LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 208, 1 March 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Wellington firm is now paying U per lb for prune bacon pigs. This is the highest price that has been paid for many years.

The commissioners investigating the petition to merge the town district of St. Aubyn into, the New Plymouth borough will hold a sitting this morning for 6aring ob J«*°™'to ««,

It is understood that an exhibit from the Agricultural Department will be displayed at the Winter Show of the Tara>j»ki Agricultural Society. A display by the Department invariably forms a feature at the shows at which it is on view. A study in Maori contrasts was presented at the Auckland Supreme Court the other day. A young native who was twice convicted of horse stealing during the day, supplied the one aspect of Maori life, and an elderly Hokianga rangatira, the owner of one of the horses provided the other. The comment of Mr. Justice Edwards was apt and striking. "Here," said Ms Honor, "we have on the one hand an old chief. He is perhaps more or less a savage, hut he is a gentleman savage. The young man (the accused) is not a savage, but he is certainly not a gentleman." An offer by the owners of Wonderland, Miramar, to sell the whole plant to the Wellington City Council for £4750 has been refused. The owners stated that the concern was in capital working order, and would be a bargain at the price' named, as the plant originally cost £IO,OOO. It was suggested that the Council should transfer the concern to a suitable site at Lyall Bay, where it would be a great.attraction to the public, and a splendid investment for the civic authorities. Without discussion the Council adopted a recommendation by the finance committee not to accept the offer.

The fifty or so people who made their way to Eiverton beach (Otago) last Sunday morning were rewarded by a most remarkable spectacle, says an exchange. As the morning advanced, hundreds of thousands of mutton-birds hove in sight. 'From the Waimatuku, almost to Greenhills the sky was blotted out of, sight, and the myriad throng gradually pressed towards the shore. It was a gigantic drive of sardines. As the birds, which skimmed the water and beat upon the surface with their feet, pressed forward the sardines were driven to the shore, and in a very short time the beach was strewn with them in uncountable numbers.

According to Mr. P. R. Sargood, who replied to the toast of "Closer Settlement" at Alexandra last week (says the Otago Daily Times), one of the first needs of Otago is population. "We have not got the population," he said, "at the present time to put on the land." The land, he coninued, was right, and the climate and other conditions were right, but they had not the people. Among their chief needs he would rank population first, and then irrigation and transportation second and third. He passed to the people of Alexandra the message of a Dunedin fruit exporter, who had said, "Tell them to remember the export trade." This gentleman had pointed out that when the Panama Canal was opened they would be almost within three weeks of the largest fruit-consum-ing State in the world. Deals in land in the Northern Wairoa are (writes the Auckland Herald's correspondent) reported to be daily occurring, the southern land-seekers showing grim determination to acquire some improved section. The owner of a well-improved 200-acre farm at Aoroa last week refused £44 for his holding, and prices are fast creeping up to the Taranaki price standard. It is pleasing to note that wide improvements are being carried out on most holdings, and that with few exceptions Wairoa pastoralists are really progressive. On the Kohuroa estate, which was recently sold by Mr. Baylv to the Hon. G. J. Smith, M.L.C., of Christchurch, the former in five years spent £BOOO in improvements, and the estate is considered the best fenced in the north. Twelve years ago it carried bracken and ti-tree; now it depastures 5000 sheep and 1500 ! head of catfle. The property is now to be subdiviAii, and the formation of roads is pmsfted on.

QUEENSLAND EDITOR'S LETTER.

The editor of the Cimnanplla Watchman, Mr. J. R. Tindale, writes us as follows:—"I have been living in the S.W. district of Queensland for the last thirteen years and for nine and a half years was editor of the Thargomindah Herald. During that time I have been subject to attacks of Diarrhoea and have been in the habit of taking Chamberlain's Colic and Diarrhoea Remedy, which has always given great relief and quickly cured me."

Mushrooms are reported to be plentiful around Hawera' just now.

The record price of £65 per acre (writes the Wavcrley correspondent of the Patea Press) has been offered for a farm at Whenuakura.

The operator of the Mawson expedition at Macquarie Island sent a wireless message to his mother through the steamer Ulimaroa to Sydney., He stated that it was frightfully cold,' and that he was keeping himself warm, indulging in fishing and catching seals. Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., had before him at yesterday's sitting of the Magistrate's Court ten applications for pensions to widows under the new Act. One application was refused a pension because her child was not born in New Zealand. Eight of the widows belong to New Plymouth. > '

Before Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., at a sitting of the Magistrate's Court yesterday, John Osborne Cock was sentenced to fourteen days* imprisonment for fail- ]° P£f vide for ' tb -e maintenance of his child. Defendant was £l3 in arrears, warrant was suspended so long as he pays 30s per fortnight, the first payment to be made on March 14'

The New Zealand Dairyman (Wellington), whicli Mr. Fred. Greville so,ably and successfully conducts, has struck a clever patch in a new series of articles appearing in his journal. They read almostas if drawn from Mr. Greville's own wide experience, and bear the title Letters of a Self-Made Dairy Farmer to his Son." The letters are written froin "Outback Farm" by "John Dairyman" to his son, who is studying in Wellington. "You may become so great a modern that you will never be seen again upon the land.' 1 "We dairy farmers are just as eager to-day to get 1.36s per cwt. for our produce in the London market as in any previous year in our existence." "We wear no coat of arms save that which carries the arms of. our coat." "All we have to pride ourselves upon in the way of a printed record is the brand we register in the 'Herd Book'." "Both your parents belong to the stock known as First Settlers." "Take advice, my son; but always act on your own findings." "I would rather have you broken into the ways of the city than have the city •break you." "Walk straight, my son, and look straight. ... I would have you lean on your neck right back on your collar." '