LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 90, 11 September 1914, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

• A. funarm telegram, in, recording a slight fail of rain yesterday, says that 1 lam is much needed in the country. I The winter 'has been the driest for many! years, loss than four inches of rain having fallen near Timaru during the last live months. A xory pathetic ease of child labor in A aeriea was mentioned by Dr.'Sheldon' at the Theatre Royal last night, when he alluded to a little. Italian girl, who at, three, years of age wis, at eight o'clock at night, engaged in making artificial flowers, for 540 of which' the ■pay was 2'/,d. The lecturer said there wero thousands of such cases. A meeting of tho Taranaki Plunipton CCursmg Club was held hist night to v.;nd up matters in connection with, the pa.it season. Owing to the bad luck that has followed the club, dne primarily to diseases attacking the hare, the cotroroittee is loft with a small debit 'balance to meet, but members were optimistic (hat thin will be wiped out, and that, the club will go ahead vigorously next seaSO.'l.

I.'i.-i Honor ,*lr Justice Edwards has granted probate in the following estates:—On tho motion of Mr R. C. Hughe*, to Mary Hempton, executrix mmicd in, the will of John Hamilton lieiipton. On the motion of Messrs, •Ilalliwell and Sellar lllawcra) to Geo. Minvh, Winifred Marv Barraclough, and Cyril Mnreh, ia the'estate of Harriet hlisibetli Murch deceased. On the moC;>.i o£ Mr A. Bewley. to Robert 0. Cbmov and Joseph Manning in the estate of Chas. Stepney Gattclt. . Few seem to have realised yet that l.i-rmany can still draw as much food as she pleases from any oversea part of tne world—from America and the Argentine—in fact, from any part of the world. Notwithstanding the blockade .WHie'h has been established by the British fleet, she can, for the moment, import as large a quantity of food as she is prepared to pay for, and in any quantity that she pleases. This will flow in through Holland, and he landed at .Amsterdam and Rotterdam under neutral flag. It is extremely probable, that .gr.-at pressure will be brought by the Allies to force Holland to 'declare one say or the other, since inconvenient neutrals, however small, are apt to defeat the best war plans, laid on the iargest scale.—Dunedin Star.

James Kelly, a young man living at the Volunteer Hotel, in George Street Wet, Sydney, got out of, bed early in his sleep, and walking across the room, opi-.'ied a window, which looks out into the yard of the hotel, and is immediately J hove a stock of empty bottles, d iiiuple of seconds later he was awakened by crashing into the bottles, many of which broke and cut him severely about the back and hips. Kelly, who had fallen about twenty feet, and was lying in the broken heap, with jagged pieces of glass sticking into his flesh, cried out for help, and he was subsequently taken by the Civil Ambulance to Sydney Hospital, where a dozen stitches were- inserted in his wounds.

The uncommon spectacle of a trooper in tho prisoner's dock was witnessed at' the Police Court on Monday morning, reports the Napier Telegraph, when Frederick James Rccs, a member of the expeditionary force, was charged with the theft of a bicycle at Hastings, and afterwards selling it for £2. Kces pleaded guilty, but when Sergeant Cum-ming-i informed the Magistrate that the vouhi; fellow was before the Court recently and fined £2O for taking liquor i into a Maori pa, and because this had rot been forthcoming a warrant of arrest had been issued, 'Mr. S. E. McCarthy, S.M., adjourned the ease for a week. "VVi!l tiie military authorities take liim back:" asked his Worship. Sergeant , Cummings: "It is the desire of the Government to take no one but men of really good character." "There is an entire lack of regard for appearance in the manner in which trade and other advertisements are displayed as a rule at railway stations," says Mr. E. IT. Hiley, General Manager of Railways, in his annual report. "In many instances the trade advertisement-; are a positive eyesore and a disfigurement of the station buildings, rendering them a discredit to the neighborhood. Steps will be taken to remedy this condition, of affairs as the existing contracts expire. The net revenue at present obtained from advertising contracto.'s does not compensate for the disfigurement and damage of station building.-, alter due allowance has been made for free conveyance of men and advertisements and the cost of the Department's labor in fixing and removing y .c same. Unless the revenue from this source can be materially increased, I propose to abolish altogether public advertising on railway property. If the .practice is continued, the method of exhibiting advertisements will be strictly regulated."