LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 30, 25 June 1914, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Parliament opens this afternoon. The mail train was crowded again last evening, many passengers having to stand after leaving Ilavvera. The New Plymouth Sports Ground Committee has decided to hold a gigantic carnival in aid of the ground in February next.

It is estimated that 41,211 pcrsovs visited the Palmerston Winter Show last week. The gale takings amounte'd to £972 Cs Gd, compared with £9<S3 13s last year.

Messrs Huddart, Parker, Ltd., have been offered and have accepted the Wellington agency of the German-Austra-lian of direct steamers to New Zealand. —Press wire.

The Inglewood Chamber of Commerce strongly supports the movement for forming the Mua road district into "a county. Petitions are now ready for signature, and there is considerable enthusiasm over the matter.

A party of about forty Freemasons from Wanganui arrived by the mail train last night to pay a fraternal visit to Lodge Ngamotu. The members of the Grand Lodge (English constitution) also arrived to attend the installation and consecration of Lodgg Waitara. The auditor (Mr. P. S. Whitcombe), in reporting yesterday to the Education Board on the inspectors' examination of school committees' accounts, remarked that these seemed to he more carefully kept each year. A carriage load of permanent boarders from' the State establishment near Marsland \Hill went south yesterday, bound for the new farm colony that has "been established near Taupo. They appeared to bo a very happy family, and exhibited no regret at leaving their old abode.

Mi\, Arthur Holmes, a distinguished geologist, using radium as a means of calculation, irtimntc the carboniferous period of the earth's life must have lusted 340 million years, the Devonian 570, the Pre-Cambrian 900 to 1500 and the Ordorrican Suruirian 430. In addition to these is tlhe enwrtnousi period since the carboniferous age. A ballot for section 6, block 5, Huiroa 'district, 128 acres in the Tariki settlement was held at the office of the Taranaki Land Board yesterday. There were 10 applicants, ten of them coming under a preference clause, and the section was drawn by Mr. John Mahon, of Eltham.

Messrs Webster Bros, have donated to the instructor of agricultural science at the New Plymouth Technical College a supply of Sutton's mangel and turnip seeds for variety tests, and at yesterday's meeting of the Education Board a vote of thanks was passed to them, and the hope expressed that other donors of horticultural and agricultural seeds and plants would be found.

A committee meeting of the Horticultural Society was held last night, the president (Mr. S. W. Shaw) presiding over a very good attendance. The secretary read a statement of receipts and expenditure for the year, showing a credit balance of £4 lfis. It was decided to advertise for a lady secretary. Comment was made on the very small "amount of door money taken at the last spring show. There is a possibility of this show being dropped and two or three smaller exhibitions held during the year.. The date of the annual meeting was fixed for Wednesday, July 8. Samuel Joseph Beaven appeared before Mr A. Crooke, S.M., in the Xcw Plymouth Magistrate's Court yesterdey, on remand on a charge of embezzlement to which lie pleaded quilty last week. The report of the probation officer was that accused was of sober habits, but given to frequenting billiard saloons. The police reported that he had refunded the money, and accused was therefore admitted to probation for twelve months with the special condition that he refrains from frequenting billiard saloons or from playing billiards for that term. He was also ordered to pay costs, £o 10s lid by two monthly instalments. Accused stated that he had work to go to.

Vera Cruz, or, to give it its full nam?, t,lie New City of the, True Gross, now in til# bauds of the Americans, would today be a city of pestilence but for the engineering works of Messrs. Pearson. :m English firm. What t'lie linn did in cleaning up .and keeping clean Mexico City they also did for Vera Cruz. Mosquitoes as one time -made life unbearable, and typhoid and yellow fever were endemie. AH tllmt was altered when the firm installed a sewage system and filled up the suburban swamps Where malaria was bred. But for tllie English contractors, who also made the breakwaters tl at keen the haTbor safe from the fierce ''northers," the American warships might 'have to put to sea in a moment when Huertn needed looking after. A small country school yesterday laid an application before the Taranaki Education Board for a grant towards building a separate shelter shed for girls. The Board expressed the opinion that the school was too small to make this necessary, and a motion was proposed accordingly. Mr. Marfell moved that the grant bo made, saying that it was inadvisable that hoys and girls should play together, however small the school. The chairman opposed this suggestion, remarking: "I believe that it is right for boys and girls to plav and be educated together in the same school." He pointed out that it was now universally recognised that it was an advantage in every respect to educate "not only boys and girls but young men and young women together at schools and colleges. He was quite sure, he concluded, that no harm could come front this course.

The use of school gymnasia as classrooms when schools are becoming overcrowded has become so common of late that it became the subject of a brief discussion at the meeting of the Taranaki Education Board yesterday in connection with the inspector's report 011 the need for additions to the Franklcy school. Sir. Bradbury asked for an expression of the Board's opinion on the matter. It seemed to him that a committee was unwise to erect a gymnasium at all, because when the classrooms became overcrowded they were advised to use their gymnasium as a classroom. Gymnasia, he pointed out, were unlincd, and otherwise unsuitable, and, moreover, if used as classrooms, were locked in the lunch hour, so that the children had no shelter. He thought the matter should be brought under'the notice of the Education Department, and that the Board should object to the use of gymnasia as classrooms unless as an unavoidable and very temporary measure. The chairman and other members expressed concurrence in this view. The minstrel boy to the war lias gone, In the ranks of health you'll find him; Woods' Peppermint Cure lie's depending

on, And he left his cough Vehind him. Don't leave home when abroad you roam Without a stock close by you, For health is vict'ry you'll all agree, £0 don't let slcknesa try you. 21

The re-grading of St. Auhyn street is shown in the lovels of the new concrete kerbing and channelling. There is a tig drop from the edge of the present footpath to the top of the permanent kerbing, which is away down in the big ditch excavated at the new level.. The

lanterns which are supposed to prevent people talking into the ditch are very few and far between, and the borough engineer might well look at these for himself some night. Referring to the dispute between a teacher and a school committee at yesterday's meeting of the Education .Board, the chairman remarked: "I think yit is a question with the teacher of lack of experience in managing a school, and, ■moreover, in dealing with school committees. Some of tiiem are very difficult to dcul with, and require much tact." In the case under review, it was decided to accept the explanation of the teacher, who has, since the dispute, resigned lier position. Cattle, horse*' and dogs appear to thrive in th-s island* of the Souti. Pacific. Oaltle. have been ."uecessfuMj introduced to the Cook klandw, and in Rarotonga one may see small heTds of fat buttocks feeding on excellent gran®, wliidh Unas b/en sown, by the white planters among the cocoamit palms. Horses have been in use in most of the islands for years. The natives favor the Chilian ponies, which carry incredible loads, and live on \ihe roughest food, but there are n\tiny New Zealand horses alboat, and, properly 'looked after, Hey tAurivo satisfactorily. The islands swarm with mongrel dogs, whioh are of no use. The dogs eat coeoamits and bananas readily, and a visitor to the i4and<s will note with some interest tihe horses' method of negotiating a cocoanut. Thoy work the fruit into ft suitable piosition, and then stamp upon the shell until they break it, and can get at tlhc kernel. Even horses which have been in the tropfcg a ccmimratively short time have lea>rned Ihow to enjoy the succulent nut. ' -

Mi 1 . Lloyd "George sums up Ms political ideals clearl.<> and to tha point in an interview While he gave to Mr James C'reelman, tir, vcll-knwn American journalist anil ?uth or, when ho was in the British Isles. The interview, which was published in the New York Evening Mail, represents the Chancellor of the Exchequer us saying that the Liberal Party is preparing for the last great battle apainst privilege. When that battle was won, as he believed !'• would be, the T«il power of the old aristocratic order will pass away for ever. British soil, in the main, Vi« adds, is owned by a few thousand privileged persons. It is used by millions of industrious citizens—used for tillage and dwellinghoaucs, bv manufacturers, and, indeed, for every form of public enterprise, need, ai.d necessity. The laws that regulate the ownership and oeetipunc.v of t>he k il were made in the ptist by those who owned it. Hence the right to own iond without having labored op jt or with it. is established to perfaction. TTie right of millions to live upon th- land by virtue of their labor has not yet been acknowledged. "It fc to this right we arc seeking now to give statutory recognition," concluded the Chancellor.

A remark by the chief inspector of the Taranaki Education Boajd at the meeting of the Board yesterday to th# eftect that the building of a school at Vogellown would not alToet the attendance at the Franklcv school, and that additions to the latter school could therefore be pushed on, gave rise to a brief discussion as to the advisability of erecting schools on the outskirts of a district as against centralising education. Mr. Adlam expressed the opinion that it would be better to have the erection of the Vogeltown school pushed on before tho Frankley schooj was added to, and, remarking on the erection of small schools generally, said he thought it was a mistake, as small, schools necessarily maintained a lower standard of education. The chairman remarked that it was unlikely that the attendance at schools in and around New Plymouth was likeiv to dimjnißh, except perhaps at the Central School, which would suffer from the development of schools in the outskirts of the town. He believed that the additions at Frankley school should be carried out, and in general was in favor of providing schools in the outskirts of the town rather than forcing children to attend large central schools. As the town grew, the schools in the outskirts were bound to grow also.