very mixed lot, and which were grazed on a heavily-stocked farm. Yet a fourth Aorangi farmer is reported as coining within a few pence of £2 6s 8d per cow. The Frankleigh Park Sunday School Committee has arranged to hold another garden party at Mrs. J. H. Frethey's beautiful grounds, on Thursday, February 29. Those who. attended the last will no doubt remember the excellent afternoon tea, but the committee are arranging to provide a still better one this time, also a musical programme will be given during the afternoon. Mr. Pearce, M.P., relates a somewhat amusing incident which he observed at White's sale, at Porangahau, last week. Two natives, flush with the proceeds of a good wool clip, took a fancy to a quiet, but really valueless little Jersey cow. When the" animal was offered they started to bid against each other, and, egged on by .some of the bystanders, ran the cow up to well over £2o—at least four times its value.

It is commonly held that fruit cannot be successfully grown in Taranaki. That this is a delusion we have evidence before us as we write in the shape of some remarkably large and luscious Bur bank plums grown by Mr. C. W. Revell, of Warea. We have seen some good specimens of this fruit grown elsewhere, but none surpasses the specimens Mr. Revell has kindly left with us. Warea district is evidently very suitable for fruitgrowing.

The Hon. T. Mackenzie told a newspaper representative the other day that the increase of receipts over expenditure at Hanmer was 25 per cent, greater than was the case last year. Boring is being carried out for fresh hot water supplies, and it is hoped that very shortly Hanmer will possess' the largest hot water swimming baths south of the Line. The golf links are largely patronised, and altogether, the Minister says, Hanmer is becoming one of the most attractive resorts in New Zealand. There has just died in the workhouse of the Danish Island of Ryesgade "Margaret, Princess of Araucania and Patagonia." The "Almanach de Gotha" does not, recognise her title or her late father's kingdom. He was Antoine Tounens, a lawyer, and the son of a Gascon butcher. ■ In 1861, with a handful of followers, he persuaded the people of Araucania to accept him as Tuler, adopted the style of King Orelk-Antoine 1., and began to develop his kingdom in fine, style. The Cicilian Government sent an army against him, subdued his kingdom, and confined his Majesty, to prison, from which it needed French intervention to release him. He died in 1878 in great poverty, and his daughter has had a like hapless fate. The modern world is too disciplined for the heroic swashbuckler who was happy in the spacious days of Elizabeth.

Lately there passed away at Parramata, near Sydney, an old identity in the person of John Delaney, aged 88 years. The deceased was married at the age of tw*nty-six, and the union resulted in a family of 29 children. Twelve are living, and the remaining seventeen are dead.' He was a native of Sydney, but settled in Parramata at the the age of ten years so that he resided continuously in that town for 78 years. His father was a heavy dragoon, and fought in the battle of Waterloo, and lived to the extraordinary age of 105 years. The deceased left no fewer than 108 grand-children and several great-grand-children, and his son John, who is a grandfather himself, heads the list with 18 children, and his daughter Ellen, who is now deceased, reared 17 children. Two others were responsible for 12 each, and another two members of the family for 10 each

An instructive instance of what can be done with a small area of land was mentioned to a New Zealand Times representative this week by a Manawatu resident. He said a friend of his last year, by growing strawberries on eight acres of rented land in the vicinity of Palmerston North, made a clear profit of £630. The profit was all the more remarkable because the grower was paying rent on the 'basis of a valuation of £BO ! per acre. It was only secured by the most careful grading of t/he berries, which met with a ready sale in Palmerston and other centres; Quantities of them were sent to the Wellington markets, but they were so roughly ! handled on the train that they averaged j threepence per pound less than the i Auckland berries, which had to be transj ported many times .'the distance. Tired of such a disheartening experience, the grower has noiw come much closer to Wellington, and has taken up ten acres of land at Te Horo. For a while he will be occupied in breaking the land in, but when his plants are established he hopes, to make such arrangements for the carriage of his berries to Wellington as will ensure their arriving in proper condition. I MORE MELBOURNE SUIT TALK. The majority of men desire to get as much for their money as they possibly can. That is the basis upon which aensible people plan their expenditure. They have to, because it is easier to spend money in this day of "high coat of living" than to earn it. You have probably decided in your own mind that you ought to get a good suit at a reasonable figure without the "frills" that are supposed to give "class," and that you are in the throes of weeding out the different "makes" that do not meet the ideal you have created about the "kind" ami "price" of a suit you want to buy. Then let us advise you not to be misled into paying a fancy price for something that you could have bought equally well, if not better, from the Melbourne at a very much lower cost. Remember this, that when you buy a Melbourne suit you purchase a guarantee of workmanship and material that invites comparison. Whatever we claim for it it will do—wear well, fit well, and give you all the suit comfort you desire, and plenty of service. But come and see our beautiful array of splendid high-grade suits, all tailor-made and ready to put on. Try one on. Go over its construction inch by inch. Feel the texture, and notice the finish. Test the cloth and purity of the dyes. Take note of the high grade linings and the superb cut. Then, most important of all, note the low prices, ranging from 40/6 to 05/-. It will be a strange thins; indeed if you not become a purchaser.

The Mokau-iti Co-operative Dairy Co., of Taranaki, has been registered at Auckland, with a capital of £SOOO, shares at £1 each.

A humorous side of the queue-cutting edict which was recently issued by the Emperor of China is the protest made liv the Chinese policemen, who stated they would he deprived of their most powerful aid in catching thieves.

A Jewish farmer in Alberta, according to the Jewish Chronicle, is at present engaged in inscribing an address 'of welcome to the Duke of Connaught, in Hebrew, on a grain of wheat. There will be over 300 Hebrew letters in the address.

By way of securing itself against any losses at the hands of highwaymen, the Guarantee Ranking House of, New' York took out an insurance policy for £1,000,000 to cover the risk of robbery involved during the removal of its cash and securities from the ruins of the Equitable Assurance Society's building. The documents and specie had to be transferred a distance of only six blocks from the scene of the fire, and the policy lapsed at the expiration of three hours. The premium paid to the company with which the insurance was effected amounted to £IOO.

It transpired in the Police Court at Invercargill that a. man arrested for drunkenness some few weeks ago was found at the time to have a bottle of whisky in his pocket. The whisky was, of'course, taken from him and he was locked up. On his release the whisky was handed back to him by the police. The magistrate expressed surprise at this, but Sergeant Bingham explained that the liquor was the man's property, and he did not see what else' ; could be done. The fact that the man was afterwards discovered to be a prohibited person added a spice of humour to the situation.