LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 228, 25 March 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The committee appointed in connection with the Veterans' social gathering will meet at 5 o'clock this afternoon to report and deal with necessary arrangements. Invitations have been issued, and the function promises to be j a marked success. To drive the elaborate machinery now being installed in the locks of the Panama Canal for the purpose of operating the ponderous gates and the huge culver valves by which the lock chambers will be filled and unwatered, about 400 electric motors will be required. Over 500 women in Melbourne have "corrected" the ages they gave in their census papers, in consequence of a threat bv the Federal Statistician to search birth registrations and impose fines m cases of deliberate misrepresentation, in which the maximum penalty is £3O. An old Tauranga boy, who is at present residing in Sydney, writing to a re- . lative in Tauranga, says:—"Sydney is a very expensive place to live in'now" The l Government is ruining the country. 1 Prices have gone up all round; butter is Is 4M»d, eggs Is 9d, milk 3d. Rents have j risen out of all proportion. Where I I stay they have raised the rent from 15s j to 17s 'Gd per week for six rooms, j Iru referring to the frozen rabbit industry of New Zealand,' a well-known rabbit exporter of Marlborough states that the industry is not in a very flourishing condition", chiefly owing to the strong competition of Australia, which exports frozen rabbits on a very large scale, and where more attention is given to grading and the mode of killing. In New Zealand the prices obtained for skins are better than in Australia. A message from Mount Gambler to the Melbourne Argus states that 11. Clayton, a stoker on a train, fell off the footplate recently two miles from Kalangadoo. Driver P. Grafter did not at once miss his mate. When he did he returned, and found Clayton following the train uninjured, though when he fell off the speed was nearly thirty miles an hour. Clayton was running, and said cheerfmlv, "You need not have returned. I would have caught you presently." Traction engines are very successfullr used in Western Australia for pulling down trees* The cost to the owner of the land is 6s 8d per hour, or about from ! £2 to £2 10s per acre. So effective is the work that there are great demands for these engines. The officials in charge of the work have demands for the clearing of 5000 acres in the districts in which they are at present operating, but as one moves about through the different districts there is given the impression that fifty times that area could be operated upon for farmers and settlers if there were sufficient engines to do the work. A profit of from £ISOO to £2OOO a year was alleged, at a meeting of the Conciliation Court at Christchnreh, to be made out of a furniture business in Christc'hurch, employing only twelve journeymen. The employers' representatives scoffed at the idea, and said that it would mean a profit per man of over £3 per week, whereas the average profit per day was Is per man. Tne Union's representative persisted in listatement, and gave the Commissioner the name of the firm, stating that Mr. Triggs had power to go through the books to verify the statement. The Commissioner was sceptical, but promised to go through the books, remarking that if the profits were so great as were alleged he would embark in the furniture trade himself. Members of the Equitable Building Society of New Plymouth (First and Second Groups) are notified that subscriptions will be due and payable today (Monday), at the Secretary's Office, Currie street, from 9 a.m. to 12.30, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.— Advt. THE MELBOURNE'S GREAT SALE. ENDS MARCH 19. The announcement of the last days of [ the Melbourne Clothing Company's great annual reduction sale "should act as an incentive to dilatory shoppers. Those who care to save money on every-day wanted goods of merit should make every endeavor to pay at least one visit to the store before the 19th instant. It will probably be many a long day before such bargains as the following' are offered again. Heavy hei ring-bone and twill unbleached sheeting. 72 inches wide, lid yard. Magnificent and beautiful Brussels bedsides. 1% yards long by %yd. wide, 5/11. Lovely Veronese velvet bedsides, superlative quality and daintily designed, l'l.yds. by %vd.,' 7/11. each. Real linen damask. GO inches wide', 1/3 yard. Cashmere toilet soap, 9d box of three tablets. Twelve quarter Mareella quilts, 1-2/6. Men's Kaiapoi suits, •27/9. Men's fashion shirts, 4/G. Men's heavy, strong blue grandrill working i shirts, 2/11. Men's flannel undershirts', [ 2/3. Men's indigo blue flannel undershirts, 4/0. And hundreds of other bar- ' gains.—Advt.

A doctor's mistake which caused his own death was related recently at the inquest on Dr. Robert Hope Alston Hunter, of Hayes, Middlesex. He mivH h'mself a dose of chloral, and was called to a patient before he drank it. When he came back he added another dose by mistake, and drank the contents. Immediately afterwards he realised his mistake, and called out, "For heaven's sake, give me an emetic," but death took place very soon. A verdict of misadventure was returned. While boring for water on Mr. Morton Rennie's farm at Mangerc a few week* ago (states the Auckland Herald), some workmen detected the presence of gas. A light was applied, and there was at once a bright (lame, which later on attracted a good deal of attention in the neighborhood at night after the experiment had been repeated. Mr. Rennie informed a reporter that the flow of natural gas had continued for three weeks, and he is of opinion that it is coal gas, as there is coal formation in the vicinity. It is intended to have samples tested.

Why do men wear hats when they go out in the evening? asks the Melbourne Argus. The wearing of hats in the evening, it says, is a convention which ha* lost its meaning; it has come to us from other climates, and we have slavishly adopted it, though our own climate robs it of all semblance of rationality. The general doing away with hats by night would simplify the work of the police, for then they would be quickly able to distinguish true men from knaves. As for the argument that the hat is a covering whereby the bald-headed may shelter his infirmity from the scoffs of the unfeeling world, it may be replied that we are not as in the days of the prophet; baldness has become so nearly universal tliat it no longer excites the derision eveß of the most unmannerly children; moreover, it is well known that many men attribute baldness to the excessive wearing of hats. No, the practice has no basis in pure reason; it is indefensible; but, like many other indefensible practices, it endures. Such is the cowardice of mankind; such is the fearful power of a custom which has once got itself established. These things are a parable.