LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 189, 30 December 1912, Page 3

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A hen ostrich on a farm belonging to Piet Gregorius Blativelt, near Zandspruit, South Africa, is rearing a brood of ducklings and mothering an orphaned puppy. Silk stockings and a piece of linen worn- by the Marquis of Montrose at his execution at Edinburgh in 1650 were sold at Soaheb.y's rooms, London, last mpnth for £340. The father of a seven-year-old boy at Kiyosu, Japan, punished him for disobedience by burying him for twentyfour hours in a hole in the ground, leaving only his head above the surface. It took four men to dig him out. The headmaster of the Hastings District High School has issued a note of warning to scholars to the effect that ali overcoats left at the school after "breaking-up" will be destroyed during the holidays. At present quite a pile of coats are awaiting claimants. What was said to be the first time a hydro-aeroplane ever took a passenger aboard from a motor boat was accomplished at Newport Beach on November 23. when Glenn Martin, the aviator, picked up Colonel C. If. McKinstry, the United States army engineer in charge of. the development of Los Angeles harbor. off a launch in Newport' Bay, circled over the waters for a time, and then flew safely to land.

A recent visitor to the South Island told a reporter that things there were prosperous to a degree. As an instance, he states that on one train on which he travelled there were six brides—also, of course, the re 'were six bridegrooms—"and," he added, "we suspected two or three others.'' Apart from the suspects, lie reckoned that six brides, with bridegrooms, on one train afforded a veryfair criterion of general prosperity."

In Mr. T. E. Sedgwick's Christmas letter to his boys appears the following significant paragraph:—"l hear that McGratli, who was one of the ten "'failures,' because he failed to stay on his farm for the full time, has now become champion light-weigh t boxer of New Zealand. When the opponents of the scheme hear that a S.B. failure is New Zealand's champion, they will better be able to properly appreciate the quality of the others."

The amount spent this year on new buildings in Sydney and suburbs is £750,000 more than that expended last year. In 1011 a record was established, when the amount reached .04,500,000. and 6133 new buildings were erected. This year 8000 buildings have been put up, and their cost has exceeded £5,250.000. About £500,000 was spent on alterations and additions. Public works amounted to £502,000 and Harbor Trust £175,000.

An amusing story was told by Bishop Julius, in an address to the members of the Commonwealth Club in Sydney. lie said that a schoolmaster in Christ.chiirch. who had a private school of about GO boys, had a habit of taking a newspaper, into the school every morning for the purpose of explaining to the boys the foreign cable news, in order to widen their horizon and to give them a better idea, of the world in general. At the end of the term came the inevitable examination in order to ascertain what the boys remembered concerning the cable news. One of the questions put* was, "What is the meaning of the All-red route?" Nobody seemed to know, and there was silence until one of tile lads, with the light glistening in his eve, indicated that he knew. "What is'it, my boy?" said the master, and the reply came, "Please, sir, the beetroot."

An unusual elopement took place the other day (s.iys a Berlin correspondent), when a bridegroom carried off'the daughter of his betrothed on the morning that had been fixed for the wedding. Hermann Thieman, a locksmith, aged 28. became engaged some months ago to Frau Anne Schmidt, a. middle-aired widow, who owned a small but thrivintf business. It was the sliop that Herman first saw Frau Schmidt, and it was there eventually that he proposed to her. On being officially recognised as 'her fiancee he was introduced to the home circle, and there he met Frau Schmidt's beautiful seventeen-year-old daughter, and fell in love with her. Accordingly they helped themselves to a substantial sum from the money safe in the shop, and when Frau Schmidt rose on what she supposed to be her wedding day she found a letter from the lovers, saying that they had gone, awav to Vienna to get married.

| Members of the Equitable 15uildin.tr Society of New Plymouth (First anil Second Groups) are notified that subscriptions will be. due and payable today (Monday), at the Secretary's office, Currie street, from 0 a.m. to 12.30, from J P-ni, to 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. to 8 Dm Advt. V '

A,' fire broke out at the top of Pukekura Park yesterday. The custodian of the racecourse and his wife, with Messrs. F. W. Sandford and S. N. Remind, wire quickly on the scone, and, after a shaip battle, succeeded in gaining mastery oyer the ilames. Had they been a little later the lire must have spread and seriously damaged the beautiful bush of the Park.

Scottish Americans in Boston have staited a new crusade with the, object of arousing New Engenders with English and Scotch names to the dreadful fact that newcomers from Hungary and Poland—coloquially known a s Hunks and J olacks arc poaching their names. The movement luid it.s origin in an application to the Court by a Pole that be should hereafter be known as Patrick Grant. He intended to carrv on the retail liquor trade. A caveat was successfully lodged against the scheme. In an article on Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the editor of the London Daily News writes: "Having failed to get rid of his fortune by building 1500 libraries, 0000 church organs, palace and peace institutions, and by founding Scotch l iiiversity schemes and hero funds, why doesn't he try another method? Why does he not spend the rest ot his days and resources warring against the twelve-hour day and the seven-day week of the Steel trust, which is the most colossal monument to .Mammon that modern industry has conceived?"

At the Police Court on Saturday morning, the two men John Earnshaw, alias Smithers, and Geo. Jones, who were anested on the racccoprse the previous afternoon by Detective-Sergeant lioddam and Constable Fitzgibbons, were brought before Mr. A. Crooke, S.M., on a charge of assaulting Eric Norman Bellringer, with attempt to rob. Senior-Sergeant Haddrell prosecuted, and asked for a remand until Monday, January oth, which was granted., A first-offending inebriate was dealt with in the usual manner, being convicted and discharged. A paragraph concerning a parrot discovered in Auckland at. the age of 50 years, caught the eye of Mr. K 11. Barber, of Gisborne, who states that he is acquainted with a bird of the same family which has gained a century or more in the matter of voars. '"lt is," he savs, "kept at the hotel at Tom Ugly's Point, between Sydney and the National Park! on the right hand of the road from Sydned at. the Kerry crossing. The parrot is known .to-.be ••over. 100 years-old, and the point is named after the savage old bird, which has not a single feather."

Referring in the course of an interview in Sydney the other day to the prospects of the Labor Party in New Zealand, Sir John Findlay said that while the two sections remained opposed as they were at present to each other, the controlling influence of 1.-'bor in the Dominion was still a long way off. He was of the opinion (hat theje..was little chance of Labor eliecting any such combination as would give it the control of the fioverumet of the Dominion for at least a couple of Parliaments. If the widespread prosperity of New Zealand among the wage-earning class continued, he added, and there was an absence of that struggle and adversity which had given the Labor Party in New Zealand in 1890 its memorable lift, it was perhaps not too much to say that Labor in New Zealand would not, within the next decade, at any rate, achieve anything like the ascendancy it had attained in New South Wales and some of the other Australian States. He was satisfied that the absence of one great metropolis was an impediment to Labor solidarity in the Dominion. He knew that the doctrine was disputed, but recent happenings had still further impressed him with the fact that the division of the city population into four large and somewhat distant centres broke up the united influence which Labor exerted in such a citv as Svdnev.