LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 222, 18 March 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The Acting-Postmaster advises that the mail despatched from Wellington via 'Frisco on February 9 arrived in London on the, 15th inst. The general laborers' case which was to have been heard before the Conciliation Council here on Thursday next has been postponed until April li. The Hon. T. Mackenzie, accompanied by the Public Trustee, is to be at Opunake to-day to discuss matters in connection with the Opunake Harbor Endowments. The 100 yards race for the Williams Memorial medal is to come off at the baths at 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday next. Nominations close with Mr. Hawkins on Tuesday evening. An association is being formed in Philadelphia to erect a monument to a man who died there recently, and who is reputed never to have lied to his wife during forty years of married life. It is stated that there is at present a great demand for milking machines by dairy farmers in the Manawatu district. The demand is accounted for by the fact that farmers find it almost impossible to procure labor. Compulsory domestic service for girls and women as an equivalent to the universal military service incumbent upon men is a novel proposal put forward by Praulien Pauline Worner, a leading German woman reformer. A diversified entertainment is to be put on at the Theatre Royal in a few weeks' time in the shape of the High School concert. Among the items for which the boys are at present actively rehearsing is the "Trial" scene from the Pickwick Papers. A meeting of the New Plymouth Employers' Association has been convened to be held in the Town Hall at 8 p.m. to-night. As this is a most important meeting all members, as well as members of the building trade and others who have been cited to appear before the Conciliation Court on Thursday next, are specially requested to attend. Harvest festival services were held yesterday at St. Andrew's Church, There were crowded congregations at both services, and appropriate sermons were preached by the Rev. T. H. Roseveare. Special anthems ,were rendered by the choir. A special word of praise i,s due to the committee- of ladies who beautifully decorated the church with grain, fruit and flowers, which will be forwarded to the New Plymouth public hospital. Special collections were taken up on behalf of the Presbyterian Church extension fund. In about three months' time the New Plymouth Operatic Society will stage <S^ ne ?, J° nes ' Japanese musical play, The G.eisha," the delightfully fascinating theme of which is too well-known to need repetition. The scores of the opera should come to hand next week, when the cast will be at once arranged, so as to enable the first rehearsal to be held ° n Is ' Mr - N. Renaud has consented to act as conductor, and Mr. Heatley as stage manager, while it is satisfactory to record that the wellknown and versatile artist, Mr. Arthur V. Carbines, will be associated with the production. He will probably play the principal comedy part. "One of the most puzzling and interesting facts in connection with the blackest days of the strike siege in Brisbane was that, although ordinary people were living on preserved meats, condensed milk, scones and mouldy bread, people who had access to the best hotels could enjoy, for a price, prime poultry, the best cuts of beef, prime butter, fresh bread, pure milk; and even ice cream," writes a special reporter to a Sydney journal. "The hotel proprietors were by no means ready to supply the key to the mystery, fearing, no doubt, betrayal and reprisals. In travelling through from Brisbane, however, one learned at Ipswich,, a smaller city connected by water with the capital, that on the Saturday after Black Friday a capacious barge was towed up to the town wharves, and enterprising providores invaded the place, buying out the entire contents of several butchers' and bakers' shops, also what ice, milk and fresh vegetables were available. With this valuable cargo the barge drifted silently back on the tide to Brisbane, and a fresh menu appeared miraculously at the big houses on Sunday, when every avenue of supply was supposed to have been closed by the strike committee." To-day in New Zealand the sparrow is regarded as an unmitigated nuisance, an impudent thief without one redeeming quality. Yet, according to Mr. James Buckland, who recently delivered a lecture on "The Value of Birds to Man," at the Royal Society of Arts, New Zealanders ought to bless the sparrow instead of cursing him, and pay with glad hearts the toll lie exacts from fields and orchards. Without the sparrow Mr Buckland suggests that New Zealand would be, not a land flowing with milk and thoney and agricultural and pastoral prosperity, but a land in which Scotch thistles and caterpillars battled ,|or supremacy. At ; one time, he said, caterpillars threatened to overrun New Zealand; he presented a truly awful picture of the state of things before insectivorous birds were introduced. When they came, the one that multiplied most rapidly was the sparrow. And the sparrow soon cut short the career of the caterpillar. Then Scotch thistles began to be a very bad pest; the sparfrow took to eating the seeds, and the Scotch thistly is no longer to be greatly feared. Mr. Buckland may be right in championing the sparrow, but it is to be feared that his views will not meet with ready acceptance !in any country wfyere the sparrow finds the conditions favorable to the multiplication of its species. : A sensational murder trial began before the Second Laudgericht in Berlin on January 24, the accused being a workman named ,Kolbe, who had spent several years in prison, and Prau Helcne Behm, wife or widow of a small official in the Imperial Statistical Department, whom they were charged with doing to death. Behm disappeared on October 7, 1909, when his family were living In the village of Dahendorf, near Berlin, and the prosecution ■ allege that Kolbe, who also lived in the house, was Helene Behm's lover, and that between them they killed Belim and hid his body. A unique feature of the case is that neither' his body nor any portion of it has been found, nor is there any proof that Behm is not still alive. The accused were arrested last autumn on circumstantial evidence, which the police had been a year collecting. The wife maintains that her husband shot at her twice, and disappeared into the woods. It is said that two small shot marks were found in one of the rooms, and also splinters of glass, the assumption being that Behm was shot at through the window. Further, a carpet was found in a summer house which, an analyst declared, was soaked in human blood, over which animal blood had been poured to mislead experts. The accused maintain their innocence.

