LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 187, 16 January 1915, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

' The il n Dairy Company is paying out '£1775 Hi f >r butter-fat this month. ' Sheep worrying has been rife in semw farts of the S'uatford district. What is stated to be a record in trout fishing so far as Canterbury is concerne,: has i.-cn established by three Christchurch anglers. In three days' tiding in the Opihi and Temuka rivers tliey landed 380 trout, all on the fly, the n • averaging one to two pounds in weigh i The dairy ■produce export from the port of New Plymouth for the year ended 3st December was as follows, the figures for the preceding year being in parenthesis: 'Putter, 157,;-.C3 cwt. (157,639); cheese, 04,008 crates (91;243); the results for 1914 thus showing a substantial increase on tlie exports of 'ihe previous yea;'.

The Fijian contingent is a very small company—only 52 men—but then the white population in Fiji it very small Where the whites in a British community are only one-fortieth of the population one does not expert the frwiie. to volunteer to be so great as 111 a community in which practically all arc Euiv peans. Fiji's little band of volunteers affords another illustration of the reality of the Imperial spirit in c.. corner of the Empire. Despite the frequency with which ac cidents demonstrate the danger of allowing children to play with fiivsiv ■ more or less serious mishaps are a regular occurrence. The loaded revolver claimed another juvenile, victim ill Auckland the other day, reports the Star. A ten year-old boy named Ivan Picrard, living in Bishop's road, Epsom, was playing with a revolver which he. thought to he empty, and 011 pulling the trigger lodged a bullet in the fleshy part of his thigh.

Australian papers publish the following extract from an application to the liusli Fire Relief Fund. Its merit, that it is perfectly genuine. Life in;' have been full of surprises for the lady and also for her first and second he bands. The extract is as follow.-,:—'l have, a family, four dairy cows, two pigs, a horse, and three little children, all these being by my first husband: two goats in full milk, and a baby, by my second husband; all these animal; were lost in the bush fires."

A modern invention has been installed in the Tokoniairiro (Milton, Otago) Presbyterian Church. The instrument comprises a telepnone transmitter, of exceed ingly strong capacity, which is placed under tlie reading desk of the pulpit. Wires are connected therewith to any part of the church and those afflicted with deafness can attach a patent fe ; . phone receiver over their beads and listen to the sermon with distinctness and without any discomfort. Wires can also he ehnnected to private residences, and bed-ridden persons can listen to the service whilst reclining in their homes. A! ready one private outside connection has been installed.

Mr. W. F. JTatten has just complete his fortieth year as a driver of the (iis-borne-Ormond coach. Father Carran, of Ormond, who evidently has a bent for figures (says the (iisborne Times), has gone carefully into Mr. Ilatten's "mileage" during this long period, and estimates that Mr. Hatten has driven his coach hack and forward over-the 14-mile road 250,000 miles, or a trifle more. This is equivalent to journeying 20 times to "England, or 11 times round the world or seven times to the moon. During his 40 years as a coach-driver, Father Carran estimates, Mr. Hatten Ims worn out 110 fewer than 4700 odd horseshoes and he has carried 208,000 parcels.

By a curious coincidence, the French vintage of 1911 appears to have much in common with that of IS7O, when the Germans were in possession of the Champagne country, and Bordeaux was, as now, the seat of Government. Although the spring was favorable to the development. of the vines, the months of .Tune and July were wet and sun] -ss, and there was nothing to indicate a vintage of special quality being harvested in anv part) of France, until tlie outbreak of war, when, as a result of the phenomenally fine weather during August and September, as well as in the early days of October, the. most sanguine anticipations have been realised. Close upon ],000,000 gallons of naturally fermented wine, of exceptionally good quality—representing some 25 gallons per head of the population—have been produced

Sir John French has a reputation as a wit. He dearly loves a joke. One of the best stories tokl about him is how, one night at dinner, some officers were discussing rifle shooting. The General was listening, as was bis wont, without making any remark, until at length be chipped in with: —"Say, I'll bet any one here," in bis calm, quiet deliberate "way, "that 1 can lire ten shots at five hundred yards, and c-all each shot correctly without waiting for the marker. I'll stake a box of cigars on it." The major present accepted the offer, and the next morning the whole mess was at the shooting range to see the trial. Sir .John fired. ''Miss!" he announced. He fired again. "'Hiss!" he repeated. A third shot. "Miss!" "Hold on there!" protested the major. ''What aro- you doing. You are not shooting at the target at all." But French finished his iask. "Miss!" "Miss!" ''Miss!" "Of course I wasn't shooting at the target," he said. "1 was shooting for those cigars.''

It will be remembered that shortly after the war broke out the fii-niri' Australian Company's steamer Wiflmar. bound from Hamburg to Bluff, with a valuable cargo, was inadvertently advised of the outbreak of war by a Hi-'.' steamer and her master at once; beaded her for Java, where she has been interned ever since. On being approached, the company refused to deliver the cargo unless consignees signed a "'genera] av erage" bond guaranteed by a bank to cover the cost of the deviation of the voyage and the expenses incurred at Java until the. end of the war. As 11■ i proposal was considered decidedly indefinite and one which might, have meant payment of more than the value of cargo the consignees refused the term*, offered. The next move on the part of the (ierman company Mas to try and sell the cargo. The British Consul at I'.a tavia heard of this and cabled to New Zealand to find out if authority to do so had been obtained from the consignc. - and on hearing that such had not been the case, protested and managed to successfully circumvent the (Hermans. The New Zealand firms interested in the \Yi<inar's cargo have since sent a repre*tive to Java, and he is due there any day now. He will go fully into the whole question, and should be heard from in the course of a few days. The W'ismar's cargo consists of between 500(1 and (1000 tons, and portions of it are consigned to BlulT, Dunediii, Lyttelton. Wellington and Auckland respectively.

.Mr W. T. Jennings, M.P., has pi'esmted to the Waitara Library a valuable 'book on the 1860-1 Maori war, l».y Grayling, giving a full account of the engagements in that period, and hav.ng maps showing the saps from Matoiikiriki to To Arei. The gift also includes mana,script copies cf the orders for ganvon and outpost duty, and copies of the newspaper 'iNfiw Zealander'' conC. niiig interesting accounts of the nth". :ig times of the early days.—Mail.

Th._> sum realised at t'lie Uremij V ile ol tile stock collected from settler..; of Uruti by .Mr Donald Eraser for the North Taranaki Palriotic League amounted to ISs. Jn addition' to this Mr Fraser has since handed to the secretary the sum of £l fis collected in cash for the same object', making a total of £45 3s. The concert arranged by Miss Clark realised £f> 12s (id, and a concert arranged by the Misses liranhole -and Richardson £5 ITs (id. The receipts from the picnic, about £B, bring the total to nearly £(>o.

The metaphors of army recruiting were so effectively employed by a wellknown Scottish evangelist during a visit to a .Scottish town some years ago, the (llasgow Herald tells, that only one man in the audience remained obdurate. With him, even the private pleadings of the preacher were of no avail. Six months later, the evangelist came back to the same town, And was addressed in the street by a man in whom he recognised his unrepentent hearer—uiirepentent ii<longer, for he said joyfully to t!:• preacher, ''l've joined the great Army, sir." The preacher congratulated him. and asked what branch he had joined. "The baptists, sir." "Tuts, man, that's not the Army—that's the Navy."

With knights, professors, and colonels as deck hands, the Peninsula and Ori."" mail boat Morca sailed from Bombay for England on September 27. On the arrival of the Morea at Bombay from Australia with some of the members of the ISr Association, who .were lately .in Brisbane, as passengers, there was tronlv with the ship's crew of Lascars, and the men left the vessel. The ship had to Slli' without seventy or so of the Lascars. / few military men offered to help the ship's officers out of the difficulty. Stirred by this exam]lie, most of the saloon passengers volunteered to do the Las cars' work. On a. Sunday, at 5A!> a.m. (states The Englishman' newspaper of India) the call went round, and within a few minutes the deck was taken up bv a large party of grey-headed, grey-bearded professors, knights, colonels and others, young and old, with brooms, buckets, cloths, and other cleaning utensils. Everyone was soon hard at it. Soni" were in pyjamas, tucked up to the knees, and others in shorts. Aged, distinguished scientists were, either swabbing with a broom or busily nolishiiii: rails ,m{ paint work with a rag llu-1 n bucWot of v a tor. Among the (listiu,<2ui*herl psson<*ors doing Lascar wo-k >vcre Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor Kirkaldy. Professor Sollas, Professor E. Cokes, lii\ I;. 1 . Eraser, Sir Edward Tliurn, Profes&or (Jrecii. Professor Patten, Professor Morgan. Professor Herdman, Professor Meredith, j'rofessor Luigi, Sir Thomas llclland. Professor Hicks, Professor Duffield. Lr. Macfarlane, Professor Howe and the Hon. T. Kecnan.