LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 157, 9 December 1914, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

, The Eltham Belgian relief fund now totals over £IOOO. The Chief Postmaster advises that Australian mails, ex Manukau at Wellington, will arrive here this afternoon. A complete skeleton of a human being has been unearthed at Okotuku, near Waverley. It is thought to be the remains of a soldier, as a light occurred at the Okotuku redoubt on November 7th, 1863.

At the Magistrate's Court yesterday, judgment for plaintiff was given in the following undefended caseis:—Johnson Bros (Mr Quilliam) v. Bert Gardiner, £1 14s 8d and costs 8s; R. Cock (Mr Grey) v. Win. A. Jury £lO 7s and costs £1 7s 1 Gd; W. M. Perry (Mr Hutchen) v. George Farquhar, £2 4s and costs 13s. We may point out that the method of voting at the forthcoming election is by erasing the line not wanted. In voting for candidates the voter will strike out the name or names not wanted, and leave in one name only. The same with the licensing paper. The line not wanted must be struck out.

A't the annual meeting of Moturoa, No. 10, U.A.0.D., held last evening, D.P. Bro. Ewens, of Clifton Lodge, Waitara, installed the officers for the ensuing halfyear as follows:— 7 4.D., Bro. W. Gilbert; V.A., Bro. W. Nicoll; 1.G., Bro. C. E. Perkins; 0.G., Bro. Ward; A.P. Bards, Bros. Salt, and Edwards; V.A. Bards, Bros. Riley and Booth; Minute Sec., Bro. Parrott. After the installation each officer briefly returned thanks. Several visiting brethren from Clifton were also present An amendment to the rules relating to those going away to the war was received from the Grand Lodge. P.D.P. Bro. Groombridge was elected delegate to the Grand Lodge conference to be held at Feilding in February. Four breliren, who are ill, had sick pay passed to them. A brief discussion took place with regard to the meeting of the Royal Arch Chapter at New Plymouth. It was decided to announce the date later when the P.A.'s have had a meeting.

Army medical men plying their calling on the battlefield of Europe arc intense" ly interested in the problem whether there are differences between the tissues of a living man in the ordinary avocation and those of the same man wen, as a soldier, his is worked up to the and heat of war. In several . places during recent battles soldiers have been found standing erect and as if pos ed for a picture when they were shot. As we all know, rigor mortis does not, in the body fluids which bring this mustime after death. But on the battlefield there are apparently chemical cliangfes in the body fluids which bring this mus cular stiffening simultaneously with the 1 arrival of death. A Turco, for example, after one of the wild desperate charges for which these troops are noted, was discovered standing dead but upright, with his bayonet transfixing a German. He had been shot at the very instant of bayoneting his enemy. , In Liege a Belgian soldier- was found transfixed with a life-like fidelitv in the attitude of firing, and only a little hole in his forehead explained his immobility. At Mons a Uhlan officer leading his troops was shot through the heart, and stiffened In his living position with his sword upraised. Wounded soldiers can relate many stories of these ghastly human waxworks on the battlefield.