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A prospecting party lias set out from Levin to explore the Tararua ranges for minerals. , Among the candidates far tli- Mayoralty of Auckland at the next election the name.of the Hon. George Fowlds has been mentioned; There ore 33,830 acres of land in New Zealand laid out in fruit farms and orchards, which show an increase of 535 acres during the past year. A farmer in the neighborhood of Masterton recently threshed 550 bushels of Algerian oats from a paddock of five acres. This reads something like a record. There are rumours of a strike in the Wanganui tramway service. As in Wellington, the trouble is over an inspector. Instead of giving the position to a local man, a Dunedin man has been "imported." The Argus states that the Eltham Dairy Company has now completed the preliminary arrangements for the erection of a building to contain a cheese manufacturing plant. The building will be of concrete. Mr. G. Murray, District Road Engineer, has just returned from a trip of a week's duration into the country beyond' Whanganiomona, where'the Government has several road works in pr - gress. The wet season has considerably retarded the progress of the works. . The question of Eternal punishment is causing a good deal of discussion in Wellington at present, the Rev. J. G. Chapman being taken, severely to' task by some of his brother clergymen be.cause of his "advanced" views on the subject. At latest advice, the ex-New Plymouthite cleric was keeping his end up pretty well. Tang Shao-Yi, the first Premier of toe Republic' of China, is a native of Kwantung, and was formerly secretary to President Yuan Shih-Kai when the latter was Chinese Resident in Korea. He has been Minister for the Board of Foreign Affairs, and has also had a good deal to do with the Northern Railway Administration and the Customs. In 1906 he was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Taxes, with control over the Customs, but the appointment was cancelled after a protest' by the British Government. A somewhat amusing incident to those not directly concerned recently occurred at the Solander Islands (in Foveaux Straits), where a whaling -party -were engaged. A whale had been caught, harpooned and seemingly rendered hors de combat. Everything was in readiness to haul it aboard. The whale, however, was l a believer in whales' rights, and he had altogether different views on the matter. He had ii irump card up his sleeve, too, for suddenly he returned to life and made off, speedily carrying harpoon, lines, and other gear without as much as saying good-bye. The whaling business is not without some severe disappointments. • It was stated recently that an orI chardist in the Lower Hutt district had practially rid his orchard of codlin moth by placing a mixture at the ratio of one tabkspoonful of treacle, one tablespoonful of vinegar and a pint of water in wide-necked bottles, the bottles being j suspended from the stems of the fruit i'trees. Mr. G. Aston, of Ashburton, tried the; same method, with most gratifying results. Using tins instead of bottles, and half filling them with the mixture, he succeeded in capturing large numbers of this pest. The mixture onjy requires changing once in three weeks; so that the expense as well as the trouble is not worth considering. Two of the staple industries of the Bluff and Stewart Island have made their commencement—the oystering and mutton-birding. The oyster season, which began on March 1, has for some months past been the cause of extensive overhauling, of the various trawlers, and several hundreds of' pounds have been expended in that manner. The season is on 9 month later this year, and the first of the bivalves will be eagerly awaited for by the ever-patient public. The 1 quality of the oysters this season will be good, as is always the case after on? of the periodical comparatively "sick" seasons. The first of the mutton-birders got away to the Titi Islands about the end of February, and the others were not slow in following. ' German visitors to New Zealand, when questioned, in regard to the view the German people take of military training, usually state that it is as acceptable to the public as it is to -the military authorities. This view was expressed strongly by Mr. Max B. Hahlo, of Hamburg, who has been on a visit to Christchurch. "We like it," he said, in reply to a quesr tion during an interview. "We do not follow athletics so ardently as the British do, and in the year's or two years' training we find an outlet for our physical energies. We learn a drill that we never forget, and we are taught lessons in obedience that we. carry with us through life. Discipline is one of the features of our system of military training. Men must obey. They may feel that they are treated harshly and unjustly, but they must carry out the ordersand make their complaints afterwards. The object, of course, is to make men good soldiers, in case soldiers are required, and the system, I think, is satisfactory to both the nation and the. individual." . | , ■, A little light was thrown on some traits of the Maori race during the hearing of a judgment summons casein the Magistrate's Court at Auckland last week. The judgment debtor, states the Herald, was a well-dressed and well-: educated native, who was called upon to explain why he had not psiid a sum of £95 14s fid, a balance due on a burial vault and a tombstone, of granite, which had been erected slightly over two years ago. He explained that the vault and. tombstone had been erected by his tribe as a memorial to his wife, and the total cost was over £-200. Of this amount about £3O was subscribed by the tribe, and he b.imself brought up the sum to £IOO. The tribe was to raise the balance, but this had not been done yet. Debtor added that two of his wife's brothers had shared in the property Bhe had left, and they were to contribute largely toward the required sum; he thought he could get the money in about three weeks' time, but if he did not succeed he would have to make some arrangement to liquidate -the debt by instalments. Mr. Kettle, S.M., made a/order for payment, but directed that the, .warrant should be suspended until a further order of the Court. '

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