LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 254, 26 April 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A Cardiff coal trimmer, who was a spectator in the Wales v. Ireland Rueby match last year, waa awarded £3OO damages against the Welsh Rugby Union on the ground that his foot slipped into a hole due to the breaking of a barrier, -ine man s kneecap wis fractured.

Professor Chamberlain, weather expert at the University of Chicago, referring to the success of the South Polar expeditions, said: "The discovery of the .South Pok, besides being a geographical achievement, will enable scientists to make long weather predictions. Hitherto they have been able to trace the wind and storms only to the Antarctic circle Now it will be possible to make a complete map, showing the direction of the wind as it goes over the face of the pole."

A ehild of five has died of jealousy at Yvetot, France. Mme. Bensard, the wife of a carpenter, gave birth to a second daughter. Tlic birth of a little sister made the other child furiously jealous. She had scarcely stopped crying since her baby sister was born, and she was so ill that the mother put the baby into another room and took the elder child to sleep with her. In the morning the child's first question was. "Has the baby been sent away?" When she heard that it was still in'the house she began to sob again, and died in a convulsion of jealous rage.

At a meeting of the Te Roti Tennis Club it was unanimously decided to vote the sum of £3 10s towards the Titanic relief fund.

New regulations under the State Guaranteed Advances Act provide that loans to local bodies may be for a term of twenty years at 3%' per cent, interest.

There were no fewer than four deadheats for first plane: at the LeppertonSentry Hill picnic yesterday. This must surely be a record for a country sports meeting. The Post and Telegraph revenue for the quarter ended "March 31st last amounted to £203,797, compared with £250,513 for the corresponding quarter of 1911.

During the voyage of the Moana, which arrived at Sydney from Wellington on Tuesday afternoon, Marjorie Ethel Taylor, aged three years, died and was buried at sea.

The Hon. Te Rangihiroa says that the Native Department is endeavoring to arrange that in future the Native Land Court shall sit in the Maori centres instead of in European townships. It is stated that on a Wairarapa station a number of the men "downed tools" because the cook had irregular meal hours. As there was no Arbitration Court handy the dissatisfied onee were paid off.

The Taranaki Agricultural Society at a general meeting of members on Wednesday night decided that the committee be empowered, should an opportunity arise, to arrange for the sale or exchange of sections 3, 4, 7, and 8, of St. Germain's Square, the proceeds to be entirely devoted to providing live stock show grounds and accommodation on same.

The New Plymouth Amateur Opera Company, with a view to brightening the winter evenings, has already put that erisp mid breezy light opera "Th* Geisha" into active' rehearsal. Under the enthusiastic baton of Mr. K. Renaud, a very capable and complete chorus is rehearsing the concerted music, and there is every prospect of the company staging a delightful performance later in the season.

It was recently stated by the Secretary to the Commonwealth Treasury ('Mr. G. T. Allen) that about 6000 soiled Australian notes would have to be destroyed daily (says the Melbourne Argus) The hrat burning of these notes took place the other day in a specially constructed furnace in the new Treasury building, and notes to the value of £i3.000 were destroyed in about an hour and a-quar-

Mr Lepper, secretary to the Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, has at the request of the Minister of Interna, Affairs, circularised the various localbodies within the district-twenty-five m a 1-asking them to appoint a representative to attend a meeting at New Plymouth on May 14 for the" purpose of appointing two delegates to represent the whole district at the conference to lie held in Wellington on May n to discuss the proposed Local Government Bill. The American really is a hustler; it's not all talk; that is the experience of Mr McLeod, of Sydney Bulletin, who has just returned from a trip abroad. "Neither employer nor employee care anything about hours of labor; they work while there is business to be done. I went to a financial house one Saturday to draw some money. When I had drawn it, the officer asked me if there was anything at all he could do for me. If I wanted anything else I was to come back in the afternoon. I reminded him it was Saturday, and asked if his office would not be closed. 'Well,' he said, 'we nominally close at one o'clock, biit T guess competition is so keen that you'll 1 find someone here nt any hour." '

Exploring the earth to discover the position of mineral ores is the latest use to which wireless telegraphy has been put.' For the exploring apparatus with which experiments have been made by Dr Lowy of Gottingen, three holes in line are bored in the ground to a depth of about 300 feet, or in some cases there are four holes, one at each corner of a square piece of ground; which may be as large as 1000 square feet. Wireless antennae are placed at the holes, each antenna being about 250 feet in height. By measuring the relative intensities-of signals at one antenna sent from the others through the earth the position of any mineral deposits can, it is said, be estimated.—New Orleans Picayune. Responding to the toast of hi* health at a Boy Scout dinner at New York last Week (says a special cable message to the Australian papers). Lieutenant General Sir Baden Powell had some interesting things to say regarding the objects of the Boy Scout organisation. "Tt is very important." he told the gathering, "that there should be no kind of soldiering in this movement. If people knew bow much I hate war they would never suspect me of trying to teach war to the boys. War is a thing I never want to see in a civilised country again. We are suffering from over-civilisation, and need to give more attention to the development of boys physically, giving them more manliness than schools do. The drilling of boys makes them too much like a machine."

A New Zealand lady, now on a visit to fireat Britain, in a letter to a relative in Auckland, refers to the high price of English-grown beef. "I paid," she writes, "Is 3d a lb for a roast of beef that I could have got in Auckland for 7d, unless the price has risen since I left New Zealand eighteen months ago. Nearly every butcher to whom I have spoken disparages frozen meat, though I get it whenever I can, as much for economy as because we seem to relish it better. I saw an extract in one of our newspapers to the effect that some of the big workhouses contract for English meat because of the idea—a popular idea, too-—that frozen meat evaporates in the process of cooking while English meat puts on weight. Could you imagine anything more absurd!"

Some years ago tfce* late Mr. W. T. Stead wrote a plea for the millionaire. Mr. Stead reckoned that a millionaire needed saving from himself—few knew why. It appears to most mien that if. when a man has accumulated the first million, the State stepped in and demanded £1 for every additional £1 accumulated, a good thing would be done, both for the individual and the community. For it i 3 admitted that no man ever yet accumulated a million by honest effort. The effect of great wealth, apparently, is to make of men and women besotted fools. In the United States the freaks of the millionaires and millionairesses are as painful as thev are idiotic, and though the latest of these is not as bad as a "pig dinner" or a "monkey symposium." it is bad enough in all conscience. It appears that a number of Californian millionaires attended the elaborate funeral of two prize Boston terriers, valued at £IOOO each, belonging to Miss .Teannie Crocker, a multi-million-airess. The dogs died at JTiss Crocker's ranch at San Mateo.

"Were I Prime Minister of New Zealand," said Mr. George Elliot, president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, "I would make every other question subservient to the opening up of Maori and other undeveloped land."

A Danish settler in the Waikato, who has learned to write English by means of a Danish-English dictionary and copies of a weekly paper, says; "J think that a man who will not serve and fight for his own country should he exiled, or sent to gaol for a long period. I, for my part, will gladly join in and take my training, and b • ready, if necessary, to fight for the defence of New Zealand." While blasting operations were going on in the vicinity of Masterton recently, a worker had a rather miraculous escape , says the Age. lie had placed a charge, and just after he lit the fuse he had a severe attack of crump, which prevented him from getting away a safe distance. Fortunately, he had sufficient presence of mind to remove the fuse, and so averted a probable fatal accident.

During the hearing of a charge against a Gonville resident at the Wanganui Police Court, the Magistrate and Sergeant Bourke spoke very strongly on the indiscriminate use of firearms. One witness in the case (who said two bullets passed him) declared that it was not safe to go out walking on a Sunday afternoon in Gonville, owing to the reckless discharge of pea rifles and other weapons. Sergeant Hourke stated that even the Maoris who lived across the river at Pntiki pa went about in danger of their lives through persons firing at birds on the river.

The London correspondent of the Post writes under date 15th March: "I have Sir William .Hall-Jones' authority for reiterating emphatically the statement he made to me last August to the effect that he has no intention of re-entering political life in New Zealand. Certain suggestions have been made lately as the result of the political situation in New Zealand, but Sir William's health has so much improved during his stay in London, that his friends strongly approve of his determination not to run the risk which would be entailed by a re-entry into the hurly-burly of politics. Sir William's extended term a* High Commissioner expires on 31st March, but so far there is no word of a successor being appointed. A cable message from London on Tuesday, in connection with the wreck of the Titanic, slated:—"lt is understood that the. plans of the White Star liner Gigantic, now building at Belfast, will hi- altered to provide for cellular sides to the engine-room and stokehold. The Gigantic will also have cellular sides above the water-line, and at the other holds." Speaking to a Post reporter on the subject, an authority on shipbuilding said the idea evidently was that the eellnlar sides referred to meant a water-tank as an outside skin all round the ship, running up as high as the' main deck—in other words, a continuous double side, with water between the outer and inner skin. It is a development in marine architecture which will be watched with the greatest interest.

"There will he a good deal of dissatisfaction when it becomes generally known that the Government has declared the coming season a close one for, pigeons,*' said a prominent member of the sportingfraternity to a Post representative. He argued thai oversea sportsmen who came for the brief deer shooting season, the end of the felling season, and the beginning of the shooting season would be greatly disappointed, and as the Government reaps considerable revenue from such visitors he did not think the. move was a good one, more especially as next season will be a close one under the Act —two close seasons running. While admitting that pigeons are disappearing in parts, he declared that they wer*' quite, able to held their own where the bush was standing in large quantities. The destruction of the bush was the chief reason for their disappearance, and so long as the policy of clearing the bush was carried out, all the game laws that

could be devised would not preserve the pigeon or any other native bird. Captain Amundsen was afforded an opportunity of raising a hearty laugh at a reception accorded him by his fel-low-countrymen in Auckland. A Danish resident (Mr. K U. Jorgensen), who prefaced his remarks with a reference to the pleasing spirit of unity which had drawn closely together the Royal Houses of Norway and Denmark, was proceeding to propose the toast of "Mrs. Amundsen," when the hardy explorer convulsed the audience with the naively-expressed announcement that such a person as Mrs. Roald Amundsen had never existed. The joke had all the more point as the proposer of the tofl6t had been enlarging upon the influence of self-deny-ing wives in spurring on to victory such adventurous spirits as Captain Amundsen. The latter discreetly refrained from any reference to future intentions in regard to this phase of life. The flood of embarrassment was adroitly stemmed, however, by a conversion of the toast into "The Womanhood of Norway," and right heartedly it was received. Captain Amundsen was presented with a gold watch. The night chosen by the Garrison Band for the opening- social of a series which it is intended to hold throughout the winter in aid of its funds was particularly fortunate, both as regards the weather and the number of counter attractions, consequently there was only a sparse attendance at the Good Templar Hall. The committee had gone to considerable trouble to ensure that their patrons would hate a happy evening, and of course the result was disappointing from a financial point of view. However, those present thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and judging by the expressions of satisfaction, next time there should be a erowded attendance. These socials are deserving of patronage, for they provide a pleasant method of contributing to the funds of a deserving institution. Last night's function was controlled by Mr. W. Way, who kept things moving to the strains of Tunbridge's orchestra. Miss Jones and Mr. Johnston played for extras. Supper was a bright incident, the tables being attend«d by a strong ladies' committee, under the supervision of Mrs. Yates. I