LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 304, 16 May 1913, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

A property of 100 acres at Kairanga was sold by auction the other day at £55 per acre.

The Petone Borough Council has resolved to imrease the wages of the borough casual and permanent laborers from £2 8s per week to Is 3d per hour. The foreman carter will receive £2 17s Cd per week. The decision to pay employees on the drainage works Is 4d per hour will increase the estimates of the s'.werage scheme by several thousand ]i )unds.

Space for the Winter Show, which is to be held on June 11, 12, 13. and 14, is being applied for from all parts of the Dominion. Entries are also coming in very freely, and as the country people are taking a keen interest in the district exhibits, it is fully expected that the Taramaki Agricultural .Society's Winter Exhibition this year will be the best held in 'the district.

Poverty Bay pastoralists are looking forward hopefully to the winter pro : speets. Farmers agree that the feed has come away in a remarkable manner, and that with perhaps a little lighter stocking sheep should pass through the winter months without much mortality. The position is not quite so satisfactory as regards cattle, feed for this class of stock being short in consequence of the dry season and extensive burns. The Municipal News, representing the Los Angeles experimental venture in the weekly newspaper field, chronicled its own obituary last month. Thirty-two editions of this paper had been published and circulated. Publication of the city paper ceased under an edict of the voters, who declared for its discontinuance when it Was shown that the revenues virtually uere nothing, while the expense used the e itire appropriation of 30,000 dollars a y 'ar.

Florence, Marchioness Calabrini, of Palazzo Caffarelli, who died in Italy on January 22 last, and who was a (laughter of the late Mr. William Ogle Hunt and widow of the late Marquis of T?occo Gradara, Italy, directed in her will that 500 masses should be said for her soul, and that she should be buried in a nightgown and "the white blanket with red border" that her husband used to have. If this were moth-eaten, she was to be covered with the green plush table-cover with embroidered stripes, for "my husband had the larger one."

The Rev. A. H. Stanton, curate of St. Alban's, Holborn, one of London's most famous preachers, died on March 28 at Ms sister's louse at Stroud, Gloucester- .■ dire, where he had been lying ill for .•ome time. Rev. Stanton, who was 74 years of age, had been curate of St. Alban's since 1802, the year of his ordination and the year of the opening of the church. He refused all proferment which would have taken him away from his work in London.

A sad iccident occurred in. the* bush near Tauinarunui on Wednesday last. A ) voting man named Smith was engaged] twicking hgs from the bush to a mill when he was thrown to the ground and t a log rolled over on him, severely crushing his lc|t. The injuries were of so serious a mature that amputation was decided upeit, and, to have this done the sufferer had to be conveyed by train to Hamilton. It is stated that removal to Hamilton was caused through lack of proper facilities at the Taumaninui Hospital. Smith is a married man. It is said that a similar accident caused the deatli of his father some years ago. "The remarkable report on the growth of the drug habit in the United States is a document of world-wide importance and dee]) human interest," says the Pall Mall Gazette. "The people of America are consuming quantities of opium, and, in a lesser degree, of cocaine, enormously in excess of the rate of consumption i of these drugs in Europe. The subject' is far more complex than many worthy people would have us believe, and cannot be dismissed with references to the lax poison laws and the weakening of mankind. How many centuries will it take for European races to adapt themselves to the dry stimulating climate of North America? And, meanwhile, what will be the-effect of the climate upon their nerves and physical constitution?" A New Zealander just returned gives a somewhat doleful picture of prospects in tlw .country districts of England and Scotland. The small-holdings policy, so hf told'a Dunedin reporter, does not seein to he working well. The holdings are often ridiculously small, and occupied not by the right class of people, but by men who are merely scratching poor ground and raising handfuls of vegetables. Another disquieting feature of the outlook is the constant departure of the bone and sinew of the country. The C.P.R. have well-organised agencies going round the provinces and enticing people to the backblocks of Canada. Out of a city the size of Dunedin they manage t. get 300 or 400 emigrants, and then m >ve on to another centre and repeat tl » operation. The Old Country needs ti wake up. On a visit to Wellington, at ,the present time is Mr, Frank Allen, of the Eastern Extension Cable Company's staff, who for two years past has been stationed at Tientsin, in Xorth China. In the course of a very interesting interview with a pressman, he referred to the plunge the Chinaman has made in European clothes. "One effect of the revolution," said Mr. Allen, "has been the general adoption! of the European styles of dress among the better-class Chinese, in which they have followed the example of Japan. One cute merchant who saw this movement coming, imported a shipload of tweed suits and caps from Vienna, and cleared the lot in a few days. ' Just before I left I saw a Chinese wedding, at which everyone present wore hats, in many casesu and. to make the illusion complete, Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' was played at the conclusion!"

.\n extraordinary outburst of disorder occurred at Darlinghurst <"!aol at the "oi'dusion of a concert given by meml)"rs of the Prisoners' Aid Society (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph). Usually the performers are limited to members of the male sex, but on this occasion ladies contributed to the programme, which was apparently well enjoyed; but when all was over the prisoners apparently became greatly excited, and for a long period the usual quiet precincts of the gaol were transformed into something ajSjroaching pandemonium. The prisoners were got back to their cells before trouble arose, but their behaviour and language afterwards was of the most shocking character, and the warders were hopeless to stop it. Suggestions have been made 'against the discipline observed at the gaol, but the whole incident is being made the subject of a report, the Minister for Justice having called for the fullest investigation to be made.

There are many brandies'of the Detective Office of which the public bears nothing, save by accident or when a enquiry has a grim and sordid end. One of the most interesting of these works is that touching ''missing friends." A man, or more often a woman, leaves her home. She seems to dissipate into thin air, for none of those who wore friends seem able to aid in the search. Yet sooner or later the missing person is found, as a complete description is available usually, and goes to each station in the conntry. At present (says the Christehurch Press), the, local detectives have two cases in hand, one, that of a. girl who has merely "gone away." and the other a more serious problem of the "gone missing" of an unfortunate Englishman. Somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age, well educated, but not trained to learn, he came here a. fortnight ago. lie has left behind at his lodgings clothing and papers, and as ho was supposed to be short of cash and dispirited at the time, it is feared he may have made away with himself.