LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 52, 19 July 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

: A whale, 70ft long, was washed ashore at Lyall Bay, Wellington, on Tuesday iiight last. The San Francisco mail, per Tahiti, arrived at Wellington at 7.30 a.m. yesterday. The New Plymouth portion will arrive here at 3 p.m. to-day . Despite a profitable year and a 7 per cent, dividend, the Kaipara Steam Ship Company has decided to wind up, it being. it is stated, impossible to please the people on the river. On the motion of Mr. Quilliam (Govett and Quilliam), probate of the will of the late Mrs. Ann Josephine Lawrence has been granted by the Supreme Court to Mr. B. C. Lawrence, of Waitara.

■ Norman Bcrridge, who made no appearance, was fined 5s and costs 7s in the Magistrate's Court yesterday morning by Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., for cycling on a footpath. Inspector Tippins prosecuted. i

The Taranaki Land Board yesterday resolved to support the resolution of the Wellington Board, recommending the Government to inaugurate a conference of land boards in the Dominion, for the discussion of matters affecting land administration.

One of the many telegrams of congratulation which reached Mr. Massey after his victory in the late no-confidence division, contained an offer from a Nelson resident, who offered to send a sirloin, "to give the hoys a treat." The offer was accepted, and the "sirloin" arrived in due course. It weighs 541b, and has been placed in cold storage in readiness for "a special occasion."

The following persons were successful in a land ballot at the office of the Taranaki Land Board, New Plymouth, yesterday:—Wm. Halse, section 19, block 13, Oluira, 207 acres—24 applicants; Mrs., M. D. Prince, section 0, block 11, Aria, 200 acres—2l applicants; Wm. J. Logan, section 1, block 5, Aria, 52 acres—l 4 applicants; Mrs. M. E. C'oyle, section 9, block 4, Totoro, 175 acres—!) applicants; Terence and Thomas McMullin, Timothy Herlihy and M. O'Connor, section 9, block 1, Pouatu 1090 acres.

The .second meeting of the Literary Debating Society formed in connection with the New Plymouth Brotherhood will be held this evening in the lower hall of the Good Templars' buildine commencing at 7.30 o'clock. The subject for the evening will be "Essays" and judging by the titles of the subjects and the essayists, the meeting should bo a most interesting one. The essayists are: Mr. G H. Dolby, M.A., "Popular Government"; Mr. G. E. Roper, "Hints on Reading"; Mr. J. Sullivan, "Racial Suicide." The essays will bo open to criticism from those present.

A romantic story, it is stated, lies behind the recent purchase by Mr. Michael O'Connor, a prosperous New York saloon keeper, of Drumliiernev House, near the village of Leitrim, in tiie Irish county of that name. The property passed 'into Mr. O'Connor's possession at auction for about £SOOO, the purchaser travelling from New York specially to bid, and in view of the fact that six years ago the entire village of Leitrim passed into the same hands. Mr. O'Connor, who was himself born in Leitrim, now owns the entire estate made historic by the last stand of the O'Connor elan, headed by RoderickO'Connor, of Brcffney. Mr.'O'Connor's father formerly kept a public-house and general store in Leitrim. He himself emigrated to the United States 18 years ago, anil obtaining work as a barman prospered rapidly. He is now the owner of two establishments in Broadway and a third in 125 th street, New York.

A private cablegram from Melbourne | announces the sale of Mrs. J. D. Ormond's heavy draught, "Glenmarlde," for 50fo guineas. In the Home papers a recent Reuter telegram from Brussels was published, of which the following is the substance:— Since the last garden party at the Laeken Palace scandalous reports have been in circulation regarding the private life of the Belgian Royal Family. Rumors even went the length of saying that the Queen has'shot a servant maid with a revolver The reports eventually reached the ears of King Albert through persons at Court who had been questioned by various people, and had, indeed, received enquires from abroad. His Majesty was naturally illost indignant at the dissemination of utterly false reports concerning himself and the Queen, and action will be taken against those who are responsible for propagating these stories and those who aid or abet them.

The laws of the State of Utah (says the New York correspondent of the Loudon Daily Telegraph) provide that prisoners condemned to death may be permitted to die by bullets instead of by hanging, and at Salt Lake City, Julius Sirmay, convicted of murdering a boy, claimed the privilege. Aiming from loopholes in a curtain, five unseen marksmen poured a rifle volley into the breast of the blindfolded man, seated in a chair ■ in the State prison. The five rifles. spoke as one, and Sirmay was killed in- ■ stantly . There is a wide divergence of opinion as to the merits of executing' capital punishment through the bullet. Most people in Utah seem to think it is a barbarous practice, and ought to be stopped. Pressure will be brought to bear on the Legislature to amend the statutes so as to prohibit and Sirmay will probably ; be the last prisoner to exercise the privilege of choosing between the rifle and the gallows. The solution of a problem which lias concerned many people —how to see the world on next to nothing—has apparently been solved by an elderly English worker who was a passenger for Sydney by the Westralia. He told a New Zea-, land Herald representative before the vessel sailed that he was formerly an employee on the docks at London. While at this work he saved £lO, and, single and unfettered, decided to start out on this magnificent sum to tour the world. He obtained a steerage passage to South Africa, and landed at Capetown with only a few shillings. He worked there for a month, earned another £lO, and made for Australia. After another month's work at Brisbane, he bought his passage to New Zealand, and for the rest of two months he was an employee on a dredge on the Molyneux river, Otago. He was leaving Auckland with a steerage ticket for Sydney and £O, and he confided to the pressman that he had spent the time of his life, and felt that his 58 years weighed as lightly on him as 20. It is a peculiar fact that when business is dull and money scarce in this country crime in nearly every grade tends to diminish, and eoincidently there is a decline in the criminal population (says the Dominion). These are facts attested by a number of experienced police and detective officers. ''When money is plentiful," one police official remarked the other evening, "we are kept busy, but when money becomes scarcer and things are quiet we have an easy time." Detectives engaged in keeping watch over the ne'er-do-well class tell a similar story. Somehow these vagrom seem to become aware of the approach of bad times more quickly than citizens who lead orderly and respectable lives. Many of the thieves and vagabonds drift away as soon as the pinch of depression begins to be felt, to places where they can turn the shifts and devices upon which they depend for a livelihood to more profitable account. The expense of travelling seems to present fewer difficulties to them than to their more reputable fellow citizens. When they are pushed for funds they have their own methods of solving the problem of ways and means. Three men, for instance, will sometimes travel upon two railway tickets, and somewhat similar tricks and shifts are brought to bear upon the problem of securing free passages at sea. The theory tha ( t a diminution of circulating wealth is' attended by a diminution of crime has been borne out by experience in Wellington during the more or less pronounced trade depression which has obtained for some time past.