LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 July 1917, Page 4

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Owing to the difficulties with acetylene, the Opunake Town Board is making enquiry as to the feasibility of an electric scheme. The Star says that Auckland trade .shows a serious decrease owing to shortage of shipping. Customs collections for June were only about half what they were in June, 1910. The Mayoress (Mrs. C. H. Burgess), reports that the competition for the patriotic camisole presented R»y Miss Shepherd, was won (by Annie Burrows, Vogcltown, No. 31. Meetings of the Second Division reservists will be held to-night at Inglewood and Hawera, delegations from the New Plymouth League addressing both meetings. At a special meeting of the National Dairy Association, held in Hawera yesterday, Mr. A. Morton presiding, ' the resolution passed at the annual meeting, of the association in Palmerston, increasing the directorate from 7 to 9, was confirmed. An Auckland press message last night reported the death yesterday of Walter John Clarke, formerly of the Ninth Reinforcements, from internal injuries sustained in rescuing a comrade who fell overboard from a transport at Albany. An operation was performed in Egypt, and Clarke returned to the Dominion, where he has been under medical treatment since. Robert W. Chambers' novels are the supreme successes of the screen to-day. First "The Common Law" broke records, and now his latest novel, "The Girl Phil'ippa," lias been put in motion pictures, and is even breaking the previous records. The picture has been produced by the Vitagraph Blue Ribbon Company, and will commence a three-night season at Everybody's Theatre on Wednesday. Anita Stewart is cast as "The Girl Phi'lippa." Mr. Okey (Taranaki) asked the Government if its attention had been drawn to the fact that a considerable number of enemy subjects were purchasing farms and houses in New Zealand. "So far as Crown leaseholds are concerned," replied Mr. Massey, "the Land Boards and the Government have already discouraged such transfers, and approval has not been given in the few cases that have occurred. To prohibit all such dealings with freehold land would, however, require special legislation, and the matter is now under consideration." Mr. Heskott has secured a lease of the Patea foreshore for ironsand purposes. In conversation with the Press he stated that he intends to commence the work at once. IAI contract haß already been let for the first (portion of the building so that no time has been lost. The plant will bo of the most modern description both for the '.production of iron and steel and artificial fertilisers. Practically the whole of the machinery required can be obtained or manufactured in Zealand so there will be no delay in obtaining plant, from Home. The Borough Council having installed a new plant for the. supply of electrical power it is MV. Heskett's intention to utilise this if satisfactory arrangements can be made,

A letter has ibeen received by the Mayoress (Mrs. C. 11. 'Burgess), from Mr. A. Varney .secretary of the New Zealand Y.M.C.A., at tho London headquarters stating that the many gifts of New Plymouth ladies to the men at the front arc tremendously appreciated, cakes and butter. He encloses a letter from the officer commanding the First Battalion Wellington Infantry 'Regiment conveying tho thanks and appreciation of his men and himself for the gift of New Zealand buttetr. "It is rarely," says the letter, "that the men get real butter, and therefore it needs little imagination to realise hotv much it was enjoyed." Mr. Varney mentions that he has a sian from the tranches which he will 'bring to Mrs. Burgesis on his return It. reads? ,r S"ew Zealand Y.M.C.A. Dugout. 'Buckshce Street. Free cocoa, etc. This week vou are the guests of the New Plymouth Women's Patriotic League." The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., Ltd., draw attention to the clearing pale they are holding on Saturday next, -Tulv 7, at their Stratford yards, at 12.30 p.m., on account of Wallace Marr, when his dairy herd will be disposed of. He is leaving shortly with the Expeditionary Forces. There will also be offered on account _ of a client a number of lilies of farm implements. It was prbved at the Supreme Court of Victoria, at Melbourne, that (1) SANDER'S EXTRACT is much more powerfully healing and antiseptic than ordinary cMcalvptus preparations; (2) SANDER'S EXTRACT does not depress the Sieart like the so-called "extracts" and crude oils; (3) 'SANDER'S EXTRACT is highly commended by many authorities as a safe, reliable and effective household remedy. Get the jwmiine—'{nsist if you have to—and be

A Sydney woman, whose husband was in the trenches, was washing nor infant • when the door bell rang. She sent her ( eldest child (four years old) to answer ] the door. Thinking the child was a long i time opening the door, the mother left < tho baby in the bath, and went after her, and'fouud lief lying dead in the hall. • She had slipped on the oilcloth and ■ broken her neck! Tho visitor at the door was the clergyman, who had come to , tell the soldier's wife that she was a widow, her husband having been killed in battle. When the almost detracted woman returned to where she had loft the baby in the bath, she found the infant dead. It had slipped down into< the water and drowned. Tho bereaved woman lost lier reason, and is now in an asylum for the insane. The Auckland branch o f the Railway Officers' Institute carried a resolution strongly endorsing tho action of the executive in eo-operating with the council of the State Servants' Association in approaching the Government for assistance in the matter of the high cost of living, also pledging its support by every possible means. It was further resolved to accord support to the Wellington branch in emphasising to the .executive the imperative need of strong action for relief, and that, if the Government is unable to see its way clear to afford relief the institute will be reluctantly compelled to ask Ifor commensurate and immediate increase in salaries.

Mr Wilford, M.P., readied a high plane of enthusiasm in concluding a lecture on the war at Wellington and interested a crowded audience immensely. "Hindenburg," he said, "has been bumped out of positions that took him over two years to build. Hiß losses have created a moral effect in Germany which it is impossible for us to realise. Germany's position to-day on the Western front is that she has been outnumbered in guns, munitions and morale. We have built in two years an organisation and an army to beat in munitions, men, and morale and decency and clean fighting Germany's barbaric hordes. Germany has been preparing for this war for forty years and yet is being beaten by a country which' was absolutely unprepared. The only reason the Germans are hanging on is that they believe their defeat means national extinction." Writing to a friend, Mr. K R. B. Holben, of the firm of Holben and Kirk, of Palmerston, now in London, has some things to say about his work. Mr Holben is one of the inspectors in an aircraft factory. From this particular factory the type of aeroplane turned out attains a speed of 19f) miles an hour carrying two quick-firing guns discharging 1500 rounds a minute. Six one hundred-pound bombs are also carried, and these machines are being manufactured at the surprising rate of 30 a day! When it is remembered that the factory mentioned is only one of many it will be seen that the rate of production must be enormous. Work is carried on day and night by two shifts, Sunday alike.

A simple calculation will show how utterly wrong the principle of lending sums of £SOO to nny returned soldiers is. If this amount is lent to one why not to all '! In such a case supposing by the end of the war 100,000 New Zealanders who have been on active service have the good fortune to return home. To give each of these £SOO would entail a Relief Fund totalling fifty million pounds. Supposing only 50,000 men returned home, to give these £SOO apicce would require a sum of twentyfive million pounds. .It is to be expected that the whole of the Societies in the Dominion can raise such an amount? Divide this sum by ten and this would represent £2,500,000 which is probably the full amount that could be raised.' This divided amongst 100,000 men would mean £25 for each—a vastly different Bum from £SOO. The policy just now of War Relief Associations in view of this fact should bo to relieve all necessitous cases immediately as they occur and husband the remainder of the funds for the heavy calls that will assuredly be made later on.—Patea Press.

The Malioc correspondent of the Hawera Star writes: On Saturday morning an accident happened on the Stratford road, half a mile below tho school, where the road winds alongside a creek. 'Mr. James Crosbic, his wife, and three-vear-old daughter, and Miss Oreville, assistant at the Maboe school, were driving into Stratford when the horse fell, throwing them over its head, on to tho road. The ladies were somewhat 'bruised and badly shaken, hut otherwise were not seriously hurt. Mr. Crosbio's face and hands were cut severely, and ho was badly shaken, but the child unfortunately had one of her wrists broken. M. F. J. Crossley, of Cardiff, who came by a few minutes later, conveyed Mr. Crosbic and the child to Kaponga, where Dr. Buist attended the sufferers. The contents of the vehicle wcro 'thro'wn down into the creek. The accident happened at a spot where a wash-out of the road took place some months ago, and some protection should be provided by the County Council at this spot.

In an interesting reference to the Anzacs, was made by Major C. L. Andrews in Wellington recently. He stated that all the officers and nym taking part in a raid arc supplied with chewing gum. The tension of waiting to rush the enemy lines during a furious bombardment produces, ever. ,n the 'bravest, a nervous strain that some'unies leads to coughing. Once :i man has crawled through No Man's Land amid tho storm of shrapnel and ma-chines-sun bullets to the enemy's Inns, just prepared to hop over the p'rapet to engage in a death struggle, a cough would'cost him his life. If a man could smoke he would not cough, but tho glow of a cigarette would quickly end his career. Hence pipe and cigarette arc banned, and chewing gum is substituted. It is a strange sight to see hundreds of stalwart Anwics, armed to the teeth, dashing through a hail of *!k>: >» the awful rage of battle, all of whom are vigorously working t,Ueir laws on chewing gum. PINE HOME-MADE COUGH MIXTURE. CONTAINS NO POISONS. The discovery of Hean's Essence does away entirely with the need for using paregoric, laudanum, or other deadly opium extracts in the making of cough mixtures. It may be made up in a few moments, without any boiling or fussing. I Each bottle makes a pint of the highest quality, non-poisonoUs cough, cold, croup and sore throat mixture it is possible to have in the home. A pint would fill eight of the little bottles such as you usually pay eigbteenpence each for—that is, twelve shillings' worth. Hean's Essence costs only two shillings. It is now regularly sold by most chemists and stores; or sent post free on receipt of price, from Heaa's Pharmacy, I WsaaanuL 88

There are now 50,000 widows and 100,000 orphans in the United Kingdom as the result of the war. Mr. Hayes Fisher stated in the House of Commons that there is a staff of 2500 persons dealing with pensions. In a letter to an old friend in Opotiki, Mr R. S. Todd-Whwcup, writing from England, says: "The New Zealand girls must look out—all their boys are being caught by the English girls! We have Jiere two million superfluous women, and they are catching the Colonials wholesale—in fact, having the time of their lives. It's an il! wind, etc." A State bakery is to be erected at Marton to supply the huge Government refreshment rooms beimg erected there, says the Otaki Mail, and bread will also be forwarded to Palmerston and other stations catered for by the State. The Marton refreshment rooms will replace the dining cars on the Main Trunk line. The following cable from Rio Janeiro, dated April 13, was sent to a London newspaper: —The newspaper O Impartial says that the rupture of relations with Germany and the seizure of German ships are the forerunners of warlike measures, and it considers that Brazil' may eventually send to Europe a contingent of 200,000 men, exclusively infantry. Brazil, the journal adds, could easily raise such a force.—Reuter. Christian Bew.ing, the returned soldier who was executed at Sydney on June 10 for murdering a young girl, made a confession before death, admitting that he was guilty of the crime with which he had been charged. He stated that a murder-lust had taken hold of him, and he was always wanting to kill. He still felt in a murderous frame of mind, and his keenest desire was to do away with someone in a sensational manner. He mentioned that one day he gripped a cat around the neck until it died; at Seone he had tried to choke a warder, and on another occasion endeavoured to choke a drunken man. On the day he

met the little girl whom he had murdered he induced her to walk into some scrub, and when away from the view of anyone he told the girl that he was going to murder her. He sprang at her, and grabbed her round the neck, and held her until she died. He left the girl's body in the scrub and moved away. As he was withdrawing from the bushes he saw a boy walking along the road, and the murder-lust again got hold of him. The lad, however, walked quickly and got away. The appointment of a man of German birth as a member of the Petone Fire Board resulted in the meeting called for Tuesday being adj-urned for want of a quorum. Messrs Ching and Kempthornc, the insurance representatives, and Mr R. Mothes, the Government appointee, were the only members present. All the representatives of the Borough Council iMessrs J. W. McEwan, S. Nowlands, nnd J. McDougall) were absent. Mr. McEwan, who is Mayor of Petone, when seen subsequently, stated that his objection is on the public ground of the appointment of a man of German birth bv the Government on the Board. He. held the opinion that no German, whether naturalised or not, should hold a public position in New Zealand at the present time. It is understood that this opinion is also shared by the other absent members. Mr. Mothes has been in the Dominion some 40 years, and was for four years Mayor of P'etonc. His son. Fritz Mothes, was wounded at Gallipoli, and is now in the Records Office at London. He has a second son in the trenches.