LOCAL AND GENERAL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 102, 16 September 1912, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL

The Prisons Board are meeting at New Plymouth to-day.

A farmer in the Rawhitiroa district informs the Argus that quite a number of dairy fanners who were dairying on a small scale have been compelled to sell their cows and give up supplying milk on account of the difficulty of'obtaining labor.

The Kltham Dairy Factory manufactured 40,7171b of butter during the past month, and paid out at the rates of Is per lb the sum of f 1812. The average lest for the month wan 3.84. The company also paid out the bonus for the last year, which amounted to £5350. 1 he local Labor Federation is considering a proposal to establish a co-opera-tive store in the town, and also to urge the Borough Council to establish a municipal bakery and butchery business. The questions will be*gone into fully at the next meeting of the Labor Federation.

On and after to-day an additional clearance will be rnadu at 4.30 a.m. of the following posting boxes:—Elliot road and David street; Elliot Road (opposite Hoodacre's); Elliot and Wallath' roads; Frankley road and Govett avenue; Frankley Road School; Old Hospital road and Rimu street; Whakawhiti telephone office.

On Thursday, says the Patea Press, Constable Armour conveyed to the Wanganui gaol the youths Frederick and Henry Sellars, who were sentenced at the last sitting of the S.M. Court at Patea, to imprisonment—the former to three weeks,and the latter to seven days —in default* of paying their respective fines for refusing to comply -with the provisions of the New Zealand Defence Act.

The re-forming work on the Belt road and Gaine street was the cause of one of the brewery carts getting into difficulties on Saturday. The horse and cart were being driven around the Gaine street corner, when the vehicle sank in the soft clay almost to the floor. Xo amount of pulling could extricate the cart, and men with shovels had to be requisitioned to enable it to be pulled on to the metal.

Mr. ft. R. Horner, of Patea, in a note dated September 13, writes: "The new comet was picked up at Patea on Wednesday evening, and again on Thursday. During the interval it had moved east by north. It is invisible to the naked eye, but plainly seen through a small telescope or binoculars. It has a bright head, and faint-spreading fan-shaped tail, directed upwards. On Thursday evening (the 12th) the comet's position was approvimately 14 hours right ascension and 35 degrees south declination, nearly on a line between Theta Centauri and Pi Virginia—about a degree distant from the former. On Thursday, it appeared brighter than on the previous eyening."

During question time at Mr. Astbury's Rahotu meeting on Saturday night the candidate was asked if he wag in favor of the co-operative works system. He gave his reply, which caused a would-be politician hom. the audience to make a speech to the effect that all the loafers in New Zealand had congregated on tjie Main Trunk line when at was being put through. "Wore you there?" quietly asked Mr, Astluy.;;, '-Yes, I was," "was the reply, given In an emphatic tone, as if to imply that that settled the question. Mr." Astbury's modest "Oh!" was followed by a spontaneous burst of laughter from the audience, in which all shades of political opinion joined. The politician from the audience looked quite pained at the unexpected turn of affairs.

Sir Robert Stout made a vigorous case against a State" religion in his address at the Brotherhood yesterday. He considered it struct- at the very roots of brotherhood. When on tour, he added, he visited Paris and came across a monument erected to the memory of a man who, as comparatively late as 1700, had been executed because he refused to bow his head to a passing religious procession. That was State religion! Again, at Geneva he had viewed another pillar commemorating the death of another martyr who had dared to oppose the particular religion of the State. Coming nearer home.- he had passed Sol way Firth, which recalled to his mind the martyred maid of Solway, who was left to be overwhelmed by the advancing tide. Her "offence" was that she did not accept the doctrines of the episcopal church. Then at Edinburgh he had pointed out to him the spot at which the execution took place of a man who incurred the fullest penalty of the law because, although he believed in God, he refused to believe in the divinity of Christ. He was not there, he said, to pitch stones at tne Presbyterians, the Roman Catholics, or any other denominations, but he wanted to point out what State religion was. Did we never punish a man for his opinion? What would happen to our teachers if the State taught religion in our schools? "If," he concluded, "it is taught, do you believe our school com-

mittees would appoint a Roman Catholic teacher?"

"What number of cigarettes do you think wore sold in Xew Zealand last year?" asked Sir Robert Stout at the Brotherhood yesterday. Answering his own question, he gave the quantity at 194 millions. Estimating the population of the Dominion at a million, and not including all the women and children and the men who did not smoke, one could, he added, get an idea of the prevalence of the habit among smokers. "Look," he remarked, "at the enormous waste, independent of health, and yet it is totally unnecessary. It is affecting the power of our young people. Why, in America many of the best companies if they And their men smoking cigarettes they tell them they are not required. They do not look upon it on sentimental grounds, fcut because of efficiency. 'Cigarettesmoking tends to make our boys inefficient, and it is the efficient race that is to survive." Continuing, Sir Eobert said that happily the cigarette habit was not yet prevalent among the womenfolk of the Dominion. Instancing the bad effect it would have on them, he pointed out that in certain parts of Belgium and Prance the death-rate of infants was enormous. It was due to the fact that their mothers smoked cigarettes, while yet nursing their babes. The doctors had proved the cause of the mortality by finding the narcotic in the blood of (hose who had died. Warming up lo his subject, the speaker said that when lie saw young men puffing at cigarettes and thinking that they were somebody, he always exclaimed to Himself, "What fools!" Concluding, he pointed a warning finger to the fact that if the habit were not checked the vace would Income inefficient. N T cw Zealand could talk about its climate and what not, but it would be unable to fight the battle of nations if the habit were allowed to hold sway.

For Children's Hacking Cough at night. Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, l/6,°2/C,

Professor Sehaeferg address at the annual meeting of thn British Association for the Advancement of Science will secure world-wide interest because it deals with the problems of life. He recommends a search for tiic Hiissing link between living and dead matter, and New. Zealand tea-drinkers have at last found their missing link «f satisfaction in Cresoent Tea, thai delicious tea favorite of us all.

Tim annual meetings of the Unite* Service Cricket Olub will be Jield this evening in the Town Hall.

By the Remuera, which arrirtd at Wellington on Saturday from London,. 422 passengers arrived, comprising 23 hrst-elass, 45 second, and the rest thirdclass. Ninety-nine left the vessel at. Hobart. The immigrants on board included 44 women, 4 men and 2!) children. Nineteen adults were approved by th» High Commissioner, the rest being'nominated by relatives in New Zealand. Thr assisted women were either wivei coming out.to rejoin their husbands, or domestic servants. The latter, who were 2('» in number, were in charge of a matron (.Miss Skeet). All the passengers •save one passed the Port Health Officer. The exception is to undergo further, medical examination to-day. To convert, in fifteen years, a pariA which was always considered impossible of conversion, into one full of religion* activity, is a work which any mati may be proud of. This, however, is the record' of the Rev. J. E. Watts-Ditchfield, M.A., who for 'the last fifteen years ha* bee* Vicar of St. James the Less, Bethnal Green. These fifteen- years hare been years of strenuous work, and Mr. Watt»DitchiielcL is now taking a holiday in Australia and New Zealand. 'As, however, it has been thought that manypeople in New Plymouth would like an. opportunity of hearing Mr. Watts-Ditch-field sneak, arrangements 'have beem made for him to preach at the Wednesday evening service, to held in St. Mary*» Church at 7 o'clock, and for faim t» address men only the same eveaing at 8 o'clock.