LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 254, 17 March 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

To-day is St. Patrick's Day. There was a good lUiiiiber of visitors at the port yeserdav. great interest being taken in the sailing ship the 11. D. Bendixseii.

In order not to clash with the opening of the West 3?nd Reserve on Eas?r Monday, the committee of the Fraukley Road Sports have generously decided to postpone their sports gathering until Thursday, April 3rd.

A correspondent writes asking if there is any possibility of any metalling being done on the licit Road before the coining winter. Tie says that the road, and the footpath, too, are practically impassable. It is now some months since the road was filled in and the necessary metal lias been waiting for some time close handy.

The sisters of the local convent have just received the results of the recent theoretical examination held in connection with Trinity College, London, .as follow: Senior honors: Clara Old 100 marks, Irene Connett 8S marks; Sylvia Hodgson SO marks, Advanced junior: Kathleen Council 70 marks. Junior honors: Rubv Allen 70. We understand that a large number of objections to the Borough valuator's assessments were handed in on Saturday, the last day o:i which objections could be received. All objectors • are invited elsewhere to attend a meeting in the Town Hall this, (Monday) evening with a view to taking uniform action in opposing the assessments.

Some very large pieces of Oregon pine are included in the cargo of the American schooner 7T. D. Bendixsen, now discharging at the Breakwater. One piece handled on Saturday U-tin by 14in)i contained about Si 10 superficial feet. It is probable that timber, of such dimensions will be re-sawn here, as higher-grade boards are possible to be sawn from a piece that may be classed as of a lower grade by the shippers. The West End Foreshore Improvement Society has received the following further donations, bringing the total to £1.4 14s fid:—H. Stocker 3s. H. Okey 10s fid. X. K. MacDiarmid I.os fid, Sympathiser (per E. Rary) £l, MeLeod and Slade lOs fid. Pike and Waters 10s, K. ,T. Cock ss. R. IT. W. 2s fid, A. E. Svkes 2s Od, E. 11 B. 2s lid. 11. 11. ss, T. 'Bishop 10s, A. Crooke 10s. E. Lash 2s fid, Fern Tree Is, Friend Is, Mrs. Johnston ss. Walking into the Peckham (London) police station the other day, Elizabeth Pettifer. a married woman, handed over to the oliicer in charge a cocked arid loaded revolver, and said "I've shot my luisliaud!" The police hastened to the Pettifer's home, where, in one of the rooms, they discovered the husband lying dead on the, floor. Mrs Pettifer was

subsequently brought before the Police Court and remanded on a charge of murder.

The defence authorities are preparing for the annual encampment to be held at Oringi next month, and to be attended by the Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, Palmerston North and 'Taranaki battalions. The camp will start on April 14 as far as the 'fours extra days men" are concerned, but for those who are not behind in their parades it will commence on April 18. The extra four days at the beginning hare been arranged for stragglers, and compulsory attendance has been ordered. A fatigue party will pitch the camp in advance, starting on April 12 next. At the annual meeting of the Frankleigh Park Extension Land Company on Friday eveniu-.', Mr. F. P. C'orkill, chairman of directors, was in the chair. The annual report stated briefly that the future of the estate must depend very largely upon tin l oil boring operations in the vicinity, and that a discovery of payable petroleum anywhere near bv would probably produce a handsome return on the investment. In the meantime the directors do not consider the time opportune for subdividing. The report and balance-sheet were received and adopted, and the retiring directors. Messrs. Corkill. Parker. Avc'-y, Watkins, Kimbell. West ami Col. Messenger, were reelected.-, and M'r. C. T. Mills, F.P.A., was re-appointed auditor. Said the great American actor, describing a burglary: "When I put my hand in that pocket this morning, ft was empty. I rushed to my wife and asked her whether she had moved the money." This remark is a great enlightenment, it conclusively proves, as has frequently been suspected, that actors are human, after all Under the circumstances, even the average man who doesn't carry five hundred-dollar bills about with him would regard his wife with suspicion if he found five and sixpence mising from his trouser pocket next morning, and if (he ascertained deficit was a sovereign it is more likely that he, too, would be driven by his agitation to rush to his wife, though, it depends on how he was when he came home the night before. Tt is sometimes better to say nothing about it lest too much is said. —Observer.

Tt has been said ofton that curiosity killed a eat, but whether it was curiosity that '-(.suited in n horse being killed in the First Church building at Tnvercargill the other day will remain an unsolved mv-!ierv (states';i correspondent of the Ly Helton Times). Tt appears that a horse strayed about the uncompleted hew building.one evening, find under cover of darkness made its way through an anerture in the wall into the buildincr. Tlie storv is that the floor was at that time onlv partly laid down, and the remainder of the space was taken un with flooring joists. The itinerant quadrmied appears to have a 1 tempted to do a little tishtrope walking and came to grief, for the following morning it was found dead in the organ pit. bavin" fallen through the joists. The carcase was extricated with some difficulty, and the remains of the horse that had been over-zealous in its enquiry into architecture were carted away in a dray.

A stramre stov of Troland's dark da\s is tolil by Major-Genera 1 Sir Alfred Turner in a recently published volume of reminiscences. Sir Alfred was willi the arinv in Trpbind in thp 'eighties, when outrages ;;;k1 evictions were almost, of daily occurrence and feeling on both side* van vevv Mali. r 'ne day tlip poliee at Kilrnsh had occasion to disperse a crowd, and when they were recalled one man was found to lie missing. A search party was being sent out when "an ohiect like a scarecrow appeared approachins; us. His hplnipt was battered down and blood was trickling from his head and face over the tattered remains of » tunic/' writes Sir Alfred: 'his other garments were in mnch the same state, and he carried the bnlt end of his carbine. Tie staggered like a drunken man. owing to the loss of Wood, towards his comrades, «nd as ho joined them be was heard to say, 'Begorrah. bovs. (his is the first time T ever had rale satisfaction!' What bad taken place was never exactlv elucidated, but he seems to have overtaken some of the flying crowd, who turned on him, with the result that lie got much the worse of it. As he was quite satisfied, and said that he would not, identify any of his foe?

nothing but amusement resulted from the affair." The incident is characteristic of the Trisb temperament, and it, illustrates a phase of the situation lodav. The sons of the Emerald Tsle are still ready to break one another's heads with keen enjoyment and much good feeling.

By Order in Council, published in the hist Gazette, it is provided that the kea, hawks of all species and shags are not to be deemed protected. "The man who has not made ii mis'-, take in anything," dechired .Mrs Donaldson, of the Wellington Housewives' I'iiion, "lias not risen above a vegetable existence.''

The Appleton, Wisconsin, Education Board have decided to create the position of "ollicial spanker," whose duty it will be to assist parents in correcting disobedient children.

A correspondent to the Taumaruniii Press alleges that a dance which recently eventuated in the liaurimu Hall ended up in a sort of drunken spree, very few of the men being sober.

The latest strike. The almond-eyed employees of a Grey town Chinese market gardener have struck for higher wages. It is not known whether the Federation of Labor will support the employees by establishing pickets and preventing free labor being employed. ' A Chicago cablegram to the Sydney Sun says:—"With long imitation tails figuring as a prominent part of their habiliments, the Misses Catherine and Helen Dudley, well-known society girls, appeared as impressionist'monkeys at. a party, which, caused the smart set of Chicago people to gasp in surprise. But the monkeys were eclipsed when Mr. and Mrs. Harry Harvey turned up in the characters of Adam and Eve, dressed only in fig reaves."

Captain Amundsen, the Norwegian Antarctic explorer, who is engaged upon a lecturing tour of the United States and Canada, was the recipient of the unwelcome attentions of the suffragettes at Detroit on March Ist (according to acablegram appearing in Australian papers). The women called at his hotel, and Amundsen, when he heard that they were there, fled on to the roof. The suffragettes pursued him up through fifteen doors of the hotel, and they hammered on the door leading to the roof-. But the explorer had turned the key. and be stayed where he was until the women left. He was on the roof for hours, despite the fact that snou' was falling all the time. He humorously 'remarked that he felt much more at home there